JAVA | Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, The Overlooked Masterpiece? - SimplyAJ (Review)
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- The Gameboy Advance was home to three Castlevania titles, but one of them is often overlooked and overhshadowed. This is Just Another Video About Castlevania: Circle of the Moon!
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Songs Used:
1) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - A Vision of Dark Secrets (Gameboy Advance)
2) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Marble Gallery (Playstation)
3) Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance - Maxim Kischine's Theme (Gameboy Advance)
4) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Aquarius (Gameboy Advance)
5) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Vampire Killer (Gameboy Advance)
6) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Requiem (Gameboy Advance)
7) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Prayer (Playstation)
8) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Nightmare (Gameboy Advance)
9) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Awake (Gameboy Advance)
10) Super Smash Brothers Ultimate - Awake (Nintendo Switch)
11) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - The Sinking Old City (Gameboy Advance)
12) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Clockwork (Gameboy Advance)
13) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Fate to Despair
14) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Proof of Blood
15) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Inclined Repose of Souls
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Special Thanks:
SamWithoutAPlan - For helping me with shooting and general moral support! ► / samwithoutaplan
Damare - For arranging and composing the coffee house jazz version of Bede's Theme for me! ► / notdamage
#Castlevania #CircleOfTheMoon #CastlevaniaAdvanceCollection #Review #VideoGames
This honestly one of the best Castlevanias ever made imo. Played this countless times and drove my sister nuts playing this game on long car trips.
Yeah, it really is fantastic. Honestly, it's one of the games I like to just go back to and play every couple of months.
i think its the very best, its definitely in the argument
I really enjoyed this game but it was so difficult I would not have been able to finish it without the rewind feature in the Advance Collection. Hats off to the people who finished it on the GBA.
Yeah, early GBA games were pretty rough, difficulty wise for sure. At the end of the day though, whatever platform ya finished it on, ya still finished it!
I've been playing this game myself. I think they went a little too unfair with how low some of these item drops are.
I always found the drops in CoTM to just be like... a nice little surprise for when they DO drop. You can easily beat the game with just the stuff you find laying around, but sometimes, an enemy drops a great piece of equipment or a card, and it's just a nice optional upgrade. The rates could def be a little better, though.
Why do you make those faces?
CotM is so close to amazing but there are two annoying flaws in navigation; fast travel points are sparse, especially at the bottom half of the castle. Also, you need to tap twice to run every time.
On the other hand, there are so many cool things like repopulating the castle with stronger enemies.
Honestly playing it on an actual Gameboy Advance SP it's easy to get used to the double tap thing. Now playing the Steam version I see how annoying it feels
Fast travel spots being sparse is good on one thing : the long corridor feels long the first time around haha
Also, the drop rates for cards is just abysmal.
Oh, and you end up with tons of duplicate items that have no use. They should stop spawning when the player has one, or the game needs a shop.
@@ZenMonkeyGod I think it's only bearable when the D-pad is light and quick like in SP, but never preferable.
This is also a pretty well made video.
Its really messed up how UA-cam tends to bury videos like this.
Hey I appreciate it! It is what it is. Honestly, that's why the interactions like commenting and liking are so important cause we're all just fighting to get noticed by that UA-cam algorithm, so I really do appreciate the comment. But honestly, I just really enjoy making videos. If they're seen by people, that's obviously a huge perk, but I'm also not gonna stress it if they "under perform" either. I'm genuinely happy with how well received this video was. Not sure if it was just a timing thing, a topic thing, or just a weird fluke, but either way, makes me happy knowing people enjoyed it!
@@SimplyAJ just my personal opinion I find it really angering how I can make a crappy meme edit and somehow get more views than something someone probably put days into making.
I just honestly think he's really messed up that some may become disheartened due to how the UA-cam algorithm works and rewards what is really lazy content.
Circle of the Moon was the first Castlevania game I ever experienced all on my own. SotN is amazing, but so is Circle of the Moon.
I loved the card combo system.
CotM has the comfiest camera distance in all the Castlevania games imo. It makes the Castle feel so much larger because of how much you can see. The backgrounds are also extremely detailed, and its a shame that most people didn't get to see them because of the original GBA not having a backlight.
The camera distance is a great point! I definitely think platformer games now a days tend to have the camera pulled back out a little TOO far? IE, Ori and the Blind Forest. But, CoTM does a pretty good job. There's definitely a healthy medium you have to find.
I never thought about it that way. Good point.
Love this game, you did a good job covering what is probably the most overlooked games in the entire series. Keep it up!
I appreciate it, thanks!
This was my first Castlevania game. I purchased it for my non-backlit GBA. This game blew me away. I loved the spooky themes & catchy music. Looking back I can see the gripes people had with this game. But nostalgia is a heck of a drug. Circle of the Moon means a lot to me!
For a launch title?!?!?!
Yea, this game delivered. Not super deep, but enough flexibility with the DSS system, if you found all the cards, or even most of them, to keep it interesting.
The game is just long enough too. Underrated for sure. A must play for die hard or even newfound fans
Yeah the DSS System was such a fun tool to play around with. Only downside was not knowing which enemies dropped which cards haha.
Yup! That game is sick as hell. Too dark?play it on GBA SP. No Belmonts? So fuckin what. Too hard? Boo hoo, it’s castlevania. Grab that whip and get it done baby
Funnily enough, I feel like when this came out, nobody REALLY cared that there were no Belmonts, cause everybody was still coming off of the high of playing as Alucard anyway. But now a days, when people look back at it, they used it as a weird complaint, but it's like you said.. so fuckin' what? haha
@@SimplyAJ oh that’s the one I heard the most. From people who’s precious child hood was ruined by Alucard. Where’s Simon? He went home! Lol 😂 all in all CotM is great.
