I'm tired.

Let's play armchair game designer, because lord knows we don't have enough of them on here.

Before you can run, you must walk, and boy does Nathan Graves enjoy walking. Nathan just adores going on a stroll in Camilla's castle while his master's getting his toenails ripped off in preparation for being slaughtered in a satanic ritual. Mr. Graves wouldn't know how to run even if I slapped his dump truck ass with the world's most painful block of wood. It's a godsend that Camilla's basement houses the very shoes he needs to be able to find the joys of exercise again after he forgot how to sprint when Count Dankula played his Trap Hole card in the introduction scene. One must wonder how long it would've taken if Drac's minions didn't make such a fuck up as to leave shoes for Mr. Graves to wear for his aching strolling feet. Even with these shoes Nathan only knows how to barrel forward with wanton disregard for his own being. Alucard had it figured out already, just run with care. That's all you gotta do. For Nathan though? Only two speeds exist. Tortoise, and drunken hare riding on a Kawasaki Ninja.

The input for running in this game is bad enough with requiring me to dash dance on the dpad and kill my thumbs, but Nathan's whip attack is noticeably sluggish compared to past Classicvania outings. It may not be noticeable at first, but try ducking and whipping and go back to playing as Simon in any of the past games and you'll definitely feel it. Nathan can jump like a stiff pong paddle and can even wall jump, and trust me I'm proud of him for being able to do so, but he should stick to his day job. Wall jumping in this is automated for at least two seconds as Nathan pauses on the wall and propels himself into the direction of enemy fire that sends him careening back down the pit that he was trying to make his way up from. You will encounter this scenario a lot, I assure you, especially with Circle of the Moon's obsession with slap dashing Armor enemies everywhere with annoying attacks that can bop you from the other side of the screen. No joke, I had a moment where I thought I was hitting an Ice Armor enemy in the underground waterway safely, only to get a very pleasant surprise in the form of another spear flying from off screen and stabbing me through the adam's apple thanks to the second Ice Armor that was behind him.

The primary system is collecting some shitty Yu-Gi-Oh cards and playing Blackjack with yourself to combine two of them and give yourself some form of power up, which could range from boring effects like your whip getting an elemental bonus, or actual cool shit like turning into a bone-throwing skeleton that dies in one hit. Unfortunately, the card for turning into a glass jawed skeleton is about 95% into the game and requires killing a very specific candle enemy that requires backtracking to a who-gives-a-shit area, and kindly asking it to drop the damn card sometime this week. This is where I get to bitch about the worst part of Circle of the Moon besides Nathan's completely useless movement, and it's the outrageous drop rates. That card that I'd need for the aforementioned skeleton transformation? The drop rate is zero point four fuckin' percent. That doesn't just effect the cards either. Health items? What are those?!

Seriously, I went for hours playing this game and didn't think healing was even a thing in Circle of the Moon besides the absurdly paltry potions that give a measly 20 hit points back, or getting to one of the sparse save points that fully heals you. Hell, you don't even get healed after boss fights. I beat probably six bosses before a piece of meat suddenly dropped from an enemy, where I double-taked and went back just to stare at it for a while. There is not a shop to speak of either, shopkeepers aren't welcome in Circle of the Moon. No buyable health items for you to help with the horrendous onslaught of tedium, but you can go ahead and enjoy all those completely useless armors you get to lug around on your person. Sure is a hard game we got here, would be nice if I could have some items, but Dracula is against formal goods trading.

Circle of the Moon is about inconvenience. It inconveniences you with movement that isn't convenient for the challenge that is set up for you as it would be for past entries. The only way to make your pathetic movement less inconvenient is to find cards inconveniently hidden away in an unknown enemy's back pocket that could potentially make certain encounters flat out trivial, like the normally problematic ice element in the underground waterway, or Dracula's nigh-impossible to dodge meteor attack in the final battle. It's all an inconvenient excuse to grind if you lack information, which this game inconveniently gives you none assuming you're not playing the Advance Collection version, which was the only convenient bit from my experience. Thanks M2.

It took me about three months to finish the save file I started on the Advance Collection a ways back after I completed Harmony of Dissonance and it's toilet noises, and it's mindbogglingly to me to realize that it was around last Christmas that I replayed and finished Aria of Sorrow again on the same collection. It wasn't necessarily a skill issue, it was a thumb issue from the horrendous dash input, and my complete apathy to this game's entire philosophy of wanting to train me on it's solitaire system only for the battle arena to give me the middle finger, and take that same system away in the ultimate show of disrespectful inconvenience. It was optional, sure, but it's existence is more than enough to make me want to transition into a volcanic state. It was even more aggravating to find out that Konami apparently bumped the experience requirements up for the western releases, thus demanding me to update the list for all the times they fucked us in the ass. I needed a lot of Picross breaks, and apparently a detour to that Peach game I didn't care about.

It kinda goes without saying, but the thought of replaying this on original hardware with the bad GBA screen, no suspend save, or in-game overlay hints of what enemies are carrying cards is less appealing to me than taking an epilator to my ballsack. I'll give it a pity star for Dracula's final boss design, I guess. I guess.

