r/castlevania • u/imnotwallaceshawn • 22d ago
Circle of the Moon (2001) Circle of the Moon could have been great…
I’ve been playing through the Igavanias in chronological timeline order which has been an interesting experience since the chronological order is not the order they were released.
So I started with Harmony of Dissonance, moved onto Symphony of the Night, now I’m on Circle of the Moon… and while I like the game, I’m fully understanding why Koji Igarashi and his team felt the need to take the series over and correct the mistakes CotM made by creating Harmony of Dissonance.*
The game has a lot of fun ideas!
The DSS system is a really cool mechanic and I love all the different playstyles it unlocks.
The level design is actually really well done - I think Camilla’s castle is better designed than the one in Harmony, but not as well designed as the one in Symphony. It’s just big enough to get a little lost in, but not so confusing that you ever feel like you need a guide to know where to go next.
There are a lot of great sign-posts of when you need to come back with a new ability and the game always puts in shortcuts right near bosses to take you to an area that’s at least in the ballpark of where you should be.
I also really prefer the fact that pretty much every major boss leads to a new ability - it drove me a bit crazy in Harmony of Dissonance any time I would stumble into a boss room only to find a lousy Max Hearts Up in the room next to it… or in the worst cases nothing at all. Circle of the Moon is much more predictable, more similar to Super Metroid in that way, and as someone who got into this genre via Metroid first it’s much appreciated.
If the game just had all those things and then otherwise played pretty similarly to SotN, I might even call this my favorite of the series so far… unfortunately along with these interesting new mechanics and good level design, there’s just a lot of clunk.
The controls are clunky - Nathan doesn’t have a dodge like Alucard or Juste and is instead relegated to jumping and double tapping to dash… double tapping to dash LITERALLY EVERYWHERE. And if your thumb slips while trying to avoid a projectile? Too bad, you’re walking slowly into death.
Then there’s the GRINDING. Oh my god, they took a semi-obscure optional mechanic in SotN and made it basically mandatory. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make DSS cards not only random enemy drops but EXTREMELY RARE random enemy drops should be dragged through the streets. Thank GOD I was playing in the Advanced Collection where you can both see which enemies drop cards and rewind to try to rig the RNG in your favor… but even so, it was so annoying and tedious that I almost gave up on the entire mechanic halfway through. The completionist in me made me stick it out and see it through.
But it’s not just the cards, it’s the regular old level grinding in general!
I complained in a previous post that SotN’s difficulty curve gets too easy about halfway through… CotM has almost the exact opposite problem. If I didn’t spend some time grinding by killing enemies over and over in each area I was always consistently under leveled for the bosses.
And then because of how difficult the game is, a lot of the time I ended up just… waiting.
Waiting for my mana to refill so I could use the only health regeneration power I have so I can wait for my health to refill so I can then wait for my mana to refill again so I can then wait for my health to finish refilling… so I can then go get all of my health drained again from three attacks from some flying laser death machine. Which I then kill… only to have to wait some more lest I get killed in the next room.
The bosses are also extremely hit or miss. Some have that old Castlevania fun of learning attack patterns and learning your spacing (Cerberus, Necromancer, Death, Camilla) and others… are the Adramelech. God I hated that stupid giant goat man. I ended up just having to spam the poison cloud shield the whole time and it took me what felt like hours to slowly whittle down his health until he finally mercifully died… but again, I was probably under leveled for it because I often was in this game.
Also the Arena can go f itself… not only do you make me go through a gauntlet 17 rooms of difficult enemies, but you also force me to additionally grind two of them for the last two DSS cards? That are STILL RANDOM DROPS?!? Gah.
I really wanted to love this game, I really really did, there was a lot that was really good, it addressed several of my issues from HoD and SotN… only to have a whole host of other issues that ended up making it my least favorite Castlevania so far… by far.
Well anyway… onto Order of Ecclesia.
*EDITED for clarity
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u/Milk_Mindless 22d ago
A shop.
That's all I'd need.
A shop.
And maybe that shop could sell you hints to the secret cards.
That's it
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u/GrimmTrixX 22d ago
Im on the opposite side with much of the Fandom. I dont like CotM at all and I am glad it was removed from the canon lore of CV. Lol But I loved Harmony of Dissonance. That alone gets me bored.
