Richter: Die monster, you don’t belong in this world! Alucard: Trouble the soul of my mother no longer! Nathan: YOU AINT FROM MICHIGAN IF YOU NEVER DONE THIS BEFO
It's actually a lot easier to figure out which element the Neptune combos will give. All the other cards have a specific element to them, and Neptune doesn't change what element it's going to be. So the Salamander, for example, which gives you a fire whip, a fireball shield, a fire sword... lets you absorb fire. That's true through all the cards.
@@ahomestucker Which card would that be? Here is the list: Attribute Cards --------------- Salamander - Fire Serpent - Ice/Water Mandragoras - Plant Golem - Earth Cockarice - Stone Manticore - Poison Griffon - Wind Thunderbird - Lighting Unicorn - Holy Black dog - Dark All of these have a clear theme going for them, to the point that you don't even need the description for most of them to guess the element/theme.
@@Bronzescorpion serpent, black dog, and manticore were not as easy to know from name alone, and since i didnt use them all that much i didnt realize they had an elemental theme to them. i realized griffin was all fire and unicorn was light, but i didnt think it applied to all of them. also notice how u said u didnt need the description to guess the theme for "most of them" that implies you may need the description for some of them and i needed said description even if it was kinda obvious. i just missed it. it happens
@@ahomestucker Said description was given in game, so it is a far cry from having to look anything up on the internet. I also don't get how you couldn't see that black dog = dark, it is almost part of the name. Manticore may be a little harder, since you need some basic mythological knowledge, but it is literally a creature famed for its deadly poison from its scorpion tail. For me the only two that isn't immediate is, salamander, serpent and mandragoras and the later is only because "plant" as an element is rather uncommon.
@@Bronzescorpion are u kidding? mandragoras is one of the easiest ones. also if u think plant is an uncommon element, what about posion or stone, huh? thats why the manticore confused me, cus its kinda weird to have an entire card for poison. and for stuff like black dog, its easy to realize when you know theres an elemental theme to all of them :P
The cross/boomerang isn't useless, it's arguably the most powerful weapon in the game, better than any DSS combination. It is incredible at crowd control and if you take the time to learn how to use it you can get it to stop advancing right on the enemy, causing multiple back to back hits and causing massive damage. You can spam them incredibly quickly and some of the DSS combos do a great job at boosting it even further. The Axe and Holy Water are less useful overall but fill excellent niches for specific boss battles. The Adramelech (goat thing boss) is one of the toughest fights in the game and the cross and axe all provide a great way to deal damage to it. The Holy Water sees less utility against bosses but serves as great crowd control later on, especially when dealing with the 'X' Armor enemies. The knife is kind of useless outside of fighter mode though.
yeah this guy has no idea what he's talking about. once i picked uo the boomerang it didn't take long to figure out it's the toughest thing in your arsenal. i barely even used the cards. i used the fire sword for certain enemies like medusa heads that are not as easy to hit with the whip, and i used the attack up based on map % on some boss fights. but as long as i had a boomerang i could essily make it throgh the game without cards.
*2007 nathan's str is kinda insane in this game but yeah, even if holy water is a bit weaker since most enemies you'd want more damage for are flying or don't stay in one place, cross is still good tho
The moment you brought up the card glitch, I immediately went to check if it still works in the Castlevania Advanced Collection on the Switch. Turns out, it still works. Thanks for the tip Pikasprey
I remember spending hours on this game. I couldn't speak english at all so it took me a lot of time to understand how to use the cards. I should go back to complete it.
would have been a better boss fight if they just dropped the transformation and left her as is for the fight. they go a bit overboard with transformations in these games. they could have made her equally or more tough of a fight without the need to have transform into a huge beast.
yup agreed, i love the gba castlevanias all of them are good games with nice game system. The DS games are pretty good too, they introduce nice mechanics
yeah, the boomerang is tough as hell in that game. you can throw 3 at a time which does far more damage than anything else you can do. it's like this guy never even played the game if he thinks the axe is the best sub weapon. i think boomerangs make much of the game too easy. i one shot many bosses that should have killed me at least once by spamming boomerangs at them. don't even have to strategize really, just keep throwing and you'll often kill them before they can kill you.
Your ability to use DSS is not disable in arena, your mp just got drain pretty quickly, you can use DSS before all you mp is drain, then you can use MP potion and repeat it again. All arena staged can pretty much be cheesed this way with summoning DSS.
I remember this was definitely the first game I got for my GBA. And it was amazing for the time. Still holds up today too. This particular Castlevania game will always have a special place in my heart.
It's a god dam crime that these don't get as many veiws as your pokemon stuff. Hell, I prefer these! (gem collecting is the best series on this channel in my opinion. Fight me.)
I disagree with subweapons being weak in Your opinion. You can actually aim the cross at the angle to make it stay at the enemys sprite and spam it to make tons of damage. Requires some practice and slow enemy( most of dangerous enemies are very slow or have openings for this weapon). Cross helps also with keeping distance(mainly with one of the last bosses, Hugh)
That's what I was thinking as well . I completed nearly the entire game by utilising the cross . Only after I started going around and picking up the things I missed , leveling up etc. did I make any actual use of the dss system
It's just feels so much fun hearing you talk about Castlevania and it's definitely increasing my hype for blood-stained all the more since it just got announced.
I just wanted to quickly say: Each card contains a description, which tells you more or less the domains of the card. The absorption combination becomes easier to guess that way. Also, by wearing full Intelligence items and activating the +25% Intelligence spell, you regenerate magic very quickly, so it does have its use.