Thus concludes armchair game designer session, if you enjoyed what you've read, please like, comment, subscribe, ring the dingaling, and maybe sing me a nice song.

I'm going to bed now. Goodnight.

hoooooonkmimimimimi.

+Nathan Graves dump truck ass
+Rakugakids reference
+Yo Camilla call me
+Proof of Blood

-Nathan Graves dump truck ass
-Sinking Old Sanctuary?! More like Stinking Old Sanctuary!
-Why is my hair not as nice as Hugh's
-Where's my burrito

Actual sludge. From beginning to end, playing Circle of the Moon felt like trodding neck deep through a swamp.

Where to start? The abysmal walking speed that's somehow less bearable than Adventure/Belmont's Revenge, which is then remedied by the most dumbfounding addition to any game with an interconnected map: Running by means of double tapping a direction. Double tap, then double jump to reach a ledge. Whoops, there's another ledge to your back. Time to double tap on the opposite direction, then double jump again. Whoops, there's another ledge to your back. Over and over again.

The most soul draining, depressing rewards ever placed behind breakable walls. Do you like getting an HP up for your troubles? How about an MP up? How does a Heart Max up sound? And how do you feel about an HP up now? MP up tonight, baby? Over and over again.

It's not like there's any kind of different rewards they could've placed on those hidden rooms-- Hold up...

Pretty interesting card system right? You can mix and match different cards to get unique skills. What's that? You want to add more cards to your collection? Hope you like grinding the same enemies to get a card to drop, only to find that the effects you get from it aren't even that impressive. Or, you know, you could just use the card swap glitch to use whichever combination you want, whenever. In either case, get ready to bring up that main menu, over and over again.

And hey! They even brought back some classic tracks like Sinking Old Sanctuary! It's a little shitty that it plays during a portion of the game where you have little to no movement skills, meaning it'll feel as if it's looping infinitely. It's even weirder that it plays on the literal final room in the game, too. And in some area transitions. Over and over again.

Over and over and over and over and over. Everything in this game circles back around itself making for an ouroboros of bullshit.

Attacks don't cancel when you land, exploring feels like a slog even after unlocking movement relics, the story-- which is something I don't really care about in most Castlevania games-- actually had me rolling my eyes with the one(01) twist it had, character design feels flat across the board except for Camilla, animations look stiff, good GOD this is awful.

This fucking game ACTUALLY had me looking up how to do TWO frame perfect glitches so I could instantly nuke everything on my second playthrough to get all achievements before dropping it and never touching it again.

This is inexcusable. It's so painfully obvious that a B team worked on this. No wonder it was taken off the official timeline; the fact they plastered Nathan's dumbass face all over the Advance Collection is baffling, simply inconceivable. GBA Castlevania is known for Aria of Sorrow, and for a DAMN good reason.

Maybe if I played this when I was little I could see past its flaws thanks to nostalgia, but as it stands, Circle of the Moon is not only the worst Castlevania game in my personal totem pole, it's one of my least favorite games period, and the first 0,5 rating in my profile. Never would have guessed that a CV title would get that honor, but here we are. Fuck this game.

My mission regarding my playthrough of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was to ascertain why this game garners a considerable amount of ire from fans of the franchise. The initial impression I had was that classic Castlevania fans were dogpiling on the game because it solidified the Metroidvania direction that Symphony of the Night established to colossal critical acclaim, leaving the foundation of the traditional 2D platformer that made the series a contender for pixelated greatness condemned indefinitely. Then I had to remind myself that this dissension between the two Castlevania eras is a feud I fabricated in my head, as all fans of the series love Symphony of the Night. My next consideration was that while Circle of the Moon is a successor to Symphony of the Night, it disappointingly did not surpass its Metroidvania mold. However, this was not due to everyone’s high expectations. Circle of the Moon was developed for the Game Boy Advance as a launch title for the last handheld system that branded the Game Boy name. If the Castlevania games on the original Game Boy are any indication, the gothic games sacrificed a heaping load of quality for the sake of mobility, seemingly more so than any NES series that offered a few games on the go. I wondered if a mobile version of Metroidvania Castlevania would suffer due to the downgraded system capabilities and upon playing it, I hit a bullseye as to where the scorn for this game stems from. However, because of my discovery, I do not support the contempt for this game wholeheartedly.

Castlevania’s timeline is as scatterbrained as some of the series over at Nintendo, but I’m at least granting it a smidge of credibility due to Castlevania planting new characters across the century-spanning lore as opposed to the same character in Metroid and a reincarnated form in Zelda. As far as Castlevania is concerned, Circle of the Moon takes place in modern times during the industrial era, almost as close as when Bloodlines set itself in the same century as when it was released (misleading, but technically true). Circle of the Moon’s dashing Van Helsing protagonist is neither a Belmont nor Alucard waking up from yet another one-hundred-year dirt slumber to take down his dear old dad once again. The silver-haired Nathan Graves and his chum Hugh Baldwin are trekking through the cobweb-covered corridors of Dracula’s estate, for Nathan’s guru in the profession of vampire slaying, and Hugh’s father, Morris Baldwin, is about to be sacrificed to the vampiric lord to reinvigorate his foreboding power to its full extent. The duo also have to contend with Dracula zealot Camilla who resurrected the count and is working the operations of his grand return. Unfortunately, after falling for what feels like fathoms below the estate’s entrance, Hugh diverges from Nathan and leaves Mr. Graves on his lonesome to search for their seasoned sensei. Did the previous Castlevania titles introduce the premise with this much character exposition, or is this a new development to signify how the series has progressed? The player gets a better understanding of what is occurring better than scrolling text, that’s for sure. I’d also like to add that there is no cheesy voice acting thanks to the GBA’s relatively primitive nature as a handheld, so everyone can at least approach the text dialogue with a hint of sincerity.

