Topic: Circle of the Moon thoughts

[A n t r a x x]

And what was that, I may ask?

SPRITES and ANIMATION

[Giz]

With the exception of Juste's running animation and Maxim, I found most of the sprites to be acceptably animated and drawn. The 'guadiness' which you are likely referring too is not an inherent flaw or show of unprofessionalism but rather a stylistic choice (albeit its probable there were also technical reasons for it as well) - that is to say, its by its nature (heavily) subjective, as opposed to objective.

The sprites help add to the dissonance and sense of confusion that pervades the game, thus benefitting the whole. The sprites, like the game, are far from traditional - whether it is embraced or not is up to you, but that does mean that they are inherently bad from an objective standpoint or that they are unprofessional; simply different.

[A n t r a x x]

Well that's your opinion, to me those sprites are straight up unprofessional; as if the team had not had enough experience with the medium (or handhelds) before.

[DraimanBelieve]

in the end everyone will have their opinions about Circle of the Moon.  I honestly feel that it was a great game.  I got it when it was first released and I have held onto that game ever since (still have it).  It was the reason I bought an original GBA.  Yeah the graphics were really Dark but if you play it on an SP+ or a DS Lite its really not an issue but it was a pain to play back in the day.  It was the showcase #1 game for the system when the GBA was launched.  Yeah Aria of Sorrow blows it out of the water graphically but the graphics in Circle of the Moon are ok and it has enough of an atmosphere.  The music was always memorable I loved the music in the game.  Plus overall it has a 89% rating on Gamerankings.com and I Gamespot.com gave it a 9.6/10 when it was released.  I really can't say it didn't deserve it cause gameplay wise it extremely solid.  Its also the hardest 2D Castlevania I have played so far I remmeber repeatedly dying in this game.  Oh and I remember getting stuck in that one stage area with the "Poison Water" I ended up having to start the game over from scratch because of that lol.  Good times with COTM.

[Azmodan]

I liked CotM for the most part. I don't think it's aged well at all, though. :\

The level design was kind of iffy for me. Some places, like the Machine Tower and Observation Tower, were excellent. Several places, though, had really awful level design. Like CoD-worthy. The Abyss Stairway, Eternal Corridor, and Audience Room come to mind.

I was also wasn't all that hot for the animal-versions of Rondo's enemies. And the DSS card system was really crappily implemented. Grinding is never fun; making it to where you have no idea what enemies you need to kill over and over just makes it hellishly bad.

It's an alright game, but I prefer all the other Metroidvanias. But I still like it.

[DraimanBelieve]

In Reply To #35

Thats why you print out those maps they have on Gamefaqs. I know its a pain in the ass and the card system gets pretty damn deep and sometimes confusing (but depth never hurt a game).  I think that the only downside was the graphics really and at the time this was the best GBA game at launch. I think HoD was way worse I mean come on Juste was a bitch (he even looks like one) and I beat the game at 100% with everything you could get even that awful piece of crap furniture thing (wtf was IGA thinking!).  I like HoD for its gameplay but there was some messed up ideas and it feels a little bit out of place in the Metroidvania series.  Its between HoD and PoR no HoD takes the cake.  At least PoR's storyline kept me wanting to play to an extent.  Once I beat HoD I was like "ok 5 hours and your done? I thought Symphony was easy".  Its true I mean HoD has no challenge factor to it really.  I guess I liked the graphics but they were a bit too vibrant but yeah COTM is a great game.  Sure its been made better but think.  W/o COTM this whole "Portable CV" thing would've never been as great.  Sometimes things take awhile to get to where they start to stand out like Symphony did.  I don't think IGA will ever top Symphony eventhough OoE, AoS and DoS are all really good and in some ways the features in those games outdo Symphony, Symphony is timeless and is a once in a lifetime thing.  At least IGA and his team try to outdo it and OoE comes damn close (at least for me).

[Azmodan]

In Reply To #35

Thats why you print out those maps they have on Gamefaqs. I know its a pain in the ass and the card system gets pretty damn deep and sometimes confusing (but depth never hurt a game).

[The Last Belmont]

It's almost as dull as PoR, really. It's kind of like LoI in 2D, but with worse level design.

ouch man, thats insanely harsh. COTM is a fun romp and the difficulty manages to challenge the players like the older titles and the musical remixes were nice.

[Wallachia]

CotM is one of the strongest, most balanced handheld CV's ever made. It had some presentation issues but nothing like the unprofessional crap that sullied HoD. The bosses were actually challenging; something we wouldn't see again until DoS. I also like how it changed up the enemy placement: as you leveled you would see tougher monsters hanging around rooms where they weren't there before; so the difficulty never seemed to thin.

On the original GBA it was a little too dark. Back when there was no extra lighting of any kind for the system, you had to rely on the reflection from other light sources.

[Raphael Belmont]

ouch man, thats insanely harsh. COTM is a fun romp and the difficulty manages to challenge the players like the older titles and the musical remixes were nice.

i second this...
and don't forget it is a portable game, it's just for a "fun", it can't get too "deep".

[X]

In Reply To #33

I have to agree with ANTRAXX about the HoD sprites. To me it looks like a rush job. They didn't take their time to get it down good and the even the vampirekiller looks awful. But on the plus side the backgrounds, though simple were very good.

-X

[AzrailX]

I played Circle of the Moon recently and think it's ok so far.I died on the first boss.It's a little too hard I think.
I hate video games that are too hard.
  And  Harmony of Dissonance was pretty good.I don't care if others claim the game's too easy.I don't like catching frustration over a video game I just shelled out big bucks for.

[Alutwon]

Personally i found HoD to be about the same difficulty as SotN but not in the same ways. HoD as a whole is far more difficult, the reasons why are as follows: very few save points, normal enemies do a lot of damage and it is far more difficult to navigate than any game I have ever played save for CV2. Combine these together and you got one very difficult game especially since you will be back tracking from the lack of knowing where to go.

Anyhoo the main point is; I just ordered CotM off amazon on friday and despite what I've heard I'm very excited.

[cecil-kain]

CotM?  It's been quite awhile, but I don't seem to remember the stage design being as bad as some of you claim.  The DSS system was a bit disappointing --mainly due to the cheap drop rates and cookie cutter rewards.  After SotN the game was just a tad straight forward for my tastes.  The music quality was also way too high to be wasted on a bunch of remixes.  The bonus modes were nice but it became a bit much to replay the game so many times to unlock them all --especially since my personal fav Thief Mode was the last one unlocked...  Too bad there wasn't an alt character to play with.

[crims0nf0rtune]

I thought Circle was a great game. I remember getting it when the GBA first came out, and getting pissed that it was so hard and I couldn't see what I was doing! But then the SP came out and all was well, so onto the game, the only problem I really had with it was the (lack of) animation.  I also enjoyed the remixes a lot, I liked how faithful they were to the originals, sometimes I thought I was listening to Dracula's Curse on a newer system, lol. The difficulty kept me playing this game for a LOOONG time, and I thought the DSS cards were pretty neat.