@@dmas7749 I used Jupiter + Mandragora religiously in my playthrough lmao. Saved my ass more times than I can count. Probably why my playtime was over 12 hours lmao
borjitasstoi It made a little bit more sense with Fire Emblem 7 since it was the first game in the West. This is far from the first Castlevania game in Europe so it’s a bit odd to just call it Castlevania.
I love the subweapons in this game. Especially the throwing cross. That thing is a real boss killer and it has great combinations with some magic cards.
8:15 Did you not realize that each of the bottom cards was connected with a specific element? The top card is the effect and the bottom card is the element attached to that effect.
No mention of the dragon boss? That was sick and TOUGH. how many times I died to it as a kid, who knows... But I will always remember it as one of the hardest bosses I've ever defeated in a game. Underrated gem, I had lots of fun with this game
The Venus Intelligence combo actually is useful in "Magician mode" and in endgame situations with no items once your level and equipment gets your base intelligence high enough.
The cross and the axe are fine subweapons agains bosses. The axes are just the best thing to get the enemy in angle and the cross to stack a buch of damage.
As a kid I always wondered how to activate all of the Uranus cards, and back then there was no internet. Out of sheer luck from button-mashing and going through every single part of the map to see whether the card could help me unlock some secret map or ability, I finally managed to summon Cocktraice , and boy, was I scared during the time to see a chicken flying through the map.
@@demiremiBack around 2001 on the GBA, it's really hard to find guides like that and the internet was not only scarce but really slow. Most of the time I play my GBA on hand and rarely do I wonder myself how to connect to the internet and search for guides. The internet also wasn't that prevalent as it is now hence I've mentioned that it wasn't that accessible
@@VigiIancex well even back then i had no problem finding guides on the internet back then, that's way i said that. i will agree the internet was slow and not everyone had access to it but they were around.
9:20 If I recall correctly, at least in SotN, instead of randomly punching in a sequence, you could buy scrolls from the Librarian which contained the combination of buttons required to unleash one of the spells. The more you progressed into the game, the more were available for purchase.
Yup. My stupid child mind was blown when I instinctively went to use Hellfire before buying it on a new playthrough only to discover that it *_worked._*
8:27 not exactly. Each attribute card is a specific element. As long as you know the element of the effect card its not hard to figure out what the others do. Except for pluto.
What? The cross is the best damage dealing thing in the game and it consumes quite a bit of harts per use. I can't even imagine getting through the arena without it and a healthy supply of hearts.
I think Camilla might be a reference to Carmilla. There was a book about her that came out 26 years before Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Carmilla was the original ancient vampire with a scary castle. And also a lesbian.
The increase intelligence is only useful as mage. As mage, you have a high amount of INT, and basically 100 INT will offset 1/TIME, so if you have more than 1600 INT, using that ability will regenerate your MP faster. Also worth noting should be the arena, the ultimate challenge. MPs are constantly drained, so using DSS is hard (but not impossible). Still, you need quite a few potions to use DSS. I can say, that I have beaten the game with 100% map discovery and level 99 with fighter, mage and thief. (That was when I was 10 years younger.) And playing as the different classes is fun once you start to rely on their strength and (ab)use that: * Mage: Use strong DSS combos. Get enough INT to stay invulnerable without MP loss. * Fighter: Learn the attack pattern of your enemies. With some luck you find some potions, but otherwise your only source of HP are save points. * Shooter: Who said sub-weapons are useless? * Thief: You are useless. But at least you have a constant income of potions, and also finding those rare cards isn't that hard. As vampire hunter you probably never lay your hands on that powerful Uranus card. Mage has it, Fighter doesn't need it, and Thief can get it. About the exploit with DSS changing while activating: Yes, I know, but using it makes the game just boring. Why play as mage when you can just play as vampire hunter and still use all the cards?
Definitely not the best of the metroidvania Castlevanias but it will always have a special place for me since this was my introduction to that genre, the realization that areas weren't divided into levels and that the entire castle was one giant interconnected environment was mind-blowing to someone that grew up on mostly Donkey Kong and Mario. I think my main issue with it is that the primary mechanical gimmick of the DSS cards probably shouldn't have been tied to random drops, it really seems like the kind of thing you'd want to scatter around the world as exploration loot. Maybe I was just really unlucky but I think I only had a couple cards per row by the end of my first playthrough. Also fuck the zombie dragons. I've gone back to replay the game several times but I always seem to bail at that part, it's likely that I just suck but it seems like a pretty steep increase in difficulty that always leads to grinding levels to just brute force them. Very cool boss design but just knowing that I'll have to fight them again is usually enough to get me to just go replay Aria of Sorrow again instead.
You can always cheese the zombie dragons. During my first playthrough I learned that I could stay on top of the left head and swing the whip around. Combining this with my favorite DSS the poison cloud shield, you could position yourself, so you would never get hit and you would slowly chip away the damage. Standing about the right head was only viable if the left was dead, as it could hit you. I know it is exploiting the level, but for me as a kid, it probably was the thing that made me complete the game, instead of giving up. My only big grind was for Dracula and then I knew it was the final boss.
The only thing i disaggree with you is the "take damage with multiple enemies to figure out the heal on damage combo" issue. Each second row card is based on an element that should give you the clue as to what kind of thing it will do/enemy you should find. Like Salamander is fire, Black Dog (note the word Black) is dark, Unicorn (a holy, rare creature) is light, Mandragora is a plant-thing so earth, so on.