Once Nathan finds himself under the floorboards of Dracula’s foyer, he never really hoists himself back up to the surface to correct his error. Naturally, Circle of the Moon is still a Metroidvania that administers the procedural design philosophy we expect of it. However, the grand breadth of Dracula’s castle that the genre fostered in Symphony of the Night isn’t exuded here. Sure, pressing the designated map button to look at Circle of the Moon’s layout will conjure up comparisons to Symphony, but actually excavating through the interior will convey that our prince of darkness is in another castle. Circle of the Moon’s castle is a dingy depiction of Dracula’s manor, and this isn’t only due to the fact that the GBA couldn’t compete with the pixelated graphical fidelity of the original PlayStation. Every corner of Circle of the Moon’s estate is comparatively minimal to what Symphony offered in terms of its visuals. Backgrounds are no longer detailed with lavish, ornate decorations that exude an aura of opulence. The color gradience of the foregrounds also tends to blend in with that of its immediate surroundings, an aesthetic choice that deviates from what made even the earliest Castlevania games on the NES striking. Circle of the Moon’s presentation is very matter-of-fact, which shrinks the scope of the overall objective. Take a drink every time you come across a new section of the castle that begins with an “underground” descriptor, which should imply that the areas are relatively restrained by their geographical submersion. Even the outdoor sections on the other vertical end of the spectrum are compact as courtyards instead of rooftop attics that span the perimeter of the castle. All in all, the Metroidvania map and the askew linearity that comes with it are not tainted by Circle of the Moon’s direction. Still, it obviously lacks the panache that gave Symphony its allure.

One could argue that a claustrophobic Castlevania map is an attempt to complement the Metroid half of the genre’s portmanteau, emulating the choking tension exuding from Nintendo’s sci-fi series. While this theory is entirely up to speculation, an overt attempt Circle of the Moon takes to recall another game is reverting to its own roots. While Nathan Graves shares no lineage to the iconic Belmont clan, you’d sure as hell be fooled by his moveset. Circle of the Moon reverts to the vampire-slaying weapons found in the classic, traditional 2D platformer Castlevania titles. Nathan cracks his whip with the same pent-up hesitation as Simon and Richter once did, and all of the subweapons such as the holy water, daggers, and axes are accounted for as well. Perhaps Nathan read up on the historical achievements of the Belmont clan and deduced that their arsenal was the most effective roulette of tools to use against the throngs of the uncleansed. His assumptions proved correct, as the sub-weapons tend to dish out a heaping load of damage to the enemies, especially the boomerang crosses. Good thing the hearts have also been reverted to ammunition because the subweapons are lifesavers. Still, I wish Circle of the Moon hadn’t digressed to the stiff controls of the classic Castlevania titles. This isn’t an issue on a fundamental level, but complications arise when Nathan executes any of the special moves that unlock obscured areas of the castle. Trying to run by pressing either directional button twice was especially finicky. Hopping from a wall to a platform above or to the other adjacent surface was always a rigid stunt, and catapulting Nathan about a hectometer straight in the air always had the potential for disaster. When the Metroidvania features complicate the 2D platformer base, the Castlevania stiffness is less forgivable on any console that succeeds the NES.

Of course, the items of old are organized like Symphony’s RPG menu, complimenting the methodical gameplay of the Metroidvania game. Hearts of varying amounts can be replenished from the pickups, and the roasts that heal Nathan have to be selected from this menu whenever Nathan is in a pinch. One new feature that is arguably Circle of the Moon’s main point of innovation that is also organized in this menu is the card system. On rare occurrences when defeating an enemy, they will leave behind a card whose description will be detailed in a subsection of the menu. One row of these cards features Roman Gods/planets of the solar system while the bottom row all have serpents and chimera creatures from ancient mythology. Selecting a combination of one card from both rows will ignite a fusion of special properties that are triggered by the left bumper on the GBA. The combination can either accentuate the whip’s offense or boost Nathan’s defense, which can be applied for seemingly an inexhaustible period. However, the real coup de grace involving the cards is the spells they can create. Similarly to Rondo of Blood, executing the spells with a button combination will unleash a fury of vengeance that eclipses the entire screen and decimates in the vicinity, provided the player has enough magic to execute the maneuver. While the prospect of such devastation is enchanting, only a few of the card combinations will allow the ability to cast a spell, and the button combinations needed to pull them off are just as finicky as the basic controls. Still, it’s a pleasant sight seeing a feature return that has surprisingly only been implemented once across the series thus far, and having it coincide with a whole new system gives the player more incentive to seek out more than the game offers outside of standard progression.

