Castlevania: Belmont's Curse developers are trying really, really hard to make sure you know it's a metroidvania without using the word 'metroidvania'

Despite the first trailer for Castlevania: Belmont's Curse looking very much like a classic exploration-focused platformer, the involvement of Dead Cells developer Evil Empire had some folks going into a "Oh god, I hope it's not a roguelike" panic.

Konami tried to assuage those fears with the label "2D exploration action game," which only highlighted the awkwardness of being the Japanese publisher behind vania but not the Japanese publisher behind Metroid. Clearly Konami wasn't going to invoke Nintendo's famous series in the description of its own game, and a new behind-the-scenes interview from today's Triple-I Initiative showcase seems particularly focused on getting across that Belmont's Curse follows the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night school of design.

Here's everything that I picked up on...