A great deep dive into this unappreciated Castlevania game! Well done
I appreciate the compliment, thanks!
I’m not sure I would quite say unappreciated.
More so just an overlooked game which got overshadowed by Aria of Sorrow and later games but it did pretty well all things considered.
I noticed the stiff controls within seconds of starting the game and it was my first of the GBA trilogy. Also the drop rates are horrendous so the DSS only really shines on Magician mode where you can actually use all the cards. I'd also argue that it was entirely their fault for making the visuals so dark since they were developing a game specifically to be played on GBA and didn't take into account the hardware limitations. Despite all this, I still really like this game.
I'm fairly certain I read that the GBA was intended to have a backlight from the get-go and was dropped due to battery drainage.
I bought the Castlevania Advance Collection yesterday and started playing Harmony of Dissonance. I dig it so far. The consensus seems to be that it’s the worst of the GBA games, and if that’s the case, I have a lot to look forward to. I’ll play Circle next, and then, saving the “best” for last, Aria.
I just discovered you today and your reviews are fun and informative. Watched your Harmony review earlier, watching this one now, and Aria’s up next. Big Ups man! I’ve liked and subscribed. Looking forward to more reviews!
Audio quality aside, the music in CotM is GOAT
00:09:01 could just be on a 10 hour loop for me
I'm on it
Ready to suplex ninteno for closing up e shop
You and me both, dude
@@SimplyAJ suplexx cittY
Very entertaining video dude! I missed a lot of great GBA games growing up (can't buy anything you want when you're like 8 haha) but with the Switch release of the Advance Collection, I'm definitely looking forward to playing the GBA series of games. Keep up the good work! :)
For an Castlevania of this style not done by Koji Igarashi, it's a surprisingly decent game. He had some limited involvement in other areas for those that didn't know. Circle of the Moon quickly became one of my favorite GBA games.
Circle of the moon did a lot right but it's equal to harmony of dissonance imo. Where Harmony had the annoying floatiness cotm has the stupid slow walk. Where harmony had poor music and lack of teleports cotm has lack of shop and a very weird vertically inclined jumping method (despite the GBA resolution)
But I love this game to bits still. Nathan Graves is a cool character. Wish they mishmashed this game with order of ecclesia somehow to keep it cannon. Nathan and the Baldwins and the Hunter whip, it's all cool stuff. The music is fantastic in this game. it looks amazing. For a launch title it's a pretty awesome game. I just wish both this game and harmony of dissonance could see justice through a remake.
Honestly, I do think that removing this from the canon was a bit of a petty move on IGA's part, but ultimately, it still works well as a "what if" story or, you can just ignore what he says and pretend it exists haha.
This is my favorite Castlevania game along with order of ecclesia. Two very underappreciated gems that bring the classicvania difficulty back intot he series
I really like the art direction in this game over the other GBA games.
Sure the stripes have less frames than the others but they are just taken straight up from older games or having one character made from multiple stripes and animated using mode 7 making them look like paper marionettes more than anything else.
Totally agree! I feel like the art style of this game is a lot closer looking to "classic" Castlevanias, which is why I think I like it so much.
I adored this game in grade school. The learning curve was steep as hell but I loved learning the enemy and boss patterns. Upgrades felt meaningful and rewarding, which was an issue I had with SOTN and HOD. They could've hinted more about where to find the cards and equipment, but they sort of solved that issue for the re-release. I love the difficulty progession, it feels very well thought out and tight, which is another issue I had with SOTN and HOD. I always felt OP by the time i get to Dracula. Can't say enough about the soundtrack, one of the best of the series and my absolute favorite arrangement of Dance of Illusions.
That is Mandela effect because I remember that song from symphony also. I've never played rondo so that's weird.
And here I thought, I was the only one who sees Circle of the Moon to be a great Castlevania game
Haha, definitely not! It really is an awesome game.
Time for some Java baby!
Best part of wakin' up~
Thanks for video suggestion Reb. Definitely love it!
@@themgrir9329 right? Dudes underrated as hell
@@themgrir9329 Really glad you liked it! And yeah, thanks Rebel!
People think that nathan is a very shallow character but to me he's endearing as he did everything a belmont has done and without the vampire killer and arguably fought way stronger enemies.
Especially at his age as well its easy to see why he was chosen to use the hunters whip.
Yeah, I always liked Nathan. His design was cool, especially the artstyle. Always liked the idea of the Belmonts needing other people to fight Dracula (like the Morris clan) while they did whatever they were doing to "prepare" for the 1999 battle. Shame that wasn't the case with Nathan per the retcon stuff haha
@@SimplyAJ The reason I think Nathan is a lot stronger than a lot of other characters is because of the bosses in particular.
The zombie dragon twins were something Dracula killed when he was in his prime and knowing that Nathan did it while basically being a novice really shows that he's a lot more stronger than we know.
I would have loved to see Nathan and Hugh come back in a later game but this game is somewhat no longer cannon so I highly doubt it.
Order of eclasia basically took this game and a lot of other castlevania games out of cannon if I'm sure.
In my personal opinion this game didn't even need to have Dracula in it.
It could have worked perfectly fine with Elizabeth and Death which would also make more sense as this isn't even draculas Castle.