I recommended abusing the power of the cards because if there is one thing that Circle of the Moon borrows from the classic Castlevania games, it's the difficulty. Holy jumping Jesus, is Circle of the Moon a bitch on the ol’ patience threshold. Nathan isn’t epically restrained by his mortal status as a human being instead of an androgynous, quasi-immortal creature from gothic folklore. All the same, I wish that Alucard could intervene and maybe transfer his undead abilities to Nathan via a toothy neck peck so he could evade all of the obstacles surrounding him. It’s not as if the enemies in Circle of the Moon are any less deadly than those in Symphony. The problem stems from the spacious placings of the save rooms, which are few and far between in this castle. Uncovering an uncharted area does not mean that the player will soon mark their discovery with the save function like it did with the abundance of these rooms found in Symphony. The save rooms also tend not to be in a close shot of any of the boss arenas, which are the crux of crushing the player. Cerberus, the very first boss, is erratic and unpredictable, and any contact with the three-headed wolf is imminent considering his gigantic size and ferociousness. Biblical goat demon Adramelech overwhelms the player with poison bubbles that litter the field, and the GBA screen can barely fit both the heads of the colossal Twin Dragons. Both Death and the encounter with narrative-centered Camilla tease the player’s supposed victory with a second phase. It’s so disheartening defeating these monsters with a microscopic sliver of health left only to perish by the slight rubbing of a projectile skeleton bone and reverting back to before the bosses were conquered, something that happened one too many times for comfort. Nathan also isn’t inherently impeded by the whip, but another reason why Symphony was a comparative walk in the park is that Alucard could always swap his blade for a stronger one if the player kept up with finding loot. Because Nathan is restricted to one weapon, his ease with these bosses is contingent on his level, which, of course, unfortunately, involves a grinding session or two to survive.

Because all of the bosses before him made me pant and wheeze like an elderly dog, I was absolutely dreading Dracula’s encounter that I knew would wrap up Circle of the Moon. After literally knocking some sense into Hugh, the key behind him unlocks the sealed door where Nathan falls, in the beginning, to finally face Dracula. What I didn’t expect was that his first phase would be a breeze, almost a complete joke. However, considering this is the first Castlevania game that allows the player to prepare even further, I knew the others would wipe the smug grin off of my face immediately, In a haze of dark surrealism, Dracula sheds his cape and reveals his final form: a bulky purple beast with what resembles the Xenomorphs from Alien as his intimidating flair. His first phase here features flame spread that can be dodged easily, but I’m pretty certain the meteors that rain down from the heavens are totally unavoidable. His second phase pushed my patience to its absolute limit because I could only hit the traveling eyeball core at scant opportunities because of his fucking bat entourage that is always guarding him. Drain that magic meter with spells like with the urgency of someone having a gun pointed at your head. After this grueling fight that took me over ten minutes on my one successful attempt, I’ll be seeing bats attacking me like an alcoholic experiencing symptoms of withdrawal.

I think Circle of the Moon was designed for the classic Castlevania fan who felt forsaken by Symphony of the Night and its radical deviation from the early format in favor of a Metroidvania experience. Konami wasn’t apologizing for launching the series in a new direction, and Circle of the Moon is their attempt to compromise. In execution, however, the reason why Circle of the Moon isn’t a lauded title in the series is that it isn’t all that exceptional on either front. It’s too difficult and less RPG-based for fans of Symphony, and the GBA hardware dilutes the Metroidvania elements that classic Castlevania fans already didn’t care for. However, despite times when I wanted to thrust a cross through my console out of pure frustration, I thoroughly enjoyed my Circle of the Moon experience. My one gripe with Symphony despite it being my favorite game in the franchise is that it was missing some of the attributes that I liked from the typical 2D platformers, and this game translated the weapons from those games fluidly. Hell, maybe I experienced a nostalgic sensation from being constricted to the crooked controls and bludgeoned by the bosses as the classic series once did to me. Mark Circle of the Moon down as an example of an acquired taste in the Castlevania series.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

esse aqui foi bem broxante. o primeiro jogo que deu continuidade ao design de symphony of the night deveria ser mais inspirado que isso, mas é só o sistema de cartas que é interessante, e ainda assim, ele está conectado com uma das minhas maiores frustrações com esse jogo: só é possível coletar cartas, poções de cura e antídotos através de drops aleatórios de inimigos. e a drop rate desse jogo é insuportavelmente pequena, algo que eu tenho CERTEZA que foi feito pra inflar artificialmente a dificuldade, mas que acaba também tornando a interação do jogador com o sistema mais interessante desse jogo dependente de sorte.

fora isso, esse jogo não tem swag NENHUM, o que pra um castlevania é um crime completo. os designs de todos os personagens são fraquíssimos, o que diabos é aquele vestido estúpido que a camilla usa? eu não me importo nem um pouco com o drama do protagonista com o coleguinha bravo dele. eu nem to mais irritada com esse jogo, tudo que eu tenho para ele é apatia. e francamente, isso é bem pior.

