Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is an action-adventure game, part of the Castlevania franchise. It is the second 3D Castlevania title developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, released in 2005 following Castlevania: Lament of Innocence and was available for PlayStation 2 and Xbox in all regions except Japan, where the game was only available on PlayStation 2. Curse of Darkness received mixed reviews, common praise was directed towards its combat system, music, content, and replay value, while criticism fell towards its story, characters, repetitive level-design and gameplay. Gameplay Being a 3D game like Lament of Innocence before it, Curse of Darkness differs from its predecessor in a number of ways. It includes a more complex, action-adventure style of gameplay, much like Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow. Hector is not a member of the Belmont clan, so he does not use the "Vampire Killer" whip; instead he has the ability (much like Alucard and Soma Cruz) to equip a variety of different weapons ranging from swords (both one handed and two handed), spears, axes (also both one handed and two handed), brass knuckles and an extra type called special weapons (which varies from tonfas to gatling guns). However, there is an extra gameplay mode after finishing the game that allows players to play as Trevor Belmont, equipped with the "Vampire Killer" and the subweapons which are the knife, axe, holy water, cross, and stopwatch. The battle system is somewhat similar to that of Dynasty Warriors, whereas one button is used for standard combo attacks, and a secondary button is used for stronger "finishing attacks" after a singular standard attack or a combo of standard attacks. As the player acquires progressively stronger weapons throughout the game, the number of standard and finishing attacks the player can perform increases accordingly. Each different weapon type has a different set of combos that can be performed. Departing from the central hub level layout of Lament of Innocence, wherein the player chooses from a number of distinct stages all accessible from a central hallway, Curse of Darkness features a more complete game world with a complete castle map as in Symphony of the Night. However, the game still uses the same map engine as Lament of Innocence, rather than the square-based grid of 2D Castlevanias. Furthermore, a noticeable difference in level design is that much of the game does not take place in Dracula's