Castlevania GBA |
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In my experience with Castlevania,
I have found that each new game brings innovations to the
series that make them original creations while still
retaining the core elements that made the series so
popular to begin with. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is
no exception. The basic story line of Circle of the Moon is that one of Dracula’s minions, Camilla, revives Dracula. The vampire hunter Morris, his son/apprentice Hugh, and his other apprentice Nathan go to Dracula’s castle, Castlevania, in an attempt to prevent the resurrection of Dracula but are too late. Dracula imprisons Morris and throws Hugh and Nathan into a graveyard under the castle. Hugh runs off in search of his father leaving Nathan on his own. You take over as Nathan from there. In terms of gameplay, Circle of the Moon plays almost exactly like its predecessor, Symphony of the Night, and that's definitely a good thing. You are allowed to freely explore Castlevania, however, many areas of the castle will be inaccessible at first. To get to these areas you will have to obtain various magical items, each of which you’ll have to fight an area’s boss to get. Some of the magical items include the Dash Boots, which allow you to move faster; the Double, which allows you to jump one time while in mid air; and the Kick Boots, which allow you to jump off of walls much like in Super Metroid for the SNES. Almost all of the items improve the gameplay experience in some way or another and are a satisfying reward after a tough boss fight. As in most Castlevania games your main weapon is a whip, which can be changed by the DSS which I will explain later, and you can also use a sub-weapon by hitting up + the attack button. Sub-Weapons, which are powered by hearts that you get from monsters, include the standard knife, axe, crucifix, holy water, and clock. Only one can be held at a time as usual. Like in Symphony of the Night, you are allowed to equip the main character with items. Unfortunately the item system is much more limited in Circle of the Moon with only one slot for armor and two slots for accessories. I found only about twenty items altogether between the two categories of items, which is a fraction of what was in Symphony of the Night. Recovery items return also, but there is no store to buy them from and they are pretty rare coming off of monsters. The level up system makes it over from Symphony of the Night as well. For those of you unfamiliar with this it works pretty much like any RPG. You get experience from fighting monsters and the more experience you get the more levels you gain. Levels give you higher HP, MP, and heart capacity. Power ups hidden throughout the castle will also improve these stats. Circle of the Moon’s biggest innovation over past Castlevania games is the Dual Select System. Throughout the game you will find cards dropped by monsters. When two cards are used in combination through the Dual Select System, various effects happen to your character. One combination gives your character a cool looking flame whip, another gives him an ice shield, etc. There are a hundred combinations in all. In truth you probably won’t ever find much use for a lot of the combinations, but it’s still nice to have a lot of options to mess around with. Graphically, Circle of the Moon is one of the better-looking games I’ve seen on the Game Boy Advance. Many people have complained about the stiff character animation but I hardly noticed it at all. The sound is very impressive, especially when heard through headphones, although it still isn’t on par with Symphony of the Night. If you have a Game Boy Advance and any interest in 2D action games I would definitely recommend you to go out and buy this game. If not, at least go down to Blockbuster and give it a rental. - Wolfman |
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| All text, original pictures and HTML © 2001 Bob Mackey. All rights reserved. |