Have you ever checked out Shaman King Master of Spirits on GBA? From what I can tell it runs on the same code as the later GBA Castlevania games and although it separates maps into chunks (still has secrets and upgrades and a big connected map) it plays really well even if you have never heard of or watched Shaman King. It's almost like having a 4th of these games for GBA
I think the reason you start off slow is because it’s giving one last nod to the GB Castlevania games, cuz in these games, you’re stuck at a snails pace from start to finish. It’s like it’s saying “hey! You know those slow GB games? Well not anymore. Now you can run.”
Wow, I came back a year later, having forgotten I already commented... And I was gonna leave this exact comment. Glad past me was just as disappointed in him forgetting about that fight.
This is such an awesome game! Finally played it a couple years back and it's one of my favorite gba games now. I still have yet to play through Aria of Sorrow and the others
If I may, the best DSS combo for Dracula's eyeball form surrounded by bats is to summon the thunderbird. The birds thunderbolts penetrate multiple targets, unlike other summon projectiles which disintegrate on impact. At high enough levels tge thunderbird will one shot the eyeball
who possess the ability to reconstruct the castle now that you became a vampire, you gain super speed, super strength, morph, fight & knowledge in architecture
I think people don't mention the soundtrack because it's pretty much "Castlevania's Greatest Hits". There's some good original stuff that tends to be overshadowed by the remixes of classic music.
@@dexthegamer3234 you sure like putting words in people's mouths, don't you? i guess expecting a normal conversation without becoming passive agressive nowadays is too much to ask for. I'm outta here.
I never would have given this game a chance if not for you. It just never appealed to me years ago when I played Aria of Sorrow. You made this game look really interesting so now I'm having a blast playing it on the Castlevania GBA collection. Thanks.
This was the first castlevania game I ever played as a kid, and I loved it. I also loved the fact that I had the same last name as the protagonist. It was a very challenging game, though, and there were quite a few areas I got stuck on (especially the damn water area).
The elemental absorption combo really isn't a big deal as every bottom-row card has an obvious element that you can quickly and easily figure out by using it with any other non-passive top card (i.e. Mercury which you'll ALWAYS have and simply covers your whip with an obvious element). I guess it's still a bit of an issue to figure out which enemy _attacks_ are which element though as some can be odd and the later ones can be very hard to find.
This was the first game I got for my GBA back in the old days, and I definitely enjoyed it, despite its flaws. (7:22) Totally agree with you on the "???" descriptions. I only knew how to use the DSS combos that required a half-circle motion because of Nintendo Power. (9:38) Yeah, there's no point in the intelligence-boosting DSS combo unless you already have like over 500 intelligence or something, so that the combo actually recovers your MP faster than it would naturally recover. And, even if intelligence affected the power level of some spells, you can't use other DSS combo while you have this combo active, making it pointless anyway. (10:58) Yep, I remember reading about that glitch in Nintendo Power. I definitely toyed around with that. (Although I think I had already beaten the game normally first, so it's not like the glitch spoiled my first playthrough back then.) (13:45) Huh, I don't think I ever noticed that seam in the background before. Maybe it was simply less noticeable on the old unlit GBA. (17:30) I had fun trying low-level runs of this game using the Fighter class, where it's not too hard to beat the game in the mid-30s for level.
I’ve loved this game since I was a kid and have been playing it randomly on and off for over 20 years. Glad they released it on the switch! To me this is the best castlevania game
after getting the castlevania advance collection and beating the 3 metroidvania games honestly i think that circle of the moon looks the best of the 3 games.
I feel the issue of the "you don't know what element you will absorb" is kind of moot since each card has a specific element attached to it. So, once you figure out what neptune does with one card you can extrapolate that to every other card.
i love all the GBA and DS castlevanias, they're all pretty good and they all are different in a way. I don't remember the names but on gba the one with the 2 castles overlapping i remember it as a real good moment and a pretty long life. And on DS the one with the girl where you can launch from hanging points and use arts with the stylus was really fun to play
So long as you have one action card, and one attribute card, you can have access to ALL the cards(via glitch). Choose whatever cards you have you want to use, press the button to activate the ability. IMMEDIATELY go into the pause menu and go into DSS. Move the cursors for the cards to ones you don't have(the last 2 on the bottom are Unicorn(holy) and Black Dog(dark) cards) Once you have the cursors over the cards you want, back out the menus back into the game and once the animation finishes for activating the power of your DSS cards, it will now be the power you glitched. It wears off once MP is depleted, or you turn off the power. If you turn it off, you have to redo the glitch. Very useful if you know what combinations are which you want to use.
Cross is the most OP item, every subweapon gets boosted in shooter mode and i think one DSS combo also boosts sub weapons. His whip isn't called vampirekiller, but vampirekiller is the name of nathan's starting class. And you forgot 2 biggest offenders for figuring out DSS combos : -regen HP while standing still (it's standing still for like 5 seconds to put nathan in his idle animation before it activates) -and the other one while walking. Who would figure that out if we are running all the time ? As for replay value, after killing camilla, there are optional bosses and candles which spawn around the map and drop the best items in the game. (Not counting battle arena).
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was the first game I got for the Game Boy. Weirdly enough, on my first playthrough, I did not encounter a single boss-fight apart from Dracula at the end. Only when I played through a second time, I got the usual encounters. I could never reproduce that and I can't find anything about that online. Has anyone experienced the same thing? Is this a known bug?
9:08 "There is no indication in the game anywhere" Ummmm,I might be wrong since I never played the game,but from what I can see on the screen there's an indication of that half circle motion +attack button you were describing right there in the description box
wow my second being early to a pikasprey video either im blessed or i have the power to involuntarily travel through time which would actually be a terrible power just hanging out then randomly you are in medieval times and you're infected with the black plague
My first Castlevania. It was definitely supplanted by the other games in the series for my favorites, but this game definitely has its charms and its hella nostalgic for me.
