circle of the moon

initially I went in skeptical, because everything I'd seen from it felt slightly off compared to the games that I'd played. it was a different dev team, a GBA launch title, and only the second "search action" Castlevania game after Symphony, after all. but hey, I gave it a shot eventually, and here's some rough thoughts on it.

pros:

• the DSS system is pretty fun!! I like that a lot of the spells are pretty useful, and there's a pretty wide variety of uses for them. there's no reason to not have something enabled because magic drains really slowly, which I appreciate- it feels more like a customizable moveset, and less like "you can only use this three times before your magic is completely depleted". Nathan's about as customizable as Soma is, and I think that's super cool.
  • for example: being able to choose between different weapons and elemental attacks, having elemental immunity, and stat boosts all have their utility. then there's the more fun, optional cards where you can do flashy summons, or just make you run faster to make backtracking easier... in hindsight, it really does feel like a prototype for the souls in Aria/Dawn, but maybe a bit more streamlined? since they didn't have to make an effect for every single enemy in the game, haha.
• the progression items are pretty straightforward, and not esoteric. you learn to slide kick, double jump, walljump, break boxes, push boxes, and high jump. this makes it pretty intuitive to recognize where you can and can't go, and I appreciate that.
  • as opposed to Aria, where sometimes I couldn't tell if I was just REALLY shitty at jumping with Flying Armor, or if I couldn't reach that ledge no matter how hard I tried.
• this is the game that has Hyena With Gun. what's funnier than a skeleton with a gun? a HYENA WITH A GUN.
• there's very few reused sprites - which I really don't mind in the first place, honestly - but that means you get some different takes on enemy designs, and that's kinda cool! a change of pace is cool. for example, I like that there's an Armor guy for every element! and congratulations to Circle of the Moon by breathing fresh life into Legion, rebooting it as a normal enemy, and finding a new way to unsettle me! OH GOD WHY ARE ITS TONGUES EVERYWHERE
  • that sounds like a con, but it's a pro. those kind of surprises are fun to me!
• honestly I'm pretty impressed that this was a launch title GBA game. like, I totally get why people complained back in the day about it being hard to see on the original GBA model- the color schemes run pretty dark, and I'd imagine that would be hellish on a non-backlit system. but the pixel art is pretty good! some of the backgrounds are really cool, which is always one of my favorite things about Castlevania games.
  • er, though, it took them until Aria to figure out how to make decent walk cycles again. Nathan's got this really hilariously janky 4-frame walk cycle. and they didn't do much better with Juste in Harmony of Dissonance, either, so... hm.
• the soundtrack is a little limited, and there's not much original music, but they do some deeper cuts with the songs that are really cool! doing covers of some of the lesser known songs from Bloodlines and Super Castlevania IV is always appreciated.

cons:

• I hate walljumping. that's just a personal hangup with me, though. what is this, metroid?! get outta here, you! as soon as I got the high jump, I don't think I ever walljumped ever again.
  • if you know me really well, though, you might know that I just really, really like anything adjacent to the gravity boots from Symphony. wheeeeeee! nyoom!
• all the areas start to run together... there's not many songs in the game, so a lot of areas share music. and there's not really strong theming to the areas, so it makes it harder for me to distinguish them. not to mention the names themselves are similar. do I remember the difference between Underground Gallery and Underground Warehouse off the top of my head? not really...
• is it just me, or is the damage scaling in this game REALLY weird? standard enemies take anywhere from 60-600 points of damage per hit, but then with bosses, I struggle to achieve even 30 points per hit. yeesh...
• healing items feel basically pointless. you don't find any out in the overworld, and there's no shop, so you have to rely on enemy drops. and then you remember that potions heal 20 HP, and when you start with 200, and only get even higher from there... man, just don't even bother.
• there's some weird difficulty spikes. FUCK whoever decided to design the enemy placements at the top of the castle before you fight Hugh. yeah cool thanks for all the curse-inflicting enemies and those Dark Armor guys relentlessly annihilating me with black holes. and they have the gall to not even put a save point before Hugh! RUDE.
• there is not a single warp in the entire bottom half of the castle. but five in the top half. !?!?!?!?!
  • I have many opinions about warp placements and could write an entire essay about them but I won't,
• crosses are the best subweapon in the game. there is, as far as I can tell, two candles in the entire game that drop crosses. What the fuck.
  • I mean I was more than happy to settle with holy water until I finally found a cross in the "blatant but loving homage to Symphony's entrance" area but like, why?

misc:

• you know the term "Metroidvania", yeah? but I don't really... like that term, since if we're being honest, most "Metroidvania" games take most of their inspiration from Metroid, and less from the exploration-based Castlevania games. Circle of the Moon is fascinating to me, though, since it does feel the most... Metroid-y to me? all the overworld pickups are direct stat upgrades, either in the form of HP, MP, or Heart capacity up. progression items themselves feel very Metroid-esque to me, down to having stuff like walljumping, which other Castlevania games don't have. hell, if you freeze enemies with the ice element weapons, you can use them as platforms. haha!
  • it still retains a lot of the RPG elements from Symphony- there's exp and level ups, equipment for different stat boosts, etc. but it's also lacking some of the random RPG-esque items that I really came to enjoy from Symphony onwards. like cute pixel food. some people would say removing that kind of thing is "streamlining" things. but maybe I find small, superfluous details like that charming.
• Nathan has real weird physics compared to the other games I've played. but I got used to it, so I can't really call it a con? the best way I could describe it... hmm. like playing Falco in Melee. he jumps high, and falls like a sack of bricks.
• in a lot of ways, this has the vibes of a classic Castlevania game, while playing like an post-Symphony/IGA-style Castlevania title. I... do not know how to convey this thought, but it makes sense in my brain.
  • as opposed to Ecclesia, which has the vibes of an IGA Castlevania game, but plays like a classic Castlevania game.
  • IT... MAKES SENSE IN MY BRAIN,
• I am entirely ambivalent towards Nathan as a protagonist. I don't hate him. I also don't feel any particular attachment to him, either.