Review #752: Castlevania - Circle of the Moon

 But what about the square of the moon? And the triangle of the moon?

 As someone that loved Symphony of the Night, I was hyped about Castlevania: Circle of the Moon before I even had a Gameboy Advance. I knew I as gonna get one, and as soon as the game was announce I kept tabs on it. As much as the early dial-up connections of the early 00's allowed anyways. But the economy took a dive, games became too much of an expensive luxury, and the fact that I never even saw the box in my country meant I never got to play the game. Eventually I would get to try it out via Emulation, but I never properly finished it, much less own it. I own it now, and finally I have beaten every Metroidvania Castlevania, and this collection is complete.

 You play as Nathan Graves, the inheritor of the famed Vampire Killer, although this game takes place in an alternate timeline, so no pesky Belmonts. Nathan, Hugh and their master, who is also Hugh's father, get trapped inside Drac's castle, their Master is MIA and Hugh is out to prove he ought to be the inheritor of the Whip, so Nathan is basically left to his own devices in order to rescue his master and defeat Dracula. Story has never been Castlevania's strongest suit, so it doesn't really matter what the excuse is, what matters is that this was the first Metroidvania style Castlevania on the Gameboy Advance, and it delivered just that. The Castle is pretty large, although the game could've used more Teleportation rooms, since you'll have to do a lot of backtracking on foot, but in a way, it's better that way, since this game is tough, and any extra level you can grind will help.

 At the start, Nate can only jump, slide, use a subweapon, attack with his whip or twirl it around for minimal damage(but works great as a defense against projectiles!), but as you go through the castle and defeat bosses you'll earn new abilities to let you go through obstacles, such as running, double jumping or pushing blocks. As far as equipment goes, Nathan only wields the Vampire Killer but you can equip an armor as well as two accessories, provided you get them from enemy drops. There isn't a shop in this game, so any healing item or equipment piece is entirely tied to how lucky you are. To compliment his basic moveset, you can also use any of the heart-consuming subweapons the series is know for, such as the dagger, the holy water, the cross, the stopwatch or the ax.

 There's one other tool in Nathan's repertoire, and that too is tied to luck, and these are Cards. A few enemies have a very small chance(It goes as high as about 1.4% chance! on a few monsters) of dropping a card. By themselves cards are useless, but if you combine cards you can get different effects. There are twenty cards, divided in two sets of 10, and you must combine two cards between sets. You can get all sorts of neat effects, such as turning your whip into an elemental whip, passive stat boots, access to Item Crash or even turn your whip into a flippin' sword. The card system, named DSS, is paramount to maximizing your survival in this game, which makes it almost criminal that every card is found by chance, and there's no way of telling if an enemy can drop a card or not besides aimless grinding. At least you'll get experience points, I guess.

 Blasphemous might've tried this whole "hard metroidvania" thing, but it ain't even half as hard as this game. I'd say Circle of the Moon sits neatly between Blasphemous and Castlevania - Order of Ecclesia. Enemies deal massive damage, bosses can tank a lot of damage, save spots are few, healing can be incredibly hard to come by and enemy drops, which make up your equipment and access to hard, can be very stingy. It doesn't feel too unfair, but some of the enemy placement can be very tricky, and some enemy patterns, like the darned Dark Armors, can be pretty tough to avoid even when you figure out the best strategy to take them out. I know the game received criticism for how dark it looked, but even with the GBA SP's backlit screen some enemy projectiles sort of blend into the background, Camilla's purple projectiles being a prime example of this.

 Overall, I think it's pretty fun. The DSS system is fun to tinker with and discover new abilities, the graphics are pretty good and the Castle feels well designed, even if it could've used more teleportation rooms. Nathan feels heavier than other protagonists in the series, he can't move as fast or even take a backstep, but exploring the castle is fun, and it's pretty large too. Konami would add a ton of features, enhancements and tweaks to the formula on subsequent games, but Circle of the Moon feels like a very solid first step.

 I think this might very well be the weakest Metroidvania on Nintendo's handheld systems, but even then it's a great game. It's definitely got a much more appealing style than Harmony of Dissonance, but that game played a bit better, even if it looked worse. It feels a bit stiff when compared with the other Castleroids, a bit slow and limited, but if you enjoy the genre there's no going wrong with this one, provided you are up to the challenge.
 8.0 out of 10