Disagree about the subweapons. One of them anyway, spamming the cross is extremely effective. And the DSS Attribute cards will tell you what they represent, making it way easier to figure out how to gain health with Neptune. When hit, you even flash a different colour depending on the kind of damage it was. Yes, the 2nd Dracula battle sucks. Uranus + Thunderbird = Win.
You mention Uranus combos being a "full screen attack" twice, but both times the B-roll is Unicorn, which is the only one that isn't an attack at all. Isn't that something? Also the Cross is nasty strong.
When getting footage, I realized that all of them besides the Unicorn have some really awkward flashing effects. I didn't want to show them for the sake of epileptic viewers.
Very late comment, this, but oh well. In the pause menu, the "Card" tab contains a description of each card, given that they are collected. This allows the player to figure out the effects of card when paired in the DSS. For example, the Salamander Card's description has "...the power of Fire" meaning that any card paired with it will have Fire-related effects.
When are you gunna complete Castlevania with only a Ditto?
Try to complete it with only a male combee
“Completing two Castlevania games with one controller”
plz
He’s gonna beat it with a Magikarp permanently holding an Everstone.
Can you beat Castlevania with only a Ditto/Slakoth/6 Smeargle?
*Dracula:* At last, I--
*Nathan:* Gun.
Nathan for smash, special is GUN
Richter: Die monster, you don’t belong in this world!
Alucard: Trouble the soul of my mother no longer!
Nathan: YOU AINT FROM MICHIGAN IF YOU NEVER DONE THIS BEFO
Ah yes, the eclipse caliber
It's actually a lot easier to figure out which element the Neptune combos will give. All the other cards have a specific element to them, and Neptune doesn't change what element it's going to be. So the Salamander, for example, which gives you a fire whip, a fireball shield, a fire sword... lets you absorb fire. That's true through all the cards.
oh shit. i feel like an idiot for not realising this ,, though in my defense some of the other cards are a bit more difficult to figure out
@@ahomestucker Which card would that be? Here is the list:
Attribute Cards
---------------
Salamander - Fire
Serpent - Ice/Water
Mandragoras - Plant
Golem - Earth
Cockarice - Stone
Manticore - Poison
Griffon - Wind
Thunderbird - Lighting
Unicorn - Holy
Black dog - Dark
All of these have a clear theme going for them, to the point that you don't even need the description for most of them to guess the element/theme.
@@Bronzescorpion serpent, black dog, and manticore were not as easy to know from name alone, and since i didnt use them all that much i didnt realize they had an elemental theme to them. i realized griffin was all fire and unicorn was light, but i didnt think it applied to all of them.
also notice how u said u didnt need the description to guess the theme for "most of them" that implies you may need the description for some of them and i needed said description even if it was kinda obvious. i just missed it. it happens
@@ahomestucker Said description was given in game, so it is a far cry from having to look anything up on the internet.
I also don't get how you couldn't see that black dog = dark, it is almost part of the name. Manticore may be a little harder, since you need some basic mythological knowledge, but it is literally a creature famed for its deadly poison from its scorpion tail.
For me the only two that isn't immediate is, salamander, serpent and mandragoras and the later is only because "plant" as an element is rather uncommon.
@@Bronzescorpion are u kidding? mandragoras is one of the easiest ones. also if u think plant is an uncommon element, what about posion or stone, huh? thats why the manticore confused me, cus its kinda weird to have an entire card for poison. and for stuff like black dog, its easy to realize when you know theres an elemental theme to all of them :P
The cross/boomerang isn't useless, it's arguably the most powerful weapon in the game, better than any DSS combination. It is incredible at crowd control and if you take the time to learn how to use it you can get it to stop advancing right on the enemy, causing multiple back to back hits and causing massive damage. You can spam them incredibly quickly and some of the DSS combos do a great job at boosting it even further. The Axe and Holy Water are less useful overall but fill excellent niches for specific boss battles. The Adramelech (goat thing boss) is one of the toughest fights in the game and the cross and axe all provide a great way to deal damage to it. The Holy Water sees less utility against bosses but serves as great crowd control later on, especially when dealing with the 'X' Armor enemies.
The knife is kind of useless outside of fighter mode though.
Well spoken! I agree completely.
YES
"The knife is kind of useless outside of fighter mode though." Shouldn't it say shooter mode as the knife can become a homing projectile in that mode.
yeah this guy has no idea what he's talking about. once i picked uo the boomerang it didn't take long to figure out it's the toughest thing in your arsenal. i barely even used the cards. i used the fire sword for certain enemies like medusa heads that are not as easy to hit with the whip, and i used the attack up based on map % on some boss fights. but as long as i had a boomerang i could essily make it throgh the game without cards.
Tbf Knife always sucks when it isn't Sotn
5:35 The axe is only kinda ok *Proceeds to deal 2006 damage with axe*
*2007
nathan's str is kinda insane in this game
but yeah, even if holy water is a bit weaker since most enemies you'd want more damage for are flying or don't stay in one place, cross is still good tho
Dylan Bussell
Raiyan Chowdhury Yes?
@@dmas7749 holly cross is my main weapon, it does more dmg then nathen for me
@@muffet1536: cross tends to be my go to weapon in most games, it's good defensively too as it cancels certain projectiles
13:43
Nathan looks at the background when the arrow appears
Nathan's just like "oh my god, wow"
Not gonna lie, that was pretty funny
it's so subtle but when you notice it. It just works
He must have planned that XD That's really good~
He is going along with pikasprey
The moment you brought up the card glitch, I immediately went to check if it still works in the Castlevania Advanced Collection on the Switch.
