In a trend this year of giving second chances to games I gave up on previously, I picked up CotM on the Japanese Wii U eShop. I ended up liking Paper Mario: Sticker Star a decent amount playing through it earlier this year. The second chance was worth it for me. This game however, the second chance was not really worth it for anything other than being able to say that I've now beaten all the Metroid-style Casltevanias. It's easily the worst of the Metroid-y Casltevanias in almost every way. I did everything but the hella difficult battle arena, and it took me around 7 or 8 hours.

So where to begin with this game. It's the only Metroid-style Castlevania game not to have production involvement from Koji Igarashi, and it was a very early title for the GBA. A problem back then that I did not have was that the backgrounds for the stages were nearly impossible to see on the OG GBA's super dark screen, and being that I played it on a Wii U with a Pro Controller, I also had a much bigger screen and different control method than one attached to the screen. It has a number of strange design decisions and steps backwards from Symphony of the Night that make it feel overall like a simplified version of SotN but with worse controls and less variety. It's almost like someone took Casltevania 3 on the NES and morphed it into a Metroid-style game.

The first really baffling design decision is that the main character Nathan has no default run ability. You start off only being able to walk, and you walk SO slowly. The first power-up you get is the ability to run, but you run by double-tapping left or right. All that constant double-tapping really starts to hurt your thumb after a while. The combination of the removal of SotN's back-dash means your only fast movement for dodging is either this double-tap running or doing a Mega Man-style floor slide. This makes the game's movement really clunky and not terribly fun to do, as the need to double-tap means you're constantly reminded of how pointlessly awkward they are. The whip attack that Nathan uses is also quite slow and methodical, and he absolutely FLIES backwards when he gets hit, which when combined with the awkward walking really makes it feel like a weird Metroid-ification of a classic Castlevania game (and I never found that to be a positive comparison).

The castle itself isn't super interesting or memorable. Almost all of it is either long hallways or vertical S- or U-shaped corridors in a way that makes the castle simultaneously vast and boring to traverse. In another strange step backwards from SotN, there is also a very strange utter lack of warp points in most of the castle for no good reason, meaning that you'll be doing a ton of backtracking on foot if you wanna use your new movement powers to get all the health, mana, and heart-count (for sub-weapons) upgrades littered around the castle. A lot of the movement powers also aren't that interesting or are entirely for opening up content gates. Outside of the double-jump and vertical leap, almost all of them are useless outside of the traversal sections that outright require their use. No bat-form, panther-speed, or special dodges to unlock here.

The most fun I had with the castle was just going from place to place ticking boxes off a list getting more upgrades for my base stats, as the enemies are almost never really threatening (and when they are they kill you FAST), but the very rote feeling of reward of "I completed a task" is a fairly low bar for a game to provide enjoyment with. Speaking of the enemies, they're nothing really special either. The game has pretty low enemy variety even for a Metroidvania. It's not laughably paltry or anything, but it feels noticeably lesser than the other games that had the luxury of ripping sprites from older Castlevanias (a place where age has been unkind to early games in the series like CotM). The bosses aren't very good either. Most of them range somewhere between very strangely easy or super duper hard due to attacks that require outright luck to dodge and/or do more than half of your healthbar in damage. The final boss is particularly guilty in that regard. There are a couple fun fights (I liked the big green Ram thing and the fight with the guy with powers like yours), but most of the fights are forgettable even for a Metroid-y Casltevania game.

Where the special stuff does lie is in the DSS card system the game has, and it messes that up too in a way that feels really unnecessary. The DSS card system is a system where you can find base and modifier cards (a dozen different kinds of each, iirc), and by equipping one of each and pressing the L button, you'll activate a special power. You don't know what they do until you activate them the right way, and the game won't even tell you what they do or how much MP they cost until you've activated them. There were a couple I couldn't even figure out how to properly activate, so they were left as "???" for the entire game. This lets you get stuff like a kinda crap mid-run shield (it's not active as you jump, so it's useless around 60% of the time, and some enemies phase right through it because of how they spawn), more powerful elemental whips, damaging shields, longer invincibility time, or even new weapons like turning your whip into a giant elemental sword. Of course, I didn't get to try out most of the DSS system because of the main flaw in it: The cards for it are far too hard to find. Certain enemies drop cards, and you have no idea which. Many of them are quite rare drops as well, so unless you know where to look and deliberately farm them, you very likely won't find many or even most (as was the case with me) of the cards in the game. The DSS feature is by far the best thing the game has going for it, so other than an adherence to genre conventions, I can't really imagine why they'd hide their best content this way.

Graphically I have seen the game described as an enhanced GBC game, and that just about fits. The animations are very limited (especially compared to other Castlevania games), with most enemies only having a couple frames of animation, and the sprites aren't super detailed either. Some of the backgrounds are quite nice, although as said previously they would've been quite hard to see on an original GBA screen most of the time. Despite the limited graphics, the game still has problems with slowdown. It often isn't much of a problem, and is only present when certain enemies or several of a certain type are on-screen at once. However, it's an AWFUL problem on the final Dracula fight. There were many times on failed attempts at Dracula that button presses not registering how I wanted them to (particularly for the upwards high jump) had me falling into a powerful attack that got me killed.

The other elements of the presentation are a mixed bag. The story is unobtrusive, sure, but it's also very uninspired and honestly might as well not even be there. The context it provides to certain fights is nice, but it's definitely the least ambitious story out of any of the Metroid-y Castlevanias. The music is largely remixes of older Castlevania music, so it's usually really good. The music is probably the #1 thing this game easily has over its GBA Castlevania counterparts.