It can be said the Hunter Whip is in ways similar to the Vampire Killer. Both being enchanted weapons iirc.
I would reckon his potential and peak power is equivalent to say Richter or Julius in terms of lore but with more versatility with the DSS magic.
Even though it’s mentioned he was never able to best Hugh in training. So that’s quite a leap in skill and power.
Though it’s possible Nathan could have been holding back since that’s not a life or death situation and it’s pretty clear Nathan cares about Hugh as a friend despite how bitter Hugh acts towards Nathan during most of the game.
He likely even sees Hugh as like a brother to him since both his parents were killed when they fought Dracula alongside Morris 10 years prior. And it doesn’t seem Nathan has any siblings So Hugh and Morris are the closest thing he has to family left
He’s about 18-19 I think and both Richter and Julius are 19 when they first battle Dracula. They never say exactly how old Nathan and Hugh are.
Also with this game being non-canon and having a different continuity it’s possible the Belmonts don’t even exist in this timeline.
But being non-canon only means they coulda gave it more of its own timeline. I woulda loved to have a sequel to circle of the moon with a further improved DSS system!
Late to this party, but HELL YES, IT'S A MASTERPIECE!
Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s my favorite series were Mega Man and Castlevania
the game is great.. i adore the music, the bossfightsoundtrack and the Clocktower Music is just next Level - even in the Castlevania-Univers of great gamemusic in general. But.. the game is so damn hard, even in the castlevaniauniverse of hard a.f. games, and the card system is, for me, whos not a native english speaker, hard to understand, because there is no german version of the game (sadly) - and the game is overshadowed by the pure briliance of aria of sorrow and symphony
this game just looks the best, sounds the best, feels the best, has an awesome system with the cards, very challenging, and strikes a great balance between linear and non linear gameplay. its just the best overall game
Circle of the moon is really good my second favorite castlevania game on GBA and I love how it is the fastest Castlevania in the series.
i like the gameplay of it, however the card system is what kills it for me, why are all of them rare drops? they are super crucial to beat the game and yet they are rare drops and you have no idea which random enemy drops which cards. the funny part is that you dont really need them, you can get through the entire game without them just fine, its just dracula thats the issue, you need a good card combination to beat him as a casual player, trying to hit the eyeball while free aiming your cross, or even worse, trying to hit this thing with your whip is just a nightmare, this boss is the sole reason why the card system doesnt work. it should either be optional and random, or mandatory and static. not this weird mix where for 99% of the game the cards are optional, but to beat the final boss of the game you suddenly need them, and not just any, you need the cards that let you do this full screen summon thing, that way you can properly hit the stupid eyeball, its just awful.
The smash ultimate version of Awake gives me hope of a circle of the moon remake
CoTM was my first Castlevania, I found a discounted copy at a K-Mart (because I'm old but not that old) and instantly fell in love with the series. Since than I've play most, if not all the games in the series. Hell just earlier today I finished my replay of Portrait of Ruin in the Dominus collection.
If it makes ya feel any better, I bought my Wii at a KMart haha. (Technically it was my 3rd Wii. There's a whole story there, but still, KMart had them in a time when nobody else did hahaha)
I'd say CoTM really cemented my love for the series. I grew up loving the NES games, but then didn't play another CV until SoTN and then CoTM. From there, it was just like "yeah okay, I'm getting every new CV game that comes out" haha
Idk why i remember this game as a bad game, i just recently replay it and it became my second favorite of all the franchise just after Aria and SOTN.
Honestly, that's awesome. It's a much more preferable outcome when it turns out to be a pleasant surprise, as opposed to having amazing memories of it, only to return to it and find it to be lackluster haha.
My grandmother showed me this game! It was one of my favorite handheld Castlevania games!!
Oh wow, that's an awesome grandma! haha
@@SimplyAJ Truly! She's also how I got into Pokemon and other things! Gamer Grandma ftw!
This game is great, but just a little too difficult for most gamers, which is why it gets the most hate out of all the GBA games. Most people can't get past Adremalech.
Agreed. The people who think Dark Souls is hard should try playing this.
Yeah Adremalech is definitely a wall for sure. I think this is definitely one of those games where people don't realize how GOOD grinding is for your character, either. Levels come quickly early on, and they make boss fights ways easier, but most people aren't thinking "I should grind" in a Castlevania game.
@@SimplyAJ Sometimes you have to grind. There are some bosses you simply cannot beat if your level is too low
JRose11 sent me. Before watching, absolutely this game was an overlooked masterpiece.
Aha, I appreciate it! It is indeed, one of my favorite GBA games, easy!
I *want* to like Circle of the Moon, but I can't get myself to like it when there's no shop, the gravity feels much more intense than any other Igavania, and fucking Adramalech and Death so far. I don't want to say the game is bad, but it's definetly not perfect. Everything else is great though, it really shook up the formula of prgression and I really like the idea of starting at the bottom and going around rather than start middle left head to far right traverse back but go to upper left, go down below, come back up go through Clocktower boom castle keep defeat dracula you're good.
Part of it is definitely a mindset thing, but also it's okay that it's not for everyone as well. It plays a lot more similarly to the classic games with the heavy gravity, and difficulty wise, yeah some of the bosses can be pretty ridiculous. Leveling up though does help immensely, as you'll quickly find yourself doing like 1.2K damage to just normal enemies.
Might not be the best Castlevania according to people who "knows about games" and critics. But it is my favorite, for sure. I've been beating this game in different ways and rules every six or so months in like a decade already.