Turns out, it still works. Thanks for the tip Pikasprey
I remember spending hours on this game. I couldn't speak english at all so it took me a lot of time to understand how to use the cards.
I should go back to complete it.
That's how I got into Castlevania in the first place
@Boco Corwin Do you remember the name of the show?
@Boco Corwin extr@? if so that’s because it’s what it was designed for lol
Me: Camilla is hot.
Me after transformation: ... and kinky.
Sick bruh
Jk, think whatever you want
Final Score Castlevania Judgment Camillia?
Stfu
would have been a better boss fight if they just dropped the transformation and left her as is for the fight. they go a bit overboard with transformations in these games. they could have made her equally or more tough of a fight without the need to have transform into a huge beast.
Not enough Camilla r34 out there
This is one of my favorite Castlevania games, jank and all.
yup agreed, i love the gba castlevanias all of them are good games with nice game system. The DS games are pretty good too, they introduce nice mechanics
Lol I just Bought this one
@@Utubesuxmycock 'tis unfair to not play a little bit of the intro song Requiem
It's my favourite
@Jugo me too, I just finished it again
I never realized it was Camilla's castle, damnit.
Castle's a castle.
I love these videos. The quality of them is definitely worth the wait. Keep up the good work!
5:35 "DSS makes subweapons obsolete"
*laughs in Battle Arena*
yeah, the boomerang is tough as hell in that game. you can throw 3 at a time which does far more damage than anything else you can do. it's like this guy never even played the game if he thinks the axe is the best sub weapon. i think boomerangs make much of the game too easy. i one shot many bosses that should have killed me at least once by spamming boomerangs at them. don't even have to strategize really, just keep throwing and you'll often kill them before they can kill you.
legit my first thought was "wow this dude thought the cross was bad? that's like the only thing anyone ever uses in this game"
Your ability to use DSS is not disable in arena, your mp just got drain pretty quickly, you can use DSS before all you mp is drain, then you can use MP potion and repeat it again. All arena staged can pretty much be cheesed this way with summoning DSS.
@@VanceHelw With that stupid Minotaur room, it feels like that was the intended way to beat it
He's not totally wrong about sub-weapons being bad, expect for the cross, the cross is actually the best weapon in the game besides Big Bone.
Thank you so much!!!
You got me into the Castlevania series, now they are some of my favourite games of all time
I remember this was definitely the first game I got for my GBA.
And it was amazing for the time.
Still holds up today too.
This particular Castlevania game will always have a special place in my heart.
It's a god dam crime that these don't get as many veiws as your pokemon stuff. Hell, I prefer these! (gem collecting is the best series on this channel in my opinion. Fight me.)
And even when it's not pokemon there are people Talking About Pokemon....
@@Next-xm2dh yup :c
@@MxPokirby I still like his Pokémon stuff (it's how I found him :p) thanks for the criticism, I am not a good critic in the slightest ;-;
Castlevania series is still better.
@@MxPokirby No one was putting down Pokemon, they were just wishing his other stuff got as much attention.
I disagree with subweapons being weak in Your opinion. You can actually aim the cross at the angle to make it stay at the enemys sprite and spam it to make tons of damage. Requires some practice and slow enemy( most of dangerous enemies are very slow or have openings for this weapon). Cross helps also with keeping distance(mainly with one of the last bosses, Hugh)
That's what I was thinking as well . I completed nearly the entire game by utilising the cross . Only after I started going around and picking up the things I missed , leveling up etc. did I make any actual use of the dss system
agreed, cross is really good in this game
"I disagree with subweapons being weak in Your opinion." Well, as you said, it is his own opinion :)
I think the cross was meant to be good as you can only find one in a relatively obscure location (not in the normal route).
@@lankeowker5878: there's a few in the game but they're relatively uncommon esp. compared to the knife
i always liked the paintings in the background of this game.
Thought I was the only one
Friendship ended with Pokémon
-
Now Castlevania is my best friend
It's just feels so much fun hearing you talk about Castlevania and it's definitely increasing my hype for blood-stained all the more since it just got announced.
I just wanted to quickly say:
Each card contains a description, which tells you more or less the domains of the card. The absorption combination becomes easier to guess that way.
Also, by wearing full Intelligence items and activating the +25% Intelligence spell, you regenerate magic very quickly, so it does have its use.
Nathan needs 1600 INT to even equal the losses of keeping it active, so it stands that that spell is one of the most useless in the entire game
@@dmas7749 Even compared to Jupiter+mandragora?
@@jadenknott: i mean if you're bleeding for it and haven't found a save room it can be a life-saver if you have the patience
@@dmas7749 true
@@dmas7749 I used Jupiter + Mandragora religiously in my playthrough lmao. Saved my ass more times than I can count.
Probably why my playtime was over 12 hours lmao
Fun Fact: in Europe the game was just called "Castlevania"
yeah it is it feels like fire emblem games
borjitasstoi
It made a little bit more sense with Fire Emblem 7 since it was the first game in the West.
This is far from the first Castlevania game in Europe so it’s a bit odd to just call it Castlevania.
*Gasp* Really? Crazy, but cool~ Can't wait to try these European version of Castlevania
This cofused me when i tryed to buy it on wii u vc
Really? I'm Finnish and when I bought it it clearly said Castlevania Circle of the Moon.
I love the subweapons in this game.
Especially the throwing cross.
That thing is a real boss killer and it has great combinations with some magic cards.