While I don't hate this game by any stretch, I just cannot finish this replay. I always seem to forget just how clunky a lot of this game is. Whether it's the double-tap to dash, the shoulder bash with a large amount end lag, or the janky wall-jump. Also the cards being tied to random enemy drops is silly.

It simply doesn't any real benefits to outweigh the negatives for me. I beat the game once when I was younger, but I don't think I'll come back to this game.

RG35XX

Uma completa aberração e fracasso em tudo que um metroidvania deveria ser, e uma ofensa gigantesca à franquia, principalmente ao seu antecessor, que era nada menos que o lendário SOTN.

Exploração tediosa, level design repetitivo e pedante, inimigos repetidos e sem criatividade, bosses horríveis, sistema de cartas mal feito, scaling de level horroroso, história sem sal e protagonista sem nenhum carisma. Apenas alguns dos vários defeitos desse troço.

Circle of the Moon? More like, Circo of the Moon

Talk about a really cool game absolutely belly flopping on the final boss. I went the whole game being an adequate level, never needing to grind, only to find that I'm under leveled at Dracula, who is just a damage sponge with 4 boring attacks, where the optimal strategy is to play slow and safe. The worst thing any game can do is have a bad ending. I can power through a miserable middle if it's overall worth it in the end, but even when the first 95% of the game is enjoyable, if the last 5% leaves a horrible taste in my mouth, I'm gonna walk away thinking about that 5%. Very disappointing.

"Castlevania: Circle of the Moon" é tipo o primo problemático da família - começando com um mapa que parece ter sido desenhado por alguém com uma trena quebrada. Navegar por esse labirinto vertical é mais frustrante do que tentar encontrar algo no porão da casa da sua avó.

A verticalidade do mapa faz com que explorar seja um exercício de paciência digno de um monge budista. Parece que estão tentando transformar um castelo em uma torre de apartamentos. Cada corredor se estreita mais do que uma dieta pós-festas, criando a sensação de estar preso em um funil invertido.

E a movimentação do protagonista parece ter sido inspirada no andar de um idoso com duas bengalas e uma perna dormente. Saltar sobre plataformas é mais arriscado do que fazer uma aposta em um cavalo manco.

A cereja no topo desse bolo de desgraça é o grind. O grind é tão entediante que faria um documentário sobre pintura de secagem parecer um blockbuster de Hollywood. Bater nos mesmos inimigos repetidamente para ganhar cartas é mais monótono do que contar formigas em um formigueiro.

Em resumo, "Circle of the Moon" é como um encontro às cegas em que você percebe que a outra pessoa não é nada do que esperava. Com um mapa confuso, movimentação desengonçada e um grind que faz pintar paredes parecer emocionante, este jogo faz você desejar que pudesse voltar no tempo e evitar essa experiência como evita uma poça de água quando está usando meias.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is weird. On one hand, it’s an impressive launch title for the Game Boy Advance that successfully captures the scope of Symphony of the Night on a handheld system. On the other hand, it completely fails to live up to SotN in many ways. On a third hand that I grew after swimming too close to the power plant near my house, it’s still pretty fun despite its flaws.

I’ll just get this outta the way: the story is practically nonexistent. Like, it’s technically there, but it’s so sparse and minuscule in the grand scheme of things that it’s barely worth mentioning.

Anyways, gameplay! The map design, while a little basic, is still pretty fun to navigate. As with every other Castlevania game of this era, it’s a blast to go back to old areas with new items to unlock more items and power up your character. There’s also a lot of breakable walls that lead to secret rooms, which is a great nod to the Classicvania games that encourages thorough exploration. Very fun stuff.

The Dual Set-up System (DSS) is a great idea, albeit with flawed execration. Throughout the game, you collect these tarot cards that grant Nathan (the protagonist, who surprisingly isn’t a Belmont) different abilities when combined together. This system is, indeed, as awesome as it sounds, but unfortunately, card drops are rare and entirely dependent on RNG, which has led to much frustration for many players. That being said, I got lucky, so I ended up with some pretty useful card combos (my favorite is the Jupiter-Salamander fireball circle).

The RPG elements feel neutered, especially compared to Symphony. There’s no shop, meaning that you’ll end up stockpiling useless items, and potions are incredibly hard to come by (they’re also basically useless since they only refill like 20 HP). Leveling up is a pain in the ass and takes way too long, with the EXP requirements becoming ludicrously high (upwards of 50,000 to 100,000) by the endgame.

However, all of that pales in comparison to Circle of the Moon’s biggest flaw: those FUCKING controls. Specifically, you have to double-tap in order to dash. I cannot even begin to describe how unnatural this feels, and I never got used to it. Walking isn’t an option, as Nathan’s base speed is ridiculously slow and terrible for combat. You need to dash, but it’s just so fucking awkward and unintuitive. The controls were one of Igarashi’s biggest problems with this title, and I can see why.