I"m sure this is nostalgia speaking on my part, but there's just something so incredibly memorable about early GBA games in particular. Sure the latest Castlevania games are a bit more "developed" so to speak, but CoTM still had such great atmosphere, that I don't really feel like was truly captured in later CV games. The SCALE of the rooms is a big part of it, I think.
I love the way you produced this video. Well done bro. Very chill and enjoyable.
Just got the Advance collection. Was always a fan of the series but never had a chance to fully play any of them. Starting with Circle of the Moon and having a blast.
Thanks man! Honestly means a lot to see people compliment my editing style haha.
But yeah, hope ya dig the Advance Collection, it's honestly a steal having 4 solid games in it.
You didnt mention the horrible decision to double tap forward to run. Thats just horrible. And the castle layout is not very good, its built very strange, it feels like your mostly jumping up or falling downwards all of the time. If you know what i mean 😅
Haha, I guess it just didn't bother me too much playing it when it first released. I'd say if you had someone play the game for the first time NOW a days, they'd probably see it as more of an issue, but at the time, I didn't care. It was Castlevania, so I was already used to walking at a slow speed, so double tapping to run was like, groundbreaking to me at the time haha.
i'm so sad... 'cause i'm playing this game for the first time now and i just wanted more SOTN at the time i had a GB advance at the time but never gave it a chance... oh my i feel so dumb for that
but i think the dark pallet is great it bring a nice, spooky atmosfera
No need to feel sad if you're enjoyin' it now though!
I remember playing circle of the moon about 4 or 5 years ago, and unfortunatly can't say i enjoyed it that much :(( i do really like metroidvania games, but circle of the moons biggest problem for me when i played it was the DSS system. while it is a really cool system that you can do a lot of cool stuff with, it is also really inaccessible to a new player. so for someone like me who went into the game completely blind, the game didn't teach me almost anything about how it worked and most importantly, how i should go about getting them. all of them besides the 2 first ones you get are rare drops(
Oh yeah that's totally fair. I enjoyed the DSS system like... AS a power system, but the fact that you're at the mercy of drop rates definitely could have been handled a bit better. That's probably why they added things like Magician Mode in so people could play around with it more, but that still requires beating the entire game to access.
Imagine blaming a Dracula game loaded with demons and monsters by calling it too dark. Aria of Sorrow was the easiest of the bunch, and the final boss wa boring.
Many people say Aria of Sorrow > Harmony of Dissonance > Circle of the Moon.
But I tend to go Harmony of Dissonance > Circle of the Moon > Aria of Sorrow
Been playing CV since nes. SotN is my all time fav. CotM is pretty good. I liked more than HoD.
Yeah I'd definitely agree with liking CoTM more than HoD.
Weirdly enough, deleting that Alec Baldwin joke aged pretty well.....
Aha, yeah, completely unintentional, but most definitely!
I absolutely hate the final Dracula fight. When he gets below half health, he just starts spamming that invulnerable dash move that does 300+ damage. It's so slow and annoying to finish him off from there.
In general, I feel that enemies in this game are too tanky. Even just the generic fodder enemies take so many hits to kill when you are at level. But stats scale up super fast too, and even coming back just 5 or 7 level-ups later, you'll have gone from taking 8 to 10 hits to kill an enemy to two-shotting that same enemy. It's so weird.
I also think the castle doesn't have enough warp points. The entire left side of the castle, and entire bottom 40% of the castle doesn't have a single warp point. What the hell?
The movement in general is so slow and stiff, too. You get those dash boots like 4 rooms into the game. Why bother with that being an upgrade? Why isn't the sprinting speed just your normal movement speed instead? Nathan's walking speed is so slow that it's agonizing.
Ain't gonna lie though. The music absolutely slaps. It really is probably the best OST of the entire series.
Yeah, the final Dracula can be pretty rough. I do think it's easily one of the hardest in the series, especially when it's your first time fighting him. That dash can instantly kill you, and you're just left there like "welp, guess I'll start over."
But yeah, I mean the game isn't exactly the BEST at it's balance, but I do also love the fact that leveling up DOES feel so good. A quick level grind really shows its results fast, which isn't often that common in the future games.
As for the boots, my guess is it was playing off the giving people a "CLASSIC Castlevania experince!" but it was kind of a fake out instead, with them supplying the boots a couple rooms in. Probably not the best choice, in retrospect, but back then, it never really bothered me all that much, so because of that, still doesn't really bother me to this day haha.
@@SimplyAJ Yeah, the fight is difficult, but that’s not what annoys me so much about it. I dislike how grindy it becomes because of how frequently he uses an attack that makes him invulnerable. He’ll use that attack up to four times in a row.
Now the best way to play it is on the switch!
Haha, yeah I was kicking myself after I released this because it was only mere DAYS after I put this video out that they announced the Advance Collection.
This game needs a remaster. Updated graphics and animation. Remastered orchestral music and some Qulity of life changes. It is one of my favourite Castlevania games, despite no being an official IGAvania.
Would loooove to see it. I'd hope they'd stick with sprites, but just higher quality, with some more frames of animation (specifically the running animation). Also the extra buttons on modern day consoles would definitely help standardize the control scheme a bit.
@@SimplyAJ Funny that the GBA Collection appeared just after this video.
@@Relugus Dude, I was saying the same thing. Literally moments after I say the "Wii U is the best way to play this game" haha
I’m not counting on a remaster too soon with the Advance Collection releasing not long ago.