I liked abusing the stopwatch + Item Crush DSS combo, especially when grinding those two infuriating DSS drops
The cross is hands down better than any DSS combo IMO.
8:15 Did you not realize that each of the bottom cards was connected with a specific element? The top card is the effect and the bottom card is the element attached to that effect.
Your uploads may be rare but i treasure every single one of them. Great video as always! 👍🏻
If you really like him check out his other channel
Never clicked so quickly before.
COTM is my childhood game!
No mention of the dragon boss? That was sick and TOUGH. how many times I died to it as a kid, who knows... But I will always remember it as one of the hardest bosses I've ever defeated in a game.
Underrated gem, I had lots of fun with this game
ElectTheMusic at that point, the game says, “you better git good if you wanna see the end”.
The coliseum was a total ball buster for me.
That battle is basically what the axe exists for. Great fight when you have the axe and have a real chance, frustrating otherwise.
CotN is basically the Dark Souls of castlevania
Oh yeah. The undead dragon was definitely the hardest boss in the game (obviously aside from Drac). Key is to concentrate on on head at a time.
I paused for months because i coundt beat it
Then i cheesed it with the skeleton
This was my first Catslevania and still my favorite by far. I was waiting for you to cover this.
I'm glad you covered this entry. Severely underrated game.
Whipping monsters while summoning a unicorn.
How is this not considered a masterpiece?
I love COTM. It's a Metroidvania but with Classicvania-esque physics.
I like how when you point out the messed up background, Nathan is looking at it as well.
The Venus Intelligence combo actually is useful in "Magician mode" and in endgame situations with no items once your level and equipment gets your base intelligence high enough.
YES, I was hoping you'd get to this one!
This guy: Sub-weapons are obsolete
Me - laughs in holy cross
Exactly, holy cross and holy water are still as useful as they've always been lol
The cross and the axe are fine subweapons agains bosses. The axes are just the best thing to get the enemy in angle and the cross to stack a buch of damage.
And in Fighter mode you don't have access to DSS, so they become almost mandatory.
As a kid I always wondered how to activate all of the Uranus cards, and back then there was no internet.
Out of sheer luck from button-mashing and going through every single part of the map to see whether the card could help me unlock some secret map or ability, I finally managed to summon Cocktraice , and boy, was I scared during the time to see a chicken flying through the map.
even back then there were written guides on the internet, so i don't really get the first part of your comment.
@@demiremiBack around 2001 on the GBA, it's really hard to find guides like that and the internet was not only scarce but really slow.
Most of the time I play my GBA on hand and rarely do I wonder myself how to connect to the internet and search for guides.
The internet also wasn't that prevalent as it is now hence I've mentioned that it wasn't that accessible
@@VigiIancex well even back then i had no problem finding guides on the internet back then, that's way i said that. i will agree the internet was slow and not everyone had access to it but they were around.
@@demiremi also,kids are dumb
@@demiremi gameshark.com and cheatcodecentral were my home on the web in the early 2000s
I know this is the wrong channel, but your Sapphire/Emerald play through is amazing.
I think so too! I keep it on while eating! :'( Sad that its already finished. Miss Lil Lily Already
9:20 If I recall correctly, at least in SotN, instead of randomly punching in a sequence, you could buy scrolls from the Librarian which contained the combination of buttons required to unleash one of the spells. The more you progressed into the game, the more were available for purchase.
Yup. My stupid child mind was blown when I instinctively went to use Hellfire before buying it on a new playthrough only to discover that it *_worked._*
8:27 not exactly. Each attribute card is a specific element. As long as you know the element of the effect card its not hard to figure out what the others do. Except for pluto.
Bruh... The cross is super good, so the hearts are useful just for that(And of course, for shooter mode)
Your castlevania vids are actually my favorite now. Every time I see one in my feed I have to click it.
The cross is so good in this game, you can get like 10 hits in with 1 well timed cross since it pauses in air for a second doing constant damage.
I mean, the cross boomerang is massive DPS against bosses... you literally just delete their HP with it since it can hit up to four times.
What? The cross is the best damage dealing thing in the game and it consumes quite a bit of harts per use. I can't even imagine getting through the arena without it and a healthy supply of hearts.
I think Camilla might be a reference to Carmilla. There was a book about her that came out 26 years before Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Carmilla was the original ancient vampire with a scary castle. And also a lesbian.
The increase intelligence is only useful as mage.
As mage, you have a high amount of INT, and basically 100 INT will offset 1/TIME, so if you have more than 1600 INT, using that ability will regenerate your MP faster.
Also worth noting should be the arena, the ultimate challenge. MPs are constantly drained, so using DSS is hard (but not impossible). Still, you need quite a few potions to use DSS.
I can say, that I have beaten the game with 100% map discovery and level 99 with fighter, mage and thief. (That was when I was 10 years younger.)
And playing as the different classes is fun once you start to rely on their strength and (ab)use that:
* Mage: Use strong DSS combos. Get enough INT to stay invulnerable without MP loss.
* Fighter: Learn the attack pattern of your enemies. With some luck you find some potions, but otherwise your only source of HP are save points.
* Shooter: Who said sub-weapons are useless?
* Thief: You are useless. But at least you have a constant income of potions, and also finding those rare cards isn't that hard.
As vampire hunter you probably never lay your hands on that powerful Uranus card. Mage has it, Fighter doesn't need it, and Thief can get it.
About the exploit with DSS changing while activating: Yes, I know, but using it makes the game just boring. Why play as mage when you can just play as vampire hunter and still use all the cards?