But Circle of the Moon is still a fun game that’s worth checking out, especially for Castlevania fans, so I don’t wanna end this review on a sour note. Instead, I’ll point out that, as with nearly every other title in this series, Circle of the Moon’s soundtrack is a banger. It mostly consists of remixed tracks from previous games, but damn do those remixes go hard, especially for a GBA launch title. Do your ears a favor and take a listen.

The biggest puzzle surrounding Circle of the Moon to me is how it came to be. Could it be that it's a B-team game that went sour? Perhaps it was a rush-job to get something out for the Game Boy Advance's launch? Or maybe, it was born from a legitimate desire to mesh Symphony of the Night's level design with more traditional Castlevania gameplay. It's even possible it was all of those things combined. Regardless of the answer, however, it's clear that it was a mistake.

Circle of the Moon is economical in regards to its storytelling: the cast is restricted to Dracula and a cohort along with three vampire hunters, and one can count the total cutscenes on their fingers. In fact, after a very short introduction in which Dracula gets resurrected, the player gets thrown straight into the action -- literally, as the hunters fall into a trap hole, becoming separated. The group is composed by the mentor Morris Baldwin, who's captured by the antagonists, along with his two apprentices Hugh Baldwin and Nathan Graves, the latter being the playable character.

Dracula's home, this time around, is a complete bore. Unlike the game worlds one will see in most metroidvanias, this one isn't structured in a way that the areas mesh into one another: each area presents a more or less linear layout, an obstacle course built around the power-up required to access it. At the end, there's a boss, and right after them, a power-up that opens the next area. The power-up also unlocks a shortcut near the boss room which leads out of the section of the castle they're in, which in turn, the player will likely never have to enter again.

It's very easy to see this weak design through the castle map itself: notice how Abyss Stairway, Eternal Corridor and the left part of the Audience Room together link to the entrances and exits of almost every area in the game, like this ugly glue between levels. Now compare it to the SotN map, which is much less regular and loops around itself in multiple parts. Also note how the warp points are spread out throughout the castle and are actually useful in SotN, unlike the ones seen in Circle of the Moon.

And we're still not done tearing into this castle because our vampiric host had the god-awful idea of having every optional pickup be an HP, MP or max heart increase, with new equipment being obtainable only from enemy drops. One can only imagine that this choice was due to gear being mediocre anyway, offering only stat increases or decreases, but the result is that exploring alternate paths or finding secret rooms is never met with an exciting reward. In fact, by the end of the game, it's an activity that will likely be entirely ignored, as the difference between 252 and 256 hearts is negligible. Again, compare with SotN and its flashy swords and suits of armor that make Alucard immune to different types of damage -- it's harder to justify not exploring in that game.

As awful as the castle is, however, it would have been far more tolerable if Circle of the Moon just played better. Nathan Graves has that name because that's where we'll all be by the time he finishes swinging his whip -- even compared with Richter from Rondo, which is a far more punishing game than every Igavania, Nathan attacks more slowly. In fact, almost every action this man takes has to be accompanied by lengthy, uncancellable anticipation and/or recovery animations: one of the earliest power-ups lets him tackle and it's more like an awkward tumble forward, barely usable for its designated purpose of breaking obstacles. Later on, a pair of magic boots enables a wall-jump, which was clearly gimped at some point in the design phase so it wouldn't allow just any ascent, and god forbid Nathan jumps from too high a platform while climbing because he will have to spend a while getting back on his feet.

To make things even worse, Nathan has a low default walking speed, which is meant to be counteracted with a dashing ability that is one of the earliest power-ups. To dash, the player must press left or right twice, a choice of input that greatly increases the likelihood that the action of simply walking out of harm's way will come in too late or that the input itself will be dropped. Which leads us to the deeper issue with this moveset: Circle of the Moon's enemies were seemingly created assuming a responsive character, coming at Nathan with fast attacks, wide movement ranges and plenty of projectile spam. This is especially true for bosses, which aren't all terrible -- most are -- but often feel like playing chess against an opponent that's playing StarCraft.

In an attempt to add some sort of spice to the gameplay, enemies also drop cards, which are used to cast buffs and spells through a system called DSS. The DSS can be seen as a precursor to the Soul system seen in Aria and Dawn, but one that's still anemic and dysfunctional. Every card is a random drop from enemies; only specific enemies drop them, at a very low rate; at least two cards are required to trigger any sort of effect; only one DSS ability may be active at one time; switching between abilties requires entering the menu and pressing L while on the ground; so on and so forth. The Advance Collection goes out of its way to display which enemies drop which cards and provides a list of what each combination does, which can only be construed as an admission that the DSS is unusable without a guide.

But hey, once the game is finished, it invites the player to try a new file in Magician mode, which changes Nathan's stats and gives him all cards from the start. Maybe now the full potential of the DSS will be unlock-- just kidding, it just means he's now a weaker version of himself that will spam the same screen-wide spell the whole game, thus providing a final testament to how shallow the system and game is. The bottom line is that Circle of the Moon is a half-baked attempt at a Castlevania that is best avoided: with loads of great Metroidvanias in the market nowadays, it's a hard sell even for the diehard series fan.

Finished on April 27th, 2024

Played this on the Steam Deck through the Advance Collection but- I like this box art more.

