7. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (PS4)
Last year I beat my first GBA Castlevania game, Aria of Sorrow, and despite going into it with the expectation I'd enjoy it, I guess I underestimated just how much I'd enjoy it. It definitely inspired me to tackle some of the other handheld metroidvania Castlevania titles, so I decided to start this year with the first one released back in 2001, Circle of the Moon. Unlike Aria/Dawn of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia, and even Portrait of Ruin, I don't hear people talking about Circle of the Moon nearly as much. The game had a very tough act to follow with it being the first metroidvania style game in the series following in the massive footsteps of Symphony of the Night. Even though I was well aware that Kogi Igarashi was not involved in Circle of the Moon's development, that didn't stop me from wanting to experience this less acclaimed entry in the series for myself.
Like Aria of Sorrow, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Circle of the Moon. However, what makes me even more surprised is how I really liked this game despite some pretty big gameplay faults, as well as this game being WAY harder than either Aria of Sorrow or its predecessor, Symphony of the Night. Like those two games, you'll be exploring Dracula's castle while doing tons of backtracking and revisiting new areas once you obtain an a new ability that will allow you to do so. Where Circle of the Moon differs from this formula is the game remains very difficult to ridiculously difficult all the way through. A lot of this has to do with a lot of thought being put into enemy placement, but for better or worse, things like the lack of an item shop, very rare and random item and equipment drops, lack weapon variety, and very spread out save rooms all contribute to Circle of the Moon's noteworthy difficulty as well. Most of this does feel deliberate, albeit maybe a little on the ill advised side of things, but throughout Circle of the Moon you can tell the dev team spent a lot of time thinking about things like enemy placement, obstacles and other features to maintain a somewhat stable level of difficulty throughout the game.
Unfortunately, one of the game's key mechanics is also one of the things that holds this game back from being better than it could have been. Circle of the Moon uses a card based magic system called the DSS that allows you to mix and match cards you find throughout the game to unlock an impressive array of magical abilities to aid you on your quest to rescue your friends and kill Dracula. This would be all fine and dandy if cards were just scattered throughout the castle for you to find, but rather some bonehead at Konami decided it was better to have fallen enemies randomly drop them. Because of this, you either have to get very lucky to get certain cards or grind a ton to get them. Outside a few useful magical abilities, many of the abilities unlocked through specific DSS card combos aren't terribly helpful outside of maybe a few encounters or sections. You'll mostly be using the same 3 or 4 DSS abilities throughout the game, which makes the system in general feel ultra gimmicky. Despite how flawed the DSS system is, it doesn't drag the game down too much, but certainly does make add to its difficulty for the wrong reasons.
Speaking of Circle of the Moon's difficulty, this game has some of the most notoriously challenging bosses and even enemies in the franchise. There were a few that took me what seemed like forever to beat. However, one positive aspect to this is despite how hard some of the enemies, bosses, and sections can be, I never felt like beating them was completely out of my grasp or that they were just so insanely cheap that I'd have to get lucky if I were ever to beat them. This really kept me going in this game. Circle of the Moon does a tremendous job of straddling that like between hard but fair, with very few times where I felt like the game was being cheap or unfair. A lot of this is thanks to how well this game controls and how fun it is to play. In some ways, despite being a metroidvania game, it feels like almost a bridge between classic Castlevania games like the NES titles or Rondo of Blood and the newer, sleeker metroivania games like Aria of Sorrow and Symphony of the Night.
For a launch title on the Gameboy Advance, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was and still is a pretty impressive looking game. Sure, Harmony of Dissonance and especially Aria of Sorrow definitely showed what could really be done from a presentation standpoint on the GBA, but as a trailblazer not just for the series, but also for the platform it was originally released on. Some of the backgrounds for the various areas of the background can look a little on the flat side, again, especially compared to later entries, and many of the sprites in this game don't look nearly as good as what we'd get in Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow, but for what they are, nearly everything in this game looks pretty good. There are a ton of interesting, varied settings in the castle and even more enemy variety. Sure, there many recycled enemy skins that are given a color swap and new abilities, such as the skeletons and armors, but at no point did I feel like this game felt stale or uninteresting from a presentation point of view.
Probably Circle of the Moon's best quality is its audio. The music in this game is unfreakin believable! There are a lot of borrowed and remixed tracks from older Castlevania games, but there are also a decent amount of original songs in this game too. While I did play this on the PS4, it's audio is essentially unaltered from the original GBA version. What Konami was able to compose here is nothing short of excellent. There are also tons of great sound effects and other noises that really add to the fun, cool, spooky atmosphere of the game, creating a near flawless audio presentation as far as I'm concerned.
While I didn't like Circle of the Moon as much as Aria of Sorrow, and especially not more than Symphony of the Night, what's impressive is this game wasn't that far off from how good or enjoyable its aforementioned GBA counterpart is. I had a hard time putting this game down most of the time, and even when I was getting my ass thoroughly kicked by a specific area or boss, there was almost never a time where I didn't want to come back for more. Do not sleep on Circle of the Moon; it's a game worthy of your time whether you're a seasoned Castlevania fan or a complete noob. Just be prepared for a pretty hard game. (1/14/26) [39/50]
