billservo's Full Review: Castlevania: Circle Of The Moon for Game Boy Advan...
I forget where I heard it, but some horror producer said, "It's not what you see, but what you don't see that scares the hell out of you." Well, After 15 hours of Castlevania: COTM, consider me terrified.
COTM is a good game. It just has one main problem: the GBA screen's reflectivity is so bad that you can barely see any of this game's details. I'll try to ignore this fact for much of the review (a feat much harder than, say watching the Tomb Raider "movie" again).
STORY
For those of you who don't know the meaning of U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, B, A, Select, Start keep reading, everyone else, next paragraph. The Castlevania series started back in the NES 8-bit day and chronicled the story of a Vampire Hunter, Simon Belmont. His nemesis, of course was Dracula, and through various sequels he seems to keep coming back to life and the Vampire Hunters die off and are replaced. Yeah, there's more to it, but I was never a die-hard Castlevania fan-boy and it's not a Square-caliber story anyway.
COTM picks up where the last Playstation game left off. Drac's being resurrected by some 19th century Drac Cult hottie when Hugh and Nathan, Vampire Killers in training, and their mentor bust in to stop her. Drac casts the two off and kidnaps the mentor. From here you have to explore Drac's castle and find your way back to kill him.
GAMEPLAY
Back in 1987, Castlevania was a pure side-scrolling platformer. While COTM is a platformer, it's more in the vein of the Metroid series, an explorable platformer. Lots of Metroid references have been made when describing this game, and the similarity in gameplay is astounding. Like in the Metroid games, COTM starts you off with the most basic abilities: a small jump, whip, and pick up throwable weapons. As more of the map is explored, you gain more skills: a double-jump, spells, run, wall-jump, etc. And as you learn more you can explore more. This basic formula makes up most of the game.
At the same time, COTM throws in a few curves, though. You actually get experience points which translate to classic RPG attributes: HP, MP, strength, defense, luck. For most of the game, this aspect can be ignored since level progression is well paced. Of course, no game is complete these days without having to freaking collect something: some enemies drop cards when defeated. Picking these up and using them in combination provides you with magic. Even though the collecting thing is tired and lame, the spells add to the game. There's quite a few combinations and you have to figure out just what they do for yourself. Using them right will help you tear through some levels faster, but for the most part their gimmicky. For example, putting together some kind of fire based combo should do some nice damage in the ice level, but it really fares no better than an Earth combo. Because of that, none of the spells are really vital to defeating any boss in the game. A little more thought behind this part of the game would have added a lot more depth.
It isn't all shallow, though. The game features equipment for your character, too. In keeping with the RPG elements there's various armors and armbands to pick up which change your stats. Where the spell thing kind of fell flat, the armors do a little better. There's actually reason to equip different armors at different times, depending on what your doing. For example, you could equip armors that increase strength for a strong, but non-aggressive boss, or vice-versa for the few that take up the whole screen and hit you every 3 seconds (yeah, there's a couple like that).
And there are a lot of bosses. Actually, there's a lot of everything. The game's map is huge, made up of roughly 1,000 screen-fulls of space. Simply seeing it all is a challenge. To make it harder there are a lot of hidden areas, but they're worth you're while since they feature HP max boosts among other things. For those intent on seeing it all, the game tracks how much of the map you've been to so you'll know if you've gotten to everything. The venues change drastically, too, but you've seen it all before. Catacombs, spooky libraries, clock towers. Yeah, there's the typical ice-level cheese, too, but at least they removed the slippery floors.
But when you boil it all down, you're back to run, jump, and whip. It's a fun formula, but nothing new.
CONTROL
While it is the same old game, there's a few extra moves. COTM extends the paltry 4-button offering the GBA gives you by using button combos for different moves: double-taps for runs, shoulder combos for different jumps, etc. It's mostly delivered on time, but activating run will cost you some HP and the jumps don't always do what you want.
But unless you're in a boss fight you don't have to do much. Stand back and let the whip take care of everything. This is probably more of a commentary on gameplay than control itself.
The one feature I was left missing was any kind of whip control whatsoever. Push B, you whip straight in front of you. Hold it, you do this circular whip around you that can only take out projectiles. That's it. On the SNES we could actually control the whip with the D-pad, swing across stuff, etc.
The control, while mostly accurate, is just lacking.
CHALLENGE
COTM is mostly an easy game for those who just want to follow the straight line path to Drac. It's got a few bosses who defy the old formulaic ways we're used to, though. Those moments are usually not fun, but since you can level up at will there's not much to stop you.
Killing Drac will have you wondering, though: was this boss play tested? He is damn near unbeatable without HP recovery items. Other bosses fill screens with projectiles making battles an HP war where whoever runs out first loses.
For the most part, though, the game is frustration free. The straight-forward gameplay and controls leave little room for anything else.
SOUND
What usually impresses most in this game is the sound. Synthesized voices, to be exact. They are great, and much needed after years of horrible Gameboy scratch (why games kept using it is beyond me). Sound effects rock, too. Squeaky doors, crumbling rock, flame. A few get overused, but the quality is impressive enough to overlook that.
Music is good, too, but not all that creepy. Typical pipe organ stuff, but it just doesn't evoke the right mood. It's mostly useful for audio clues telling you that you're getting into a different area.
GRAPHICS
Ugh. I cannot stress how important it is to have real field hardware when making a game. There's no way that Konami had the final LCD screens (if they used them at all) or had them mounted the right way when they made this game. If they had they would have noticed what everyone else had: the game is near unplayable due to the darkness of the screen and the dark-on-dark colors used for the game. It's simply that bad.
There are two places in my house I can play this game due to lighting. This usually means halogen lighting directly on the screen with the side effects of insane glare and second degree burns on my hands.
What graphics I could see in these conditions are good. "Parallax" scrolling is abundant, and boss detail is high. But so much is obscured that to comment on it more would be untrue to the reality of the game which is that in most conditions you'll see very little. Combined this with reoccurring slow-down and it's a graphics nightmare.
I'll agree that much of the blame should be on Nintendo for picking the display in the first place. To put it simply, it's junk in this age of high-res TFT screens- battery life be damned. But it's possible to put out a game that's easy to see, there's plenty out there.
OVERALL
COTM has a couple things going against it: it's nothing new, and it's hard to see. But it's a fun game for those who can't get enough of this kind of old-school gaming (why would you by a GBA otherwise?) and can deal with the lighting. Am I sorry I bought it? No, it's one of the more fun titles I own- giving me about 15 hours of gameplay- and it's still one of the better games out on the GBA.
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Nintendo's Classic NES Series for the Game Boy Advance brings back many memories for old school gamers. CASTLEVANIA is no exception. This classic was ...More at GameQuest Direct. com
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