With the Castlevania series seemingly not going anywhere, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is about as perfect an answer as one would be hoping to receive. That answer is in the vein of NES era Castlevania games, specifically Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. Now it has been a while since B:CotM was released, but I have just been sitting on this article for just the right time to release it. Okay, it was because I was not sure how to go about writing it. You got me.
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| This seems eerily familiar. . . |
The only real negative thing I can think of to say about Curse of the Moon is that the game is almost too eerily close to an NES Castlevania game for it not to be an NES era Castlevania game. The colors are spot on. The sprites are perfectly limited in their color palette, with the exception of a boss or two which are almost more reminiscent of an SNES color scheme. The music sounds like it could have come out of an 8-bit cart, although it is much more crisp and I did not notice tones cutting out to make way for sound effects, but I could be wrong on that. You have multiple sub-weapons that are powered by items gained through breaking lanterns and killing enemies. There is even a score that seems half a hold out from the arcade era, and half to figure out when you have earned enough to gain an extra life. It's 10,0000 I believe. The point is (eh!?), is that CotM does a fantastic job in recreating that Castlevania flavor and tone that was present in the first three games that were released on the NES.
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| In a large castle being attacked by a zombie. . .I think I've done this before? |
One other Castlevania bit is that there is little in the way of story. You start out as the hunter Zangetsu, who kills demons and sensing a strong demonic power emanating from over that way, he goes out in search of his quarry. Along the way he encounters other hunters who have been imprisoned by various demons and they join him on his quest. That is about the gist of the whole story. Like the first Castlevania game where Simon Belmont travels to Castlevania to kill Dracula. Simple as that. There were a couple of times when I couldn't remember if I was in fact after Dracula, probably brought on by the similarities in graphics and gameplay, but that never got in the way of my enjoyment. I could talk a bit more about each of Zangetsu's companions, but I will leave that up to the player, if they want to look up that information on their own or be surprised the first time they play the game.
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| Always anxious about attacking large enemies with such a short reach. |
One critique of the game itself, which I feel is not a negative thing to say, is that I was able to beat the game with only the lives that I earned while playing on my first playthrough. Oh, I got hit plenty of times while playing on the Veteran difficulty setting (where enemies can knock you back a whole body length instead of only dealing damage) and I died I do not know how many times overall, but I was able to beat the game without ever coming across either a GAME OVER, or a Continue? screen. Now I have played nearly every 2D Castlevania, with a few exceptions, and for all of the ones that have had multiple lives in the Castlevania I - III style, I have never been able to complete one on a single playthrough (as opposed to in a single sitting). I guess you could say that it felt like a Castlevania game created for a modern audience, using assets (albeit all completely new assets) created for a much older (30 something) audience who had grown up with the games. It was designed to be challenging
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| What a horrible night to have a curse? |
I feel like I could say a lot about Curse of the Moon, and then there are things that I am absolutely unable to talk about. Like the "Curse of the Moon" mechanic that I just sort of stumbled upon while looking through the pause menu. This curse, if you choose to select it, will take you back to replay any stage that you had previously played. The major caveat here, is that when restart a previously played stage, you lose any and all progress you had up until that point. Any extra health or armor you picked up, is now gone. Any additional companions are no longer in your party. The only reason I can see for this mechanic existing in the game is to replay a stage if you missed one of the permanent buffs (max health, armor, max magic, etc). I did try using it once, but on a save file I had copied just in case it was what I was afraid of, and it was. I was hoping that by going back to the first stage, that I would still have a character who could slide under certain barriers because there was one of those at the beginning of the game. However, I found out that you really do just start out back with whatever you had when you first came upon that stage. I even tried selecting the curse when I had another character, not just the main character selected to see if that made any difference. It did not. So as to what the main purpose is, I am not sure.
Overall, B:CotM did a fantastic job recreating the feeling of playing a very tightly conceived and executed game in the vein of Castlevania. And for only $9.99 US (presently, and on the Nintendo Switch, other prices may vary depending on platform and any possibly sales), it's a fairly decent price for a well crafted game that doesn't bank everything on nostalgia.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Waiting to Take You Away
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