Verdict: Not Recommended. This is a trudging, sub-par Metroidvania affair the whole way through. Frustratingly difficult far more often than enjoyably challenging, clunky controls, boring presentation. Especially with the inundation of fantastic Metroidvanias coming on the market these days, your money can go towards much better than Circle of the Moon as can your time. I know this game has its defenders, especially on this site, but I can't enjoy this game the way they can. Before I started this playthrough I held the opinion that this was probably the worst of the Metroid-y Castlevanias, and the only thing this playthrough has changed is that now I know its definitely the worst.

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

"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.

The grind is real in this one. Also, it is really hard. Probably the hardest CV.
Everything you might need requires grind, A LOT of grind.
The gameplay is really cool, tho. Classic CV with the DSS mechanic makes for a great time.
Story is extremely barebones so don't even bother.

Play it with savestates otherwise you're wasting your time.

Castlevania circle of the moon é literalmente o pior Castlevania que joguei até agora,o level design o castelo é confuso,os upgrades são ruins,sem falar que a direção de arte também não é muito boa,tentaram misturar a gameplay dos castlevanias antigos com o game design do Symphony of the night o que se provou ser extremamente mal executado,os chefes e o jogo em si são desbalanceados e os inimigos são esponjas de dano a taxa de drop de itens é baixíssima o que te faz grindar muito o que torna o jogo maçante,foi o único jogo da franquia que não tive vontade de explorar tudo,no mais as únicas coisas boas do jogo é a trilha sonora e o sistema de cartas que por mais que seja mal executado ainda assim é criativo.

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

It's hard to believe this is the first GBA Castlevania, because honestly, it feels better in every way to it's successor.

An Igavania not made by Igarashi, Circle of the Moon brings a lot of great stuff to the table. A map that is fun to explore and look for secrets, beautiful spritework on all the boss fights, EXTREMELY satisfying movement after getting one movement upgrade or two, and overall a short and nice experience, not too hard nor too easy, as all Igavanias should be. The spell system is also another great thing about the game, even though the randomness of the drops may be a little frustrating.

My only complaint would be the fact that the game areas are not that visually impressive and may look a bit samey, but overall, a very good game.

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.

A pretty brilliant game. It is the first attempt to boil down Symphony of the Night's new direction for the series into handheld, but the limitations that come with that mean they still kept one foot in the old Castlevania design direction. It's very much a compromised work, a bastard child of both veins of Castlevania, but to me it's the best of both worlds.

Of course, Iga would take later GBA games and make them look and feel exactly like SotN did on PS1, but the simplistic design of CotM makes it stand out as its own thing entirely (not to mention it helps visual clarity). Movement of different and takes some getting used to, like the old games you hop vertically more than leap horizontally. There are fewer secrets to discover and the game uses a basic "card" system for upgrades and builds. It's all very much in the experimentation mode.

But there are some really cool bosses that we will see reused later (giant ball of corpses, anyone?) and the card system is ripe for exploiting. And what is a Castlevania game if not to cheese to the maximum extent of your ability? This game is prime cheese, in every interpretation of that statement.

A decent first handheld entry after SotN. Not a clone like HoD.

I enjoyed this game for what it was. It tried new things. It is a metroidvania. But plays more like classic-vania.

You have your classic whip and then armor. After beating the game you can play with other characters with different playstyles.

The big change here is the card system. You equip certain cards to give yourself certain abilities. Each card has a combo that changes it's abilities. So for example, the top card allows your whip to have elemental damage. The bottom row of cards that pair with it are the different elements. One for ice, fire, poison, etc.

The problem is that cards are random drops. So you gotta grind for them. Some may drop on their own. But a lot, you will have to grind. I specifically went out of my way to grind to get the passive healing card combo. It was the only way I could beat the game.

This game is stupidly hard and quite frankly, unfair. It is a frustrating experience. You don't have a lot of healing options. Your best bet is to grind out the healing cards. It makes the game a lot easier as you can stand still and heal if you need. The final boss is also infuriatingly hard.

It looks like a GBC game. Exploring is fun. Traversal can be annoying at times. It's a bit slow. But as per usual, the music is all bangers.

A great first attempt at something not like SotN. Sadly it's major flaw is its reliance on the card system. Something you have to grind for. A trend that will continue in later installments. But even more frustrating as they are required and you don't even know it. But that is for another review.

Play it if you like Castlevania. Avoid it if you want a well balanced experience with minimal grinding. I cannot express how difficult and punishing this game is. The hardest of the metroidvania type CV games.

El segundo Castlevania Metroidvania luego de Simphony of the Night. El gameplay vuelve un poco a sus raíces ya que en esta ocasión controlamos a Nathan Graves, un cazavampiros similar en habilidades a los Belmont. La innovación en esta ocasión es el uso de cartas que puedes combinar para que, en conjunto con magia, puedas usar distintas habilidades. Aunque muy útil puntualmente, no me termina de cuadrar por el método de obtención de dichas cartas. En este juego no hay tienda de objetos, por lo que todos los que obtienes, si no son especiales, se obtienen de forma random. Naturalmente al principio tienes el stat de suerte por los suelos, por lo que casi no te sale nada. Incluso ya cuando vas más avanzado y se empiezan a dropear items de curación de manera más frecuente, estos ya ni son tan útiles por la baja cantidad de vida que te recargan, por lo que prácticamente te pasas el juego sin curarte. Diría que como un todo es el más flojo de los Castlevania de GBA, pero para finalizar con sus puntos positivos, hay que destacar su dificultad, sus jefes y sobre todo el final boss, que tiene una de las mejores final form para Dracula