Overall this is a fine enough start to the GBA games- it being on a smaller handheld and not having Igarashi on board would make this game attempting to hold up to SotN's quality a monumental effort. But, for it being a release title for the handheld I can imagine most fans were probably sated by it.

In 2024 however a lot of issues feel that much more glaring as CotM's main gameplay feature: the DDS cards kinda throw a wrench into my expectations for the experience- namely its fusing with the RPG mechanics of the usual igavania. It feels as though you're expected to grind- grind on monsters that hold the cards that you dont yet have. Partially to make sure you're up to snuff for the next section of the castle and partially because a new card opens up a slew of new combinations with each card you obtain...but how good some of these new powers are varies wildly. It gets even more peculiar nearing the end of the game when some cards get hidden away in prior boss rooms and the battle arena- the completionist in me wanted to nab every card but I was not willing to sit through the tedium of
->summoning thunderbird on Lilith twice
->Leave room and repeat
->wait a minute or three so your MP refills
->repeat for 10 or so levels
Like i COULD but then you'd just be entering the battle arena several, several times to get the cards anyway- I just wanted to get a move on.

The DDS cards are neat and all but too many of them feel too samey for me to really want to commit to them. Some of them unlock new weapon types to dish out, some of them give elemental attributes to your whip, some allow you to summon- its pretty great at first but mostly I just stuck to a handful of these combos. It also feels weird considering how these feel as though they're trying to replace other mechanics? Like item drops? I swear I barely had any potions or heart items drop throughout, so mostly I stuck to the healing combo i mentioned earlier which is suitable but it just felt- odd, idk. No shops, no currency just the one card combo you could potentially miss out on.

Some of the bosses are pretty tedious (Death, buddy, what happened to you?) and the castle isnt all too interesting visually. It does become a bit more fun to explore as you hit the end of the game and get the Roc's feather, allowing a long, vertical jump up to cut through towering sections of the map and even playing a fun role in the final boss.

Its fine for the first handheld (not?)-Igavania title, although much of this traversing of Dracula's castle feels bogged down one half being a more rudimentary progression of unlocking your movement abilities and the other half being this momentum breaking grind for your combative flairs in the DDS system.

This is my favorite of the GBA Castlevanias, and that's because i'm not that big of a fan of the metroidvania ones. They're fun but also like junk food, super braindead easy games were you mash buttons and see cool sprites explode. CotM feels like a mix of the classic games with the metroidvania type gameplay achieving a happy medium.

It's most notable on the bosses because they're actually good and you have to learn their patterns to beat them. Yeah, the castle is not the best but i have no problem trading it for superior combat and bosses. It's not like it's bad either.

The DDS system is cool and it sucks that you have to farm cards to use it. They were SO close to getting it right, just make them rewards for exploration. But nooo, all of these fucking games have to make you farm some stupid shit for some reason.

If you prefer metroidvanias you'll probably like this one the least or straight up dislike it, if you're like me and prefer the classic games this one might surprise you. It's not perfect but i wish we lived in a timeline were they kept doing this style of game instead of more SotN.

The most mixed-bag Castlevania game that I have ever played, and there is a lot that I like and hate. I will start with the positives.

I like DLSS cards for the most part, especially once I started to experiment a lot in magician mode where I had to consider more with lower stats. The remixed soundtrack is delightful, especially for a launch title on the GBA. Once I start to get into the flow of movement after acquiring a decent amount of new abilities, I did start to enjoy moving around, especially with that sliding move that has helped me more times than I thought it would. Playing through Magician mode in general made the game a bit better for my experience, as it allowed me to use all DLSS cards at the start without that infamous glitch and made MP upgrades feel more worthwhile to find with much lower stats.

Unfortunately, I have to now get into negative stuff with this game, and the bosses are easily the worst because they are either lame or stupidly frustrating, which just makes the game feel like I'm hitting my head on the wall for ages. Grinding is also tedious, whether it is getting all DLSS cards or leveling up enough to reach the next section of the castle. I don't mind a bit of grinding, but this game goes way too far with it. The castle design is a mess. I will admit that on my magician mode playthrough, I started to have fewer problems with it, but I still can't say with a straight face that it is well-designed, and I still got lost plenty of times on my first playthrough. Lastly, the story and characters are non-existent and are pretty generic when there are sparks of that.

Overall, it is all over the place for me to recommend it to you.