The only good thing about the Magician is the high INT. One problem.... The Battle Arena's gimmick makes your class a major hindrance lmao
Definitely not the best of the metroidvania Castlevanias but it will always have a special place for me since this was my introduction to that genre, the realization that areas weren't divided into levels and that the entire castle was one giant interconnected environment was mind-blowing to someone that grew up on mostly Donkey Kong and Mario. I think my main issue with it is that the primary mechanical gimmick of the DSS cards probably shouldn't have been tied to random drops, it really seems like the kind of thing you'd want to scatter around the world as exploration loot. Maybe I was just really unlucky but I think I only had a couple cards per row by the end of my first playthrough.
Also fuck the zombie dragons. I've gone back to replay the game several times but I always seem to bail at that part, it's likely that I just suck but it seems like a pretty steep increase in difficulty that always leads to grinding levels to just brute force them. Very cool boss design but just knowing that I'll have to fight them again is usually enough to get me to just go replay Aria of Sorrow again instead.
You can always cheese the zombie dragons. During my first playthrough I learned that I could stay on top of the left head and swing the whip around. Combining this with my favorite DSS the poison cloud shield, you could position yourself, so you would never get hit and you would slowly chip away the damage. Standing about the right head was only viable if the left was dead, as it could hit you.
I know it is exploiting the level, but for me as a kid, it probably was the thing that made me complete the game, instead of giving up. My only big grind was for Dracula and then I knew it was the final boss.
The only thing i disaggree with you is the "take damage with multiple enemies to figure out the heal on damage combo" issue. Each second row card is based on an element that should give you the clue as to what kind of thing it will do/enemy you should find. Like Salamander is fire, Black Dog (note the word Black) is dark, Unicorn (a holy, rare creature) is light, Mandragora is a plant-thing so earth, so on.
Golem is Earth though. Mandragora is Plants.
summoning the thunderbird breaks this whole game for me. once lilith appears, farm EXP and mana prisms from her and rainbow robe and get OP fast
Once Lilith appears? You mean after you've killed all but like two bosses?
Have you ever checked out Shaman King Master of Spirits on GBA? From what I can tell it runs on the same code as the later GBA Castlevania games and although it separates maps into chunks (still has secrets and upgrades and a big connected map) it plays really well even if you have never heard of or watched Shaman King. It's almost like having a 4th of these games for GBA
I think the reason you start off slow is because it’s giving one last nod to the GB Castlevania games, cuz in these games, you’re stuck at a snails pace from start to finish. It’s like it’s saying “hey! You know those slow GB games? Well not anymore. Now you can run.”
Glad to see a vid on my favorite Castlevania! Sad you didnt mention the battle arena or twin dragon zombies tho
You didn't mention the zombie dragons fight? That was a perfect castlevania 3 reference, and I would've loved to hear your opinion of it...
Wow, I came back a year later, having forgotten I already commented... And I was gonna leave this exact comment. Glad past me was just as disappointed in him forgetting about that fight.
I guess you can say Pikasprey uploading
Happens once in a blue moon :)
This is such an awesome game! Finally played it a couple years back and it's one of my favorite gba games now. I still have yet to play through Aria of Sorrow and the others
If I may, the best DSS combo for Dracula's eyeball form surrounded by bats is to summon the thunderbird. The birds thunderbolts penetrate multiple targets, unlike other summon projectiles which disintegrate on impact. At high enough levels tge thunderbird will one shot the eyeball
who possess the ability to reconstruct the castle
now that you became a vampire, you gain super speed, super strength, morph, fight & knowledge in architecture
When you are immortal you get bored, I guess. He has plenty of monsters to help out as well - maybe there's a design committee.
one of my favorite castlevania games. a shame you didn't mention the great soundtrack
I think people don't mention the soundtrack because it's pretty much "Castlevania's Greatest Hits". There's some good original stuff that tends to be overshadowed by the remixes of classic music.
@@oneish7454 still a good sound track
@@dexthegamer3234 never said otherwise, just why people might not mention it
@@oneish7454 and I never said that there isn't reasons to not mention it
I simply wanted him to mention it.
Your comment is pointless
@@dexthegamer3234 you sure like putting words in people's mouths, don't you? i guess expecting a normal conversation without becoming passive agressive nowadays is too much to ask for. I'm outta here.
I never would have given this game a chance if not for you. It just never appealed to me years ago when I played Aria of Sorrow. You made this game look really interesting so now I'm having a blast playing it on the Castlevania GBA collection. Thanks.
I love the old castlevania reviews man! Keep it up!
This was the first castlevania game I ever played as a kid, and I loved it. I also loved the fact that I had the same last name as the protagonist. It was a very challenging game, though, and there were quite a few areas I got stuck on (especially the damn water area).
The elemental absorption combo really isn't a big deal as every bottom-row card has an obvious element that you can quickly and easily figure out by using it with any other non-passive top card (i.e. Mercury which you'll ALWAYS have and simply covers your whip with an obvious element). I guess it's still a bit of an issue to figure out which enemy _attacks_ are which element though as some can be odd and the later ones can be very hard to find.
This was the first game I got for my GBA back in the old days, and I definitely enjoyed it, despite its flaws.
(7:22) Totally agree with you on the "???" descriptions. I only knew how to use the DSS combos that required a half-circle motion because of Nintendo Power.
(9:38) Yeah, there's no point in the intelligence-boosting DSS combo unless you already have like over 500 intelligence or something, so that the combo actually recovers your MP faster than it would naturally recover. And, even if intelligence affected the power level of some spells, you can't use other DSS combo while you have this combo active, making it pointless anyway.