But who knows maybe Konami will pull their heads out of their asses and start making Castlevania again lol. Maybe even reconcile with Koji Igarashi for him to work with them on the side on Castlevania games again.
I’d love a 2.5D Sequel to Circle of the Moon with a further improved upon DSS system!!
'Requiem' is a historic prayer by the name 'Kyrie Eleison'. That translates to "Lord, have mercy".
I love circle of the moon and it Was (beside aria of sorrow it was the reason I bought the collection
Circle of the Moon really is such a gem
I just beat this game at level 62 tonight. The Shining Armor from the Battle Arena definitely helped. It was insane. Even with that armor, I lost so much health every time Dracula hit me. I feel like it would have been impossible if I didn’t have that armor. Damn. That second form of Dracula was no joke. The high jump special move worked wonders when his eye was flying around. Definitely enjoyed Circle of the Moon, but the grinding to level up was a bit excessive at times. That’s my only criticism - how long it often took. Other than that, I genuinely loved the game. Onto Harmony of Dissonance next.
i tried to play this game in the Advance collection and...i could not bring myself to beat it, with how brutal CotM is and the stupidly low drop rates, i personally think it's a poorly designed game
also the fact you have to GRIND to get armor and items is something i despise, grinding is something i hate a lot, so that's another reason why i dislike this game
A quick grind to get potions!!! what game were you playing?? man I'm probably at the best farming spot for regular potions Farming the Devil Towers which have a 1.25% drop rate regular potions There are only two creatures in the game with a higher drop rate fox Archer with 1.4% and Hyena with 1.5% and I'm using two luck rings and the rainbow robe it is not any kind of quick grind Love the videos keep up the good work that one comment really Just got to me man
Hahaha, that's fair. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing about RNG, some of us just have better luck than others. But just think of all that sweet, sweet EXP you're gettin' while grinding!
@@SimplyAJ Yeah you're definitely right about that appreciate you taking the time to respond that's really awesome Of you dude
Sure thing! Thanks for takin' the time to watch the video haha @@Blitz_Ryu
Not sure about the "perfect blend of old and new tracks". This game has like 2 original songs (in the main areas at least), Awake and Fate to Despair. Both are amazing, sure, and the rest is also good remixes, including the best versions of Sinking Old Sanctuary and Big Battle, but still. Not that many original ones.
Anyway, good video as usual.
I absolutely love this title and and always going to be a little frustrated that it was removed from the
I'm gonna assume you meant to say "removed from the canon" and it got deleted haha. But yeah, I agree. I think it should have stayed as well.
I finally beat Circle of the Moon yesterday and I beat it in Magician mode today. This was the last Castlevania I played on the Advanced Collection and in the end I found it to be the most challenging, which wasn't a bad thing. There was no store. The regular potions only gave you 20 hit points. Most of the bosses were not conveniently right next to save rooms. There was a really limited amount of teleporters. Curse disabled your attack for what felt like forever. And, it was full of enemies that would constantly spawn or throw projectiles. Oh, and I did the poisoned waterway part WITHOUT getting the cleansing necklace first. OMG. A lot of stationary healing I'll tell you that! All 3 games certainly had their own feel which was awesome. The DSS system and the card combos were a lot of fun. A system I honestly prefer more than Aria of Sorrows soul mastery. Grinding the cards was way less grindy and if you did it as soon as you came across a monster that dropped a card, you were able to use those abilities throughout the game. The opposite of what happened in Aria of Sorrows. Most of the grinding was at the end to get the achievement so I never used the majority of those soul skills. Plus, this is exactly why Magician mode in Circle of the Moon was the best post game mode. It gave you all the cards from the start which made it a ton of fun to use all of those abilities for an entire playthrough. Aria of Sorrows could have benefited from a 'all souls' mode so you can play with all of the abilities from the start. Would have been nice. Julius mode and Maxim mode were weak. At this point im not sure which one was my favorite. They were all so different.
It's my favorite one. Granted I have not played SotN (though a CV should have a sword imho) or 4 just the NES titles and Legends on GB. I played HoD though and dropped it after a while; nowhere near as good and hated the graphics. The third GBA entry supposedly the best one but again there's a sword. I like CotM enough to have gone back to it and beaten it two more times (couple of years between the plays). It's VERY easy (and that's despite me never having gotten the card combination, idk how the cards work, for healing) but that's why it's just comforting to play.
Good review! Circle of the Moon is an excellent game. The brightness issue was definitely a problem back in the day, but then things like the GBA SP, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Player for Game Cube came around (and even some of us had already bought composite output mods for the OG GBA), so it wasn't an issue for long. What I enjoy the most about this one is, much like Order of Ecclesia later on, it's actually a challenging game. Also, the run and double jump mechanics made for super fun traversal of the castle. Backtracking as a result never felt painful. It's great to see the game get some love! People tend to look down on it, something I've never understood as someone that was there when it released--it was originally quite well regarded, both among avid gamers and the press.
Thanks so much! And yeah, I definitely enjoyed that it has a bit more challenge to it compared to the later games. Difficulty is probably one of the harder things to get right in these games. A lot of indie games that make their own ode to metroidvania style games tend to miss the mark and lean wayyy more into difficulty than necessary, and start drifting more into making "2D souls games" instead, so it's nice to have a good Metroidvania Castlevania game that scales (decently) well across the board.