Good music, very good level design and for the most part really good boss battles. Unfortunately, the main character is super slow and only learns to run as the game progresses, but you have to press twice in one direction, which seems unnecessary, couldn't running have been the default? :/ I often got lost and had to backtrack a lot. But that's just the way it is in a Metroidvania. The magic system with the cards was quite cool, but I hardly used it. It's just stupid that cards drop randomly and you never really know which ones are good and where to find them. I felt extremely underleveled towards the end of the game and was very grateful that there were save-states :D

feel bad being mean to this game because its cool and there's a lot to like, but according to the credits like 90% of the game design was by one or two people and boy does that explain a lot

you know i think a lot of people review games nowadays expecting them to provide nonstop enjoyment, as if a bit of challenge and frustration can't be satisfying and enjoyable to overcome. if playing games is your hobby i think you should be able to appreciate overcoming adversity within them.

that being said, this game really does push you up the wall for no good reason and the answers are often not super satisfying. more often than not you will need to largely avoid enemy encounters until you are equipped to effectively negate them altogether. the grinding mechanics for cards doesn't really help.

but, c'mon. its a castlevania game. amazing music, beautiful visuals, intuitive controls and super fun powers to mess with. still, i feel like you don't quite get a perfect playground to mess with all these toys.

as an aside, be nicer to harmony of dissonance c'mon lol, it does not abuse you half the ways this game does

This game has some of the worst numbers you'll ever see.

Circle of the Moon isn't a bad game, and there's a lot that this very early GBA game gets right. The music, even among people who loathe the game, is commonly praised. The graphical direction in this game wasn't tailored for the GBA in the way that future entries would lead towards, but it also means that it's aged better visually than other game that rely on a saturated color pallet to make up for the GBA's lack of backlight. The plot isn't connected to the Belmont clan's exploits, but I see that as more of a strength than something worth condemning the game for. Castlevania lore shouldn't be sacrosanct, and the new characters fit well into the setting. The card system was a cool idea on paper, and one that's critical enough to your progress to where you won't want to ignore it. The map design isn't as complex as SOTM, but there were still interesting setpieces and plenty of Metroidvania games would come after with worse map design. As other reviews have pointed out, this was a B-team production, and there's enough high quality elements to COTM that I didn't even realize that was the case until 15+ years after I first played this game.

This game's numbers take all of that praise and toss it right into the trash for most people. The card system, something that should have allowed for player expression in how they wanted to overcome puzzles/combat challenges fails because of how low the drop rates for these cards are. It's not just that you have to grind for them aimlessly without a guide, the drop rates are way too low. The game's balanced around the card system, ignoring it makes most fights more of a slog than they already could be. They could have adjusted drop rates to what they'd be in future Castlevania games, or made it so they're nice additions to the game but aren't required to progress, both of which could be accomplished by messing around with a few numbers in a hex editor. The most I've ever enjoyed the card system was when I used an action replay as a kid to give myself all the cards, and exploring each of the effects was a lot of fun.

Movement in this game isn't bad, but it is too sluggish even with the dash/backdash feature. Again, tweak a few numbers and have the player move twice as fast by default, and you don't have to adjust anything about the core design of the game to rectify the issue of having to lug this white haired sloth around the castle.

Enemies in this game deal entirely too much damage and sponge damage, even with card support. It's not that the enemy/boss patterns feel that out of place with the rest of the series, even if further GBA games would improve upon them. The final boss fight with Dracula would be really fun, if bursts of high damage weren't constant. You can mostly keep that fight in tact, just tweak some health and damage values and the final fight goes from a low point in the series to a decent little challenge.

Beartank is playable in this game. Even as a novelty, he's worse than easier to get novelties. Nobody's done Beartank runs of this game because you deal so little damage that it isn't fun. You could have a new (and superior) way to play COTM if killing everything with Beartank didn't take twice as long as a default Nathan. Up his damage and make it so he doesn't die in one hit. When I think of "tanks" and "bears", getting one shot does not cross my mind at all.

Even with all of these issues, I still thought the overall experience was decent, there's still enough going on with this game (especially compared to other GBA platforms) to where I didn't feel like I wasted my time. That being said, if you want to give the game a go, on romhacking.net there are two patches, one that adds an auto-dash feature, and one that places cards around the castle in predetermined locations. I'm not sure if the two of them can be combined, but either would go far to relieve some of this game's headaches.

It's not fun when you're playing a Castlevania and just feel bored. I wish I could put my finger on exactly what it was about this, but it just didn't hit the way the others have for me.

The DSS system is cool but feels underbaked. Most of the combos seem useless, and just trying to get cards for it is tedious. Nothing screams "Castlevania" like exiting and entering a room again and again to kill a single enemy while hoping for the RNG to be nice to you.

Honestly feels more like a fan game.

I gave this another go after picking up my Analogue Pocket and rather enjoyed it. I'll admit it's definitely an acquired taste and a game I much more appreciate having played it a few times before thus knowing what to expect out of it. The original version can be a bit impenetrable if you don't take advantage of the DSS system (ex: I have never beaten Dracula properly, always Thunderbird spammed) and the Castlevania Advance collection helped with this immensely by informing the player of possible card drops from enemies.

The DSS system itself is interesting given how equipment drops are just stat adjustments and flexibility of gameplay is tied to the card drops. I'm not so sure I'd ever want this system back but it makes for a very, very interesting novelty that I could see some indie metroidvania adopting down the line albeit with far more polish.

I'm not nearly as hard on this game as others seem to be on this site either as my ire is wholly reserved for Harmony of Dissonance but I suppose each of the Advance games is worth playing at least once if only to fully appreciate how well Aria managed to round out this group of Castlevanias. For as much as I enjoy playing this on the original hardware, the Advance collection is definitely the way to go given the QoL improvements present.