Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Year: 2001
Rating: T
Time Played: 555 minutes / 9.25 hours
It’s a little odd how I really like to play Metroidvanias, but I never played one of the “vania” games that helped cement this genre of games. Fortunately, I finally found the time to start one and chose Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. Now that I’ve experienced this side of the genre, I can say that I totally get it. There’s something about the way this game is structured that made it enjoyable to play.
The one thing that I think I like from this side of the Metroidvania coin is how it is slightly more geared toward a Role Playing Game style of action game. Aside from the abilities that make a Metroidvania the “locked door” quest that it is, the RPG elements allowed me to upgrade my gear as I found new items. It also meant that if a boss was too hard, I could just grind a bit more to level up and increase my stats to the point where I stood a better chance.
Even though I played this on the Castlevania Advanced Collection, I didn’t use any of the useful features like save states to help me through my play through.That being said, it took me way too long to realize what the Card System did here. I probably made it half-way through and got stuck on one of the bosses before I finally figured out what these card items actually did to the gameplay. From then on, the rest was fairly straightforward. I’m sure if I had the physical game with the instruction booklet, this wouldn’t have been an issue, but as it stands, it doesn’t explain some of its mechanics very well.
A solid Metroidvania with great RPG elements, I give Castlevania: Circle of the Moon 4.0 stars out of 5.