And yeah, that's just how people are, unfortunately. I remember 2001 pretty vividly, and getting Circle of the Moon on my GBA. During that era, I spent a lot of time on various EZBoard internet forums and people definitely loved it when it came out. I think a big part of it, which is just an ongoing issue with all games unfortunately, is that people tend to base their opinions on games based off of video games NOW a days and not when a game came out. It's similar to how Simon's Quest or Zelda II are viewed. At their time of release, they were critical and financial successes, everyone loved them. Decades later people talk about the issues those games had, comparing them to where we're at with game design NOW a days, so they get a bad wrap haha. It'll forever be an ongoing issue, unfortunately.
I would like this game if it didn't feel absolutely gross to play.
And if iv didn't have to deal with the terrible RNG of the cards dropping
Like yoy, I overlooked the series growing up, and recently discovered some love for metroidvanias. Decide to play the collections on the switch.
I haven't played symphony of the night yet, but I'm playing this game for the first time.
Although I'm enjoying the game, my bigest problem was that as you find new cards, the game doesn't tell you how they work. You have to guess, experiment on them to find out what they do. This made the game a little hard for me, because I mostly ignored them until I looked up how they work.
I would never have guessed that to activate some of the cards I actualy had to do a a fighting-game-like motion on the controler.
Other than that, it's a straight foward metroidvania. I'm curious to play the other games as well.
You're selling the game pretty well... Hm I guess younger me really did miss out on lots of these games
This was my first gba game, came bundled with the gba I got for christmas. Lots of fond memories.
Still to this day I’ve never beaten the battle arena, or dracula himself. that 2nd form is tough.
I remember finally getting fed up enough to borrow my friends action replay, and I tried with cheats.
The invincibility cheat us buggy, so if you take enough damage that you’d die, the game doesn’t know what to do, and the background goes to a staticy tv with all the foreground elements still present. At the point I’d got to dracula 2, I had played //.hack a bit on Playstation 2, and thought it was a cutscene transition at first. Nope, just a “game caught you cheating” moment lol.
Good times.
Harmony of Dissonance is fun but i cant play it due to its god damn music, i cant stand it
That's completely fair, haha. It can definitely be quite distracting.
Circle isn't bad, It's a really good Castlevania Game ohyeah
Most definitely. Circle is hella fun
I'm going to be in the minority but I honestly think this game is awful.
Nathan moves like a Belmont in the Classicvania titles but he's put in a Metroidvania castle with annoyingly vertical level design that loves to waste your time making you move though winding rooms. His regular move speed is extremely low and he pratically jumps vertically, and the dash has an incredibly clunky input and would probably be better as a regular movement speed.
The combat is quite bad, as you can skip enemies in the wide open rooms that make up the game (much like other Igavanias, making the Classicvania movement entirely redundant) and the whip feels worse than the other Belmonts', including Juste from the following game, as it has no range and only attacks in front of you.
The bosses have just horrifically cheap and tedious fights, as they move way too fast for the dash you're given (they play like they were designed for a character with Juste's mobility, not Nathan's), they attack you from off-screen, have repetitive patterns that don't allow you to attack since you have to waste a ton of time to adjust your position and to beat the flying ones like Death and Camilla you either need the broken Cross subweapon or a good DSS combination (ideally both).
The graphics are honestly pretty cheap, with small sprites, few frames of animation and occasional misalligned backgrounds, aside from the admittedly good color palettes.
Lastly, the DSS and items are strictly tied to RNG (and potions are basically useless) and the way the Strenght and Intelligence stats work is less than ideal.
Nah, I wouldn't say you're in the minority. Quite a lot of people aren't a fan of this game, especially when compared to Aria of Sorrow, or any of the DS games. I'll be the first to admit that to a degree, nostalgia also plays a part in how much I love this game. I was 15 when Circle of the Moon came out, and besides the earlier entries, there was nothing else to compare it to. It was the only Castlevania game on GBA, so it left a pretty solid impression on me. I could easily see how if someone played this game today for the first time, they might not be a fan, but I also try my hardest to not judge games of the past on today's standards of quality either, since there's no way a company can really have 20+ years of foresight haha.
@@SimplyAJ And I respect your opinion. I didn't mean to bring down the people who like the game. I tend to be rather strong in the language I use.
I have to say, though, that I played both Circle and Harmony of Dissonance for the first time this year (while I had already played Aria years ago, hence my profile picture) and I found a lot to love in the latter, and very little in the former.
I don't think it's modern quality standards at play.
@@nicoloenricorimoldi7425 I don't think you brought anyone down haha. Honestly, I'm all for hearing differing opinions than my own, cause it gives me a different viewpoint on the medium. Nothin' wrong with not liking something, if ya don't like it, ya don't like it, but I do find it genuinely interesting to hear why, so your initial comment is definitely a welcome one haha.
At the very least, like you said, you played it recently, so you at least gave it an honest try. At the very least, you ended up liking Harmony, so at least you got a new game to enjoy out of the situation.
We really are just throwing the word "masterpiece" around nowadays aren't we. There's a very good reason it's overlooked - it's just not very good. The game is SLOW, movement is clunky, the DSS system is garbage, the bosses rely on RNG for difficulty, exploration is boring and very linear, I could go on. Honestly I can see why most people just skip this one, especially when there's so many other Castlevania games that do the same thing but far, far more competently.
I think this game's version of the Bloodlines track absolutely trounces the original, and I usually find cover versions inferior.
I’ve watched all three of your GBA Castlevania reviews but I don’t think you ever rank them. What do you think is the best/worst?
