Castlevania: Circle of the Moon

The Good
Castlevania : Circle of the Moon is yet another Castlevania game. It was released as a launch title on the GBA, that means it it one of the earliest GBA games out there. Today it may be hard to imagine what people who were used to the old Gameboy Color and original Playstation felt when the played this for the first time back then. Anyway back then I had no GBA yet, and a guy told me that it was a must play, and now that I found it used I bought it and played it. Oh and I'm a lot into Castlevania games those days for some reason.

It's true that right after playing more recent Castlevania games (Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow), it's hard to get impressed by a game who is almost 8 years old and that was released at the same time as the GBA itself. Nevertheless, I like games no matter their release date, as I'm a big fan of old games too, so it wouldn't be coherent from me to say this game isn't good because it's old (and it's not really THAT old).

The story of the game is simple, yet effective. A stupid evil lady named Camellia is reviving Dracula and is preparing a ritual to give him his full power. Thanks god, Morris Baldwin, an old vampire hunter that is supposed to have already banished Dracula in the past arrives with his two disciples, Hugh Baldwin (his son) and Nathan Graves. Dracula captures Morris and open a hole below the diciple's feet so that they don't annoy him, and locks himself behind a big door. In the catacombs they land in, Hugh leaves Nathan alone (what a bastard) and you take the control of Nathan, in the goal to rescue Baldwin and banish Dracula.

The story is a bit weird and it's not even officially included in the main official chronology, as Konami messed it up and it is in contradiction with other games - only Belmont or Morris family are supposed to have a sacred whip. If Baldwin was named Belmont and Nathan would have Morris as a family name this would make sense, as the game takes place in the 19th century, where the Belmont -> Morris transition looks like has happened. Anyway I liked the fact that the guy you control is just a young disciple and is not supposed to be a super-hero.

This game is a side scrolling platformer with RPG elements. The hero is able to level up and to raise his stats so he become more powerful. You are also able to equip various pieces of armor (up to 1 armor and 2 arm accessories at the same time) that the enemies drops.

You have to go explore the castle of evil count Dracula and beat bosses that will make you able to reach new places by giving you new abilities such as wall jump, etc... As in most side-view platformers, A jumps, B uses your whip to attack. R button is used for special abilities (wall jump and other stuff), and L button is for DSS.

The DSS system is the magic system for this game. You can collect up to 10 attribute cards and 10 action cards (although it's not likely you'll be lucky enough to find all of them without looking on the internet). You can chose any combination of action+attribute, activate it by pressing L and see what happens. Various attacks are enhanced that way, you either have a new weapon, or you get a shield, or your attack power is enhanced, or you could have a demon that follows you to help you to attack enemies, or summon creatures that does heavy damage on the screen (it's not likely you will get the last 2 abilities without looking on the net by the way). Although this system is cool, many attacks are useless, which is normal when there is 100 available. Also there is some I haven't figured whether they have an effect at all when you enable them.

The graphics are pretty impressive I have to say. They are dark, detailed and atmospheric. The backgrounds are really well done. I think the enemies's sprites are well done too, but there aren't that many different enemies, there is a ridiculous amount of palette swaps. But it does the job fine. The hero's sprite is tiny and really not that good. They could have gotten him better, as most of the game's graphics are better. Usually you'd except that the developers takes more time making the hero look good, but here they didn't.

The music is mostly good. Unlike most Castlevania games, the soundtrack of this game is almost exclusively remixes of music from older Castlevania games (I haven't played all Castlevania games so I can't tell exactly). And since there is good remixes, this works very well. Although there is not that many different songs in the game, and that one particular song is heard tough about half of the castle, which is annoying as you'll hear it too much. And yeah compared to the incredible music of Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow it sounds really not that good, but I don't want to compare what isn't comparable anyway.

The sounds effects are quite good for the GBA, your whip sounds like a whip and that is good. You have voice samples when the character jumps or get hit, and that is good. I can't complain about the sound. The GBA hardware seems to be well used overall, despite the fact that this is a launch title, and this is a very good thing.

Finally a thing I liked is that in many places you could find a crack in the wall that is hiding items that upgrade your character. It's cool that it features secrets, and as you get more abilities you are able to reach more secrets. You also have to solve puzzles in a place by pushing boxes which is a good thing.

The Bad
The hero is walking really slow at first, and after you find dash boots, you can run by double taping a direction. Unfortunately in boss battles when trying to fine-pitch your position to avoid attacks, you will double tap forward by error and the hero will just run and this will make you hit, and this is annoying. They could just have make a in-between correct walking speed and remove the dash boots, the game would only have been better (that's what they did in future Castlevania games).

If there is anything bad to be said, I'd go for how annoying some regular enemies are. It's hard to explain, but some enemies are just so annoying it pisses me off. Like in all others CV games, only save points fully restores your health (healing items are rare and you want to save them for bosses). It was often a big challenge to go from save point A to save point B without dying (especially the first time you discover the level). Then after trying about 16 times and finally discover the save point B, you reach to a boss and you beat him on the second try.

The difficulty of most bosses is pathetic as opposed to the difficulty as surviving in level, which most "normal" games are the other way around. Many bosses attack you by throwing you annoying projectiles, which can be easily destroyed using one shield DSS that makes them much easier. This don't apply to all boss of course, there were also hard bosses. The last form of Dracula is very hard to beat and I had to look on the internet to be able to find a trick to beat him. Otherwise, I was able to go through the game without any help so I guess it's not that hard, it's just really really annoying at times.

And the game is really short, it took me 7 hours to beat and I did take my time. Veterans gamers will beat this in about one week or so, but there is harder play modes for those who wants (definitely not me). For some reason, many early GBA games are really short for some reason, probably cartridge storage size ?

The Bottom Line
I don't consider Castlevania : Circle of the Moon is a must buy. The game is short and sometimes annoying. However it is challenging, has a lot of secrets, and have good graphics and sound considering it's a launch title. If you're a Castlevania veteran and haven't played this yet you'd want to borrow it from a friend (the game is really short and there is 10 save slots, it was really made to be borrowed) or to buy it used.

If you're not a Castlevania veteran, I would suggest to pass this one and play another Castlevania game if you get the chance to, because most CV games are better than this one. It's still a good game that can entertain for one or two week, and could introduce people to the series. But it's not too impressive, and I'd say it didn't age well because newer Castlevania games are really better (I am afraid that some people may not like this game at all and think, wrongly, that Castlevania games suck). I feel like the soul of the series isn't really there either for some reason. By the way I'm going to play another Castlevania game as soon as I finish this review I guess :-)