(10:58) Yep, I remember reading about that glitch in Nintendo Power. I definitely toyed around with that. (Although I think I had already beaten the game normally first, so it's not like the glitch spoiled my first playthrough back then.)
(13:45) Huh, I don't think I ever noticed that seam in the background before. Maybe it was simply less noticeable on the old unlit GBA.
(17:30) I had fun trying low-level runs of this game using the Fighter class, where it's not too hard to beat the game in the mid-30s for level.
I’ve loved this game since I was a kid and have been playing it randomly on and off for over 20 years. Glad they released it on the switch! To me this is the best castlevania game
Shoes to run - Pokémon
Double tap a direction to run - Minecraft Bedrock Ed
I absolutely loved the different class modes. I wish they’d bring it back.
I'm really happy to see you do a review on my old favorite, and first caslevania game that introduced me to the series as a kid. :) Great work mate
hi pikasprey we love you, glad you made this!
Yay! I’m always excited when you update Pikasprey :)
after getting the castlevania advance collection and beating the 3 metroidvania games honestly i think that circle of the moon looks the best of the 3 games.
I feel the issue of the "you don't know what element you will absorb" is kind of moot since each card has a specific element attached to it. So, once you figure out what neptune does with one card you can extrapolate that to every other card.
Your forgot to mention about its Music, absolutely fantastic!!!
I like your attitude of making castlevania videos even though it has significantly low view compare to others.
You really love the series.
What is the pretty music playing at 11:00 ?
i love all the GBA and DS castlevanias, they're all pretty good and they all are different in a way. I don't remember the names but on gba the one with the 2 castles overlapping i remember it as a real good moment and a pretty long life. And on DS the one with the girl where you can launch from hanging points and use arts with the stylus was really fun to play
So long as you have one action card, and one attribute card, you can have access to ALL the cards(via glitch).
Choose whatever cards you have you want to use, press the button to activate the ability.
IMMEDIATELY go into the pause menu and go into DSS. Move the cursors for the cards to ones you don't have(the last 2 on the bottom are Unicorn(holy) and Black Dog(dark) cards)
Once you have the cursors over the cards you want, back out the menus back into the game and once the animation finishes for activating the power of your DSS cards, it will now be the power you glitched. It wears off once MP is depleted, or you turn off the power. If you turn it off, you have to redo the glitch.
Very useful if you know what combinations are which you want to use.
"After they somehow survive that gigantic drop..." LOL
another great episode, thanks so much!
Just 100%ed it on the newly released Castlevania Advance Collection. I haven't done that since the GBA days.
That perfect hybrid of old and new Castlevania - not my favorite but still fun!
Cross is the most OP item, every subweapon gets boosted in shooter mode and i think one DSS combo also boosts sub weapons. His whip isn't called vampirekiller, but vampirekiller is the name of nathan's starting class. And you forgot 2 biggest offenders for figuring out DSS combos :
-regen HP while standing still (it's standing still for like 5 seconds to put nathan in his idle animation before it activates)
-and the other one while walking.
Who would figure that out if we are running all the time ?
As for replay value, after killing camilla, there are optional bosses and candles which spawn around the map and drop the best items in the game. (Not counting battle arena).
It's been so long I almost forget the beautiful sound of your monotone voice
Finally back doing videos here. You really need to take break from these crazy playthroughts.
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was the first game I got for the Game Boy. Weirdly enough, on my first playthrough, I did not encounter a single boss-fight apart from Dracula at the end. Only when I played through a second time, I got the usual encounters. I could never reproduce that and I can't find anything about that online. Has anyone experienced the same thing? Is this a known bug?
I didn't realize this wasn't a Pikasprey Blue video for way too long
9:08 "There is no indication in the game anywhere"
Ummmm,I might be wrong since I never played the game,but from what I can see on the screen there's an indication of that half circle motion +attack button you were describing right there in the description box
That description isn't filled out until you use it. Until then its just some question marks.
wow my second being early to a pikasprey video either im blessed or i have the power to involuntarily travel through time which would actually be a terrible power just hanging out then randomly you are in medieval times and you're infected with the black plague
My first Castlevania. It was definitely supplanted by the other games in the series for my favorites, but this game definitely has its charms and its hella nostalgic for me.
Technically speaking when you get one DSS card combo.....you have them all.
Disagree about the subweapons. One of them anyway, spamming the cross is extremely effective.
And the DSS Attribute cards will tell you what they represent, making it way easier to figure out how to gain health with Neptune. When hit, you even flash a different colour depending on the kind of damage it was.
Yes, the 2nd Dracula battle sucks. Uranus + Thunderbird = Win.
Are you going to do a video about Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia next?
"Behold, the power of...a gun!"
Finally some new Pokémon content.
Can you do one of these videos on the shaman king master of spirits games for the gba?
Please, that is basically Castlevania
You mention Uranus combos being a "full screen attack" twice, but both times the B-roll is Unicorn, which is the only one that isn't an attack at all.
Isn't that something? Also the Cross is nasty strong.
When getting footage, I realized that all of them besides the Unicorn have some really awkward flashing effects. I didn't want to show them for the sake of epileptic viewers.
Well, can't say you're wrong there.
Very late comment, this, but oh well.
In the pause menu, the "Card" tab contains a description of each card, given that they are collected. This allows the player to figure out the effects of card when paired in the DSS. For example, the Salamander Card's description has "...the power of Fire" meaning that any card paired with it will have Fire-related effects.
Always look forward to your castlevania videos
What's the song playing in the background at 11:15 ?
11:07 WHAT?! About 20 years playing this game I love, And now i find about that glitch?! Damn.