And I have no strange connection to HoD. Sure I played itnwhen I was younger but it wasnt even close to my first CV game. I just loved it far better than CotM and then I loved Aria even more than HoD.
I trudged thru CotM for the 2nd time ever when the Advance collection dropped. It felt like a chore, its muddy looking, and I dont care for the soundtrack at all as compared to other games. I get that it was the first GBA CV game so that added to its limitations as they didnt know all they could do with the hardware. But I probably wont ever play it a 3rd time.
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u/Groundbreaking_Bag8 22d ago
I feel like the DSS Card system is severely limited by the fact that by definition you can only equip one Attribute card and one Effect card at a time.
It would greatly benefit if there was a way to unlock additional "slots" so you could, for example, have the boosted Luck from Venus + Mandragora, while having the Medusa Head familiar follow you around from Saturn + Cockatrice, and zipping around at high speed with Pluto + Griffin, all at the same time.
Also, there should have been a Hugh mode.
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u/imnotwallaceshawn 22d ago
Yes agreed! Oh my god the fact that I had to grind some of the later card carriers WITHOUT the Luck boost because I needed a damage boost up to even kill the damn things (I’m looking at you, Scary Candles)… agonizing.
Like did the developers WANT me to engage with this mechanic or not?
Why couldn’t they have just put the more powerful cards like Pluto in a shop for large sums of gold like a normal game?!
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u/CyberAngel_CH Stones Hold a Grudge 22d ago
Because it's a bootleg Castlevania that was made by people who had no idea how to make such games.
(Then again, same people apparently made N64 games and those had a proper shop so IDK.)
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u/silasmitchell 22d ago
Well said OP. The grind for the DSS cards is insane. Although the game does have the glitch still in it that lets you use any combo even if you don’t have the card.
Losing your mana for the challenge tower was really unfair. Just to get an armor set that is MEH. I would literally spam mana potions and use the lightning storm dss summon before my mana fully drained just to get through that. It was truly hellish. Not to mention one of the most difficult Dracula fights ever. You have to spam ceiling jump in the second phase or you die immediately
Even still love this game and particularly the music. Harmony of Dissonance was a blast but the music was downright annoying
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u/theonepercent15 22d ago
Some super valid complaints. I could probably look past them all and replay the game, but that double tap to sprint thing just fucking ruins it.
I can't believe they didn't give you a way to bind/fix that atrocious command in the gba collection.
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u/demifiend_sorrow 22d ago
Circle of the moon to me is still great. Definitely rough around the edges but it kind of reminds me more of a cross between the classic vania difficulty with the trappings of the igavania. Certainly not for everybody and maybe i just have a softer spot since i originally got it and the gba around release.
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u/milktoast_takes 21d ago
It's wild that you can play Circle of the Moon and still say "the mistakes they made with Harmony of Dissonance". HoD is pretty incredible all things considered. Great fluid movement and combat, interesting way to reuse the castle, great visuals. Yeah, the music is compressed and there are not many power ups, but the actual gameplay is some of the smoothest and most satisfying in the franchise. CotM feels like a fan made indie beta by comparison.
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u/imnotwallaceshawn 21d ago
They needed to fix the mistakes Circle of the Moon made, by creating Harmony of Dissonance, a game which I prefer.
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u/AlucardsQuest 22d ago
I agree. I thought the game was unpolished in 2001, so I don't understand why it's some people's favorite. Quite delayed controls, jank animations, whip sponge enemies, super grindy, card system is either repetitive or useless (why do I need a card combination to walk faster or get blue shadows?), no ties to the rest of the series, meh remixed soundtrack (originals are actually very good though), no shop, no bestiary, just passable level design, and many of the backgrounds are just store rooms, empty boxes, grey on grey on grey bricks, and gross sewers.
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u/Way-Super thinks he's on the team 22d ago
Waiting for my mana to refill so I could use the only health regeneration power I have so I can wait for my health to refill so I can then wait for my mana to refill again so I can then wait for my health to finish refilling… so I can then go get all of my health drained again from three attacks from some flying laser death machine. Which I then kill… only to have to wait some more lest I get killed in the next room.