So, I always have a hard time like "ranking" games, cause I think it depends entirely on my mood at the time. It's like picking a favorite song or something haha.
If I had to, I'd say it's extremely close between CoTM and Aria, followed by HoD. I definitely have more nostalgia for CoTM, since it was the first of the GBA games. Aria is just a very GOOD game, but in a weird way that almost makes it like a little (and I mean very little) more "boring?" It's so safe. It looks, and sounds amazing, and hands down probably has the best gameplay, but I think CoTM still ranks higher for me because it just capture a bit more of that "Castlevania Magic" I wanted. It feels like a perfect blend between the classic games and the new.
HoD coming in last is mainly just due to the fact that music is extremely important for me to get immersed in a game, and unfortunately, as I mentioned in that vid, the music of HoD is just not... great. That and the back and forth between the two castles can be kind of a mess, when really not much changes besides enemy placement.
So yeah I guess for now let's just say 1. CoTM 2. Aria 3. HoD haha
@@SimplyAJ Awesome, thank you for the breakdown! I bought Castlevania Advance Collection a few days ago and currently am a few hours into HoD. The music is horrible, like its composition but especially the actual sound quality. No good lol. And the characters being outlined is weird too. But I’m enjoying it a lot and will play CotM next and then Aria. Thanks again man and Big Ups!
@@BlondeMcGuinn For sure! I think the character outlines was just to help make them stand out a bit more. Coming off the heels of CoTM, IGA kind of "overcorrected" as CoTM was constantly talked about as being "too dark" and hard for people to see. But really that was due to the fact that the GBA had no backlight when it came out, so when you go to play it on the Advance Collection, you shouldn't have any issues, visually speaking anyway.
That dance. 🤣
I’m a professional Magician Main in this game and have completed the Battle Arena without cheesing it. This is my favorite Castlevania game and it’s not even close.
Hmm, I saw this game at my local game shop. I should go pick it up since it was $19.
Also, you did a good job with your video review. Subscribed.
Edit: I bought it 😊
Can you make a video on Castlevania Advance Collection?
So, the Advance Collection had actually come out just after I released this video, and I did end up covering the other two games in it as well. I haven't covered Dracula X just yet, but will in due time.
I suppose some point I could cover the Advance Collection as a whole, but I don't know if there's much there that I could add that hasn't already been talked about in my individual videos on each game.
This is the game that introduced me to the series, and led me to seek out and play the older titles at the time. I was enamored. It’s still among my favorite game in the series. The bonus modes effectively being different character classes is really cool. I like the “canon” storyline, but it isn’t terribly important to me because classic Castlevania as a whole doesn’t really have that complex of a narrative.
So, WHEN is this supposed to get hard?
I bought it a few days ago for Switch and find it easy to the point of boredom.
Almost every enemy dies of one whiplash, I beat two bosses (the big hellhound and the reaper with the spheres) and I didn't die once.
It's still not getting any more difficult.
I am an average player and find most Castlevanias to be very hard.
Same with Mega Man, Hollow Knight and Blasphemous.
Am I missing something?
Is the whole Internet setting me up?
Does anybody have the same experience?
Maybe they totally nerfed it?
Please, somebody explain that to me!
I honestly love this game and cannot shake the feeling that some of Iga's criticism has a mixture of resentment or envy. My preferred aspect of CotM is its simplicity: its a bite size metroidvania and you can beat it in one sitting if you know what you're doing, leaving a really great replay value. This must be the metroidvania I finished the most times. Only great flaw I see on this game is the Pluto card, you should be able to get it ways before the endgame.
sooo I have mostly only ever played the GBA games, CotM being my first and I also played and enjoyed Castlevania 64.. 😋
Castlevania.
Castlevania?
Castle. Vania.
Fun fact: I once made a Super Smash Bros Brawl custom level called CastlePania.
I didn't really like this game. I think I borrowed this from a friend and somehow managed to beat it. 2:40 That's not canon. That came out after SOTN? That game looks archaic as hell.
This game is basically an Austrian Castlevania and not a Romanian one. 6:47 That is not what showed up when I searched it. I saw a lot of Victorian style dresses.
Awake is awesome though.
I don't remember how I defeated Dracula. 18:41 Never seen that.
The main problem with the DSS system is that you only need two cards, to have them all.
When you press L+R while Nathan is shining, press start, and change the card arragament, go back to game and voila, you have any combination from the game start basically
I almost brought this up, hence my dumb little text joke at 0:19:34 , but ultimately, a glitch like that wasn't exactly wide spread or known when the game first came out (and really is only known to die hard Castlevania fans anyway), so I'm not really holding it against the game itself for having that glitch. Now, if it was a glitch that was unavoidable entirely and you couldn't NOT do it, then that'd be another story haha.
@@SimplyAJ 100% agree. But yeah when you know it you can break the game very easily, early bosses become a joke
@@SimplyAJ It was probably a debug tool used by bug testers left in the game. Some of these glitches are actually debug testing modes.
@@Relugus That's also entirely possible, yeah. QA Shortcuts that never got removed. Konami Code all over again.
Very cheesy lol. I don’t like abusing that myself XD.
If you want all the DSS Cards right away I say do it the legit way and play Magician Mode lol
Im trying to play it in an emulator on my phone but i find the controls too stiff is that normal?
