Castlevania: Circle of the Moon

2025-03-22
Coming off of playing Symphony of the Night for the first time I felt like a bad ass. Then I booted up Circle of the Moon, died to a bat or something in the intro, and got booted to the title screen. I was immediately humbled. Symphony has Alucard whose spritely movement and controls and wealth of cheesable options meant the challenge could be basically turned off pretty quickly. Circle with Nathan Graves' slow movement, clunky "double-tap left/right to run" schtick, and much more conservative weapon set (a whip, you have a whip) is happy to kick your teeth in over and over again. Even playing with my cart slapped in an Analogue Pocket, making full use of it's save-state scummitude, I still found myself running through and avoiding powerful enemies in the first half of the game. And you know what? It's great. Sure the whip is all you got but damn you get good at landing that sucker exactly where you want. Sure the double-tap run thing is clunky at first but soon you'll find yourself expertly maneuvering ol' Nate Gravy through Dracula's new crib.

I'm not saying it's on the level of Symphony of the Night, of course. Circle's pacing is a bit odd with the beginning feeling quite a bit like a slog until you start to level up and get some equipment and abilities. The map is a little too convoluted at times for my liking, occasionally leaving you scratching your head as to where to go next if you don't have a guide. And the Dual Set-Up System, a system where you collect cards as drops off enemies and then combine them to activate various moves or buffs, is a cool idea but shat up by the fact that 2) the drop rates can be tedious as all hell and 2) it's nested behind a menu you have to pause the game to access. During Dracula's final form I spent most of the fight in a menu changing up my abilities. Woof.

But despite some rough edges you're still in for a banger of a Castlevania. Beautiful spritework (look at this beautiful goatlord) and rockin' tunes pair nicely with its upped challenge leaving me craving even more Castlevania.