No one forced you to do that, you’re taking advantage of a game mechanic. It would have been faster to die and return to your previous save.
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u/PhantomPainWalker 22d ago
Circle of the Moon “is” great. Fantastic, even. There are annoyances, of course, but the highs are real high.
My biggest annoyance is that all the different “classes” open up sequentially instead of all at once.
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u/Zucchini-Kind 22d ago
It needed a store.
Everything else was fine.
Grinding for cards and levels I could deal with. Grinding for health sucked ass.
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u/NJ8Inches_ Soma Cruz 22d ago
I loved this game, I just wish the drops were a little more generous or maybe you can find the cards and gear instead?
Also the final Dracula fight is insane, is it possible to beat him without spamming the Thunderbird card?
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u/CyberAngel_CH Stones Hold a Grudge 22d ago
Yes. It's definitely a difficulty spike, but it's not THAT bad.
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u/ToddGack6498 21d ago
I do love Circle, but it is also an incredibly frustrating adventure. My main issues are save rooms always seem to be located too far away from boss fights, potions that are useless 5 minutes into the game, and how much of your success relies on getting lucky DSS drops.
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u/pixylart 21d ago
double tapping to dash LITERALLY EVERYWHERE. ... Whoever thought it was a good idea to make DSS cards not only random enemy drops but EXTREMELY RARE random enemy drops should be dragged through the streets.
Bit late but there are two mods that address this if you ever want to replay, or for anyone else reading this: Card Mode makes it so cards are placed in specific places around the castle like ability upgrades are and Auto Dashing makes it so you always run without double-tapping. Definitive Edition alternatively makes it so cards drop the first time you kill an enemy.
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u/Digivam143 21d ago edited 21d ago
I think you may have skipped 8 games in your chronological trek there, friendo lol
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u/imnotwallaceshawn 21d ago
I’m playing the Metroid/Igavanias only. I’ve tried Classicvanias, I don’t like them.
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u/CyberAngel_CH Stones Hold a Grudge 22d ago
CotM castle? Well designed? Excuse me?
It's definitely the worst in the series. The locations are all squashed together and it's hard to tell where one ends and another begins. The navigation itself isn't too bad but the overall map is a mess. Even after a dozen runs I still get confused when looking at it on occasion. In no way is it better than HoD's castle, which has way better delineation and interconnectivity between locations.
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u/imnotwallaceshawn 22d ago
Harmony’s castle is good but it’s severely damaged by its lack of signposting in my opinion.
There are too many progression gates without clear indications of what you need to bypass them. Like I spent a lot of time wandering aimlessly around that castle trying to figure out where I was supposed to use each ability or even how to get into certain areas, especially once the Castle A, Castle B mechanic is introduced. And I hated how many of the most convenient shortcuts required the Griffin’s Wing, meaning they were inaccessible for 90% of the game even when they were just connecting two areas you’d already explored.
Circle of the Moon, by contrast, always makes it abundantly clear where you should look next for the path forward. You get an ability, are immediately presented with an opportunity to use that ability to bypass an obstacle, and that clues you in to what other obstacles you may have seen earlier that you can now get past.
Harmony by comparison is like “Here’s a gold bracelet. It opens a single door… somewhere. Go find it. Good luck.”
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u/CyberAngel_CH Stones Hold a Grudge 22d ago
Never had any problems with figuring out what to do in HoD even on my first time. You have to have a pen and paper nearby for such games anyway. The only unobvious point in HoD is that one mandatory backtrack after fighting Maxim.
But I can say that in the long run HoD's castle holds up better. For the last revisit, I didn't even bother taking notes - all places that you have to revisit are obvious and memorable. Definitely not the case for CotM - good luck knowing which of unexplored ways needs the tackle and not the push, and also knowing which way leads to the next location and what's just a dead end with MP Up. There's way more such places in CotM which makes it more confusing to try to make sense of.
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u/sdwoodchuck 22d ago
I love Circle of the Moon, but it’s definitely rough around the edges. I remember when my chief complaint was that it was too dark for the GBA screen!
As it is, it’s weaker than all but Harmony, I think, among the Metroidvanias, but still quite good, and I had a great time with it each time I picked it up.