I mean, it's essentially the Classicvania controls in a Metroidvania style game, so they ARE a bit more stiff, than say, Aria of Sorrow. I think people who played the original games, pre SoTN, can find a bit more enjoyment to be had from Circle, just because of being used to the slightly stiffer controls haha
Just gotta get used to it, for me going from symphony of the night to circle of the moon made circle feel stiff as hell, but when going to harmony of dissonance or back to symphony after playing circle, it made those 2 games feel loose and floaty as hell. I think both styles feel good to play, but playing one style too long makes the other feel odd for a bit
i feel that the 64 games get so much free hate. legacy of dakness ironed the worst problems, making it a pretty interesting and enjoyable experience.
Still.. circle of the moon is a certainly interesting experience... but i think it have aged pretty well, considering that it greatly benefitted the lits screens of the new, anywhere you want to play it, but in the original advance? gosh that thing was dark, and not in the cool way.
literally the reason of juste ugly aura and aria of sorrow brighter pallette.
I don't know if I'd call this game a masterpiece, the item economy has to be the worst one I've seen in a game since the og pmd games, so in terms of metroidvania castlevania it's the weakest without a dodge button, stable item economy and decent drop rates. But my god if you're looking for classic castlevania with a metroidvania flare it's amazing. Especially with the dss system, it's a the best secobdary system in the gba series, with the soul system a close second, the whip tip system in harmony if dissonance is the worst, i never used the elemenal whips and just chise the steel and platinum tips
Circle of the Moon is definitely a good game, but a little rough.
It'll be very helpful If you could backdash, and running could be toggled with a button.
A lot of my frustrations came from the running mechanic, especially. Walking is far too slow. I think it'll be better if walking was the same speed as running, and running was a bit faster.
As for the soundtrack, I definitely like it. However, I think there's just not enough to differentiate each area like the others did.
Castlevania: Advance Collection on Steam. :)
Yeeeup, gotta love how they announced that a week after I made this. Oh well, still glad it exists!
And other platforms!! Imo it feels most natural with the Nintendo Switch version which I have
I just got this game in an lot on ebay that I bought for megaman zero, and this ended up being the game I played, I spent 4 days playing it and loved every bit of it (except for that section full of marionettes and bloody swords) really great game, especially if you use that rom hack that auto runs for you
Oh yeah, the marionettes and bloody swords are pretty awful, especially if you get cursed. But, glad you enjoyed the game, definitely would love to see people play it more! Any plans on checking out the other GBA Castlevania games?
@@SimplyAJ Oh absolutely, I also plan to pick up the ds ones
I love your personal stories man. So often I watch these gaming retrospective videos and there is just no personality, it's refreshing to hear your thoughts and anecdotes about the games as you were playing them real time. Also I think you hit the nail on the head when describing this game. It's really charming and has such cool aspects about it, and genuinely might be the hardest igavania. But when it comes to the GBA's even HoD in it's complete mediocrity gets talked about more, such a bummer.
I honestly appreciate that so much haha. Sometimes when I write these out, or start recording, I'm like "is anyone really gonna care about some weird story from my childhood 20+ years ago?" so, it's nice to know it resonates well haha.
This game was pretty awesome at the time, a huge upgrade going from GBC and GG being a launch title (or close?). Still one of my fave igavanias and you can mod out some of the issues with it
I actually haven't looked into any rom hacks or mods, but would be curious to see what's out there.
@@SimplyAJ There’s nothing really major. But there’s one where you play as Hugh but the dialog works the same so it’s a little weird. Lol.
And then someone made a hack making the DSS Cards placed items in place of a bunch of the max up items.
But it would be nice to see a full rom hack of the game that makes it kinda like playing a whole new game but with the same core mechanics.
I wonder if modding the game would be more possible with the Steam PC release of the Advance Collection
@@Gamerdude535 sadly modders have put all their attention into Aria of Sorrow. You can even randomize it and you have hacks that completely change the game such as Aria of Sorrow Alter.
Sadly CotM is overlooked also in terms of hacks
The first gba game I played. Circle of the moon and aria of sorrow are flawless games
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is my all-time favorite game in the franchise. It's got an interesting gameplay style in the DSS card system, a great aesthetic along with an absolutely KINO soundtrack and did I mention it has four, count them, FOUR additional challenge modes for colossal replay value?!
This game it's just
*Chef's Kiss*
Perfection.
Yeah it's honestly surprising to me that a game that wasn't made by IGA was so well made, honestly. I think it was the perfect blend of Classic and Modern style games. Such a shame that IGA disliked it.
@@SimplyAJ Ol' IGA can say this is non-canon, but it'll always be canon to me; Personally. I like to slot it in between Legacy of Darkness and Order of Ecclesia.
the game is one of my best games in the past
For sure! It's such a fantastic entry into the series.
my favourite GBA game. And I played it, on the GBA. Still have it too :)
I'm thankful for iga make castlevania but i don't care what he said about this game
Ha! Nice joke. Quick Grinding for item in Circle of the Moon
Love this
One of my all time favorite games, Wish Konami would sell Nathan's boots and shin guards those baseball slides are OP.
Just sell Nathan's whole ass outfit, I'd wear it.
When i heard awaken's remaster in SSBU... I shed a tear in absolute joy. Circle was my first metroidvania, and while certainly not my favorite, the music stuck with me the most. It felt the most in tune with the idea of being a monster slaying badass on your way to take on *the* vampire, and i was sad to honestly never hear it another time
Agreed! The music in Circle really was special, and that's from someone who HAD played previous CV games before hand haha. It just gets you pumped right out the gate, but also had this unique... GBA Era Uniqueness to it.