Regardless of the series or genre, sequels have an obligation to be different and innovate. The differences between CotM2 and CotM1 lead some people to love 2 and lead others into hating it on principle. After my playthrough of episodes 1, 2 and the final episode of CotM2, I've decided I'm somewhere in between these two camps.
There's a lot to like about this game as a sequel. It's way bigger of a game than the first Curse of the Moon, most of the bosses are more interesting and have more going on with their patterns/behaviours, the soundtrack is more memorable to me than the first game's soundtrack overall and the new characters are cool and introduce archetypes that are usually never seen in classicvania style games such as a healer, ranged sniper and a tank character (who is actually a doggo piloting a steam-powered mech, which makes it even cooler). If you're just looking for a good time there's a lot of fun to be had here, and I feel as though CotM2 would be much more appealing than the first game for people who either haven't played other classicvanias or aren't fans of the style.
However; CotM2 has a wildly different approach to level design and difficulty than the first game. I struggled to jive with these differences to the point where I eventually just gave up on try-harding, grabbed a beer, turned the difficulty down to casual and cheesed most levels/bosses with the doggo Hachi's invincibility.
Sure, the first CotM game was a bit too on the easy side, but the thing that made it so engrossing to me is that everything was clearly balanced around Zangetsu's base moveset, making it feel more coherent and legit as a classicvania styled action platformer. In contrast, while technically everything is still doable with solo Zangetsu in CotM2, the game clearly isn't balanced around his moveset. The design priority has shifted to a playstyle of using specific characters/subweapons at certain points, with the game becoming unreasonably difficult and unintuitive if you don't do this. During my first playthrough of CotM1, I did use all of the allies and cheesed many sections with vampire dude's flying ability, but I was genuinely curious how these sections would play out trying to tackle them with solo Zangetsu. Eventually I did this, and had a good time doing it. In CotM2 however, when I cheese through sections with Hachi's invincibility, I have no desire to go back to do them "properly", because it doesn't feel like there even is a "proper" way of doing these sections considering how ridiculously overtuned they can be.
I like to think that I'm not bad at classicvanias given how many of them I've beaten, but a lot of the later challenges in CotM2 did not click with me at all in ways that reminded me of my issues with Elden Ring's meta-driven late game. I think my problem with this style of game difficulty is that it no longer feels like the challenges are based around genre fundamentals and applications of skills the player has learned in not just this game but other games in its style, but it is instead something completely different, and this something is in my opinion something not as good as the original style.
Some other less structured points I want to mention for this review:
.There's a shmup section in this game. Surprisingly it's vertical and not horizontal. Your hitbox is ridiculously big and you move too fast if you collect too many of the speed items, but overall it wasn't bad in terms of quality and difficulty and I would like to see Inti Creates make an actual shmup at some point.
.The stage 6 boss can go fuck itself. I know I praised the boss fights in this game but the stage 6 boss is the exception. Actual clusterfuck and I have no idea how this design concept made it into the actual game.
.It's pretty silly how the Zanmatou sword which is required for the final episode and true ending reverts Zangetsu back to his base moveset. It's hyped up to be some epic upgrade after collecting three secret items and it's actually a downgrade lmao. Well played.
.Dominique's moveset is great. I love having a ducktales pogo attack in a classicvania game.
.Stage 6 had the most interesting stage design for me. The random mishmash of symbolism/imagery from different pagan religions is a pretty cool theme for a demon castle.
.Why beyond why did they change the default button assignment for subweapons from circle to triangle? This makes using subweapons while jumping awkward af. At least you can change it but I still feel like it's worth nitpicking.
There's a lot to like about this game as a sequel. It's way bigger of a game than the first Curse of the Moon, most of the bosses are more interesting and have more going on with their patterns/behaviours, the soundtrack is more memorable to me than the first game's soundtrack overall and the new characters are cool and introduce archetypes that are usually never seen in classicvania style games such as a healer, ranged sniper and a tank character (who is actually a doggo piloting a steam-powered mech, which makes it even cooler). If you're just looking for a good time there's a lot of fun to be had here, and I feel as though CotM2 would be much more appealing than the first game for people who either haven't played other classicvanias or aren't fans of the style.
However; CotM2 has a wildly different approach to level design and difficulty than the first game. I struggled to jive with these differences to the point where I eventually just gave up on try-harding, grabbed a beer, turned the difficulty down to casual and cheesed most levels/bosses with the doggo Hachi's invincibility.
Sure, the first CotM game was a bit too on the easy side, but the thing that made it so engrossing to me is that everything was clearly balanced around Zangetsu's base moveset, making it feel more coherent and legit as a classicvania styled action platformer. In contrast, while technically everything is still doable with solo Zangetsu in CotM2, the game clearly isn't balanced around his moveset. The design priority has shifted to a playstyle of using specific characters/subweapons at certain points, with the game becoming unreasonably difficult and unintuitive if you don't do this. During my first playthrough of CotM1, I did use all of the allies and cheesed many sections with vampire dude's flying ability, but I was genuinely curious how these sections would play out trying to tackle them with solo Zangetsu. Eventually I did this, and had a good time doing it. In CotM2 however, when I cheese through sections with Hachi's invincibility, I have no desire to go back to do them "properly", because it doesn't feel like there even is a "proper" way of doing these sections considering how ridiculously overtuned they can be.
I like to think that I'm not bad at classicvanias given how many of them I've beaten, but a lot of the later challenges in CotM2 did not click with me at all in ways that reminded me of my issues with Elden Ring's meta-driven late game. I think my problem with this style of game difficulty is that it no longer feels like the challenges are based around genre fundamentals and applications of skills the player has learned in not just this game but other games in its style, but it is instead something completely different, and this something is in my opinion something not as good as the original style.
Some other less structured points I want to mention for this review:
.There's a shmup section in this game. Surprisingly it's vertical and not horizontal. Your hitbox is ridiculously big and you move too fast if you collect too many of the speed items, but overall it wasn't bad in terms of quality and difficulty and I would like to see Inti Creates make an actual shmup at some point.
.The stage 6 boss can go fuck itself. I know I praised the boss fights in this game but the stage 6 boss is the exception. Actual clusterfuck and I have no idea how this design concept made it into the actual game.
.It's pretty silly how the Zanmatou sword which is required for the final episode and true ending reverts Zangetsu back to his base moveset. It's hyped up to be some epic upgrade after collecting three secret items and it's actually a downgrade lmao. Well played.
.Dominique's moveset is great. I love having a ducktales pogo attack in a classicvania game.
.Stage 6 had the most interesting stage design for me. The random mishmash of symbolism/imagery from different pagan religions is a pretty cool theme for a demon castle.
.Why beyond why did they change the default button assignment for subweapons from circle to triangle? This makes using subweapons while jumping awkward af. At least you can change it but I still feel like it's worth nitpicking.