Topic: What are your all's opinions of Circle of the Moon?

[beingthehero]

This game has been given much love and much hate over time. What do you all think of it nowadays?

I still totally dig it, especially for the Underground Waterway (I think that's what it's called. It's the place right after the chapel.) That, and the underground warehouse, always gave me major Super Castlevania IV vibes. The new music was excellent, and the arrangements were generally great. One thing that always stands out is Nathan's sprite. His walking animation looks natural, and for some reason he's the only character since SotN that actually moves his hand when he brandishes his whip. It's a very minor factor, but it's a nice touch.

My main beef is the sometimes-uninspired level design and repetition. There's a lot of cut-and-paste level design, along with the cut-and-paste placement of enemies. 

What about you all?

[Lumi Kløvstad]

to me the game speaks to two different eras of the franchise: there's the gameplay, which speaks to the IGA era, and then there's the unforgiving difficulty for those who simply plow right through, which speaks to the classic era.

Add to that a killer name, a decent plot, a well rounded (if derivative) soundtrack, and you have yourself a CASTLEVANIA, my friends. Proper Castlevania, at it's finest.

I won't say it doesn't have some SERIOUS flaws, but dammit if it isn't the best fusion of the Classic and Metroid style games out there (sorry Ecclesia).

[Vampire Killer]

To be honest, I pretty much hate it. It's not the worst Cv game ever to be made, but it's pretty close.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

I actually liked it alot.

It had a distinct "darker" and "broody" feel to it that the other gba titles lacked.

I liked how the difficulty challenged you also.

My only real major problem with it was the lack of a UNLOCKABLE CHARACTER.

After battling Hugh and seeing his cool sword techniques I was initially pretty happy and also pretty sure that he would be a unlockable character since games like Symphony and Legacy of Darkness had unlockable characters.

But it was a huge letdown once I found out that he was unplayable and since then I have always felt that it was a missed opportunity on Konami's part in giving the game more replay value.

Although the extra unlockable modes where cool.

[K.G. Morder]

It's ok.

[JR]

I like it a lot. Of the handhelds, it definitely had the most "classic" vibe of them all. And fighting the dragon zombies was pretty memorable for me. I didn't like the DSS card system as much as the soul system in the Sorrow games, but it was still enjoyable.

The only thing I didn't care for was some of the enemy design. Too many armors, for sure. Also, my girlfriend and I kind of joke about how a lot of the bestiary seems furfan inspired. 

[X]

Circle of the Moon was and still is the most memorable of all GBA CV titles for me. It definitely had more in common with the classic CV then any other Metroidvania. The plot was simple and it worked for the game. It wasn't like the other Metroidvanias where the story starts out good then craps out at the end. not all of them of course, just some. The music had some nice remixes along with a couple of new tracks. The sound effects were good too. The graphics do bring about a cut & paste environment however it was the first GBA CV to come out so it may have also been an experiment. I did like how the enemies also changed depending on how far you were in the game. It kept things interesting enough. This is a good game even with all it's flaws and even now i still play it.

[Super Waffle]

It has some decent remixes.

[GuyStarwind]

I enjoyed it. Only beat it once but liked it nonetheless.

[Reinhart77]

i think it's the Metroidvania that "feels the best" to play.  not the prettiest game though, but so be it.

[markyjoe1990]

I don't like Circle of the Moon. I recently started an LP on it, but not because I like it, but rather, it's the first Metroidvania-styled CV that I ever played (My family owned Symphony of the Night before we had Circle of the Moon, but I was young, and too scared to play it.). I owe it respect in that regard.

Having to double tap to run all the time has to be one of the most grating things ever. The only game I know that makes double tap-styled running stupider is Kirby's Dreamland 3, where your running speed, coupled with mediocre controls, causes 90% of your deaths in that game.

It also doesn't help that single rooms and the castle itself are enormous and really spacey. It makes you hate walking even more.

People say Portrait of Ruin has bad level design, but I think Circle of the Moon is even worse. There are tons of areas that repeat several times, back to back. relentlessly assaulting your brain with routine gestures like going up one of the fifty billion vertical chambers.

Challenge-wise, it doesn't disappoint, but it's hard to really enjoy the challenge when your character feels so stiff. Additionally, there are more difficult Metroidvania styled CVs with better controls (Order of Ecclesia come to mind).

The DSS card system is okay mechanics-wise, but what completely hampers it is the difficulty of finding the DSS cards, and the luck-based factor in retrieving them. Additionally, some cards have effects that only the most dedicated players will be able to figure out on their own. I still don't know how I managed to discover that a down forward up + attack motion makes certain cards take effect.

The game hasn't aged well. Pretty much everything done in the game has been done better somewhere else in the franchise, and the game doesn't have the benefit of being "balanced" in terms of quality like Aria of Sorrow.

So yeah. I dun liek it.

[Munchy]

Loved the shit out of this game when it first came out, and still do, but damn would an auto-run option have been nice.

I'm still not sure which of the GBA ones I like best. Tempted to say Circle since the later two games mostly have their stuff done better by the DS games (as they're all IGA games), but both Harmony and Aria were fucking mindblowing for handheld games, and the different resolution meant that they couldn't yet fall back on pasting the same RoB sprites all the goddamn time.

[JR]

One other thing I forgot to mention (and I'm sure I'm alone on this) is that I HATE this game's version of The Sinking Old Sanctuary. I liked it in Bloodlines, but it just annoys the hell out of me here, maybe it's the stupid bass guitar-ish sound to it or something. And you can't go from one part of the castle to the next without hearing it. Ugh.

I really did like this game's version of Vampire Killer, though. It almost sounds happy, or sickeningly sweet or something, but I love it. The only problem is its repetitiveness, just because the song itself is so short.

[Opium]

I love CotM.  There's a ton of different card combos to play around with, good music, and the battle arena adds something that can be considered an actual challenge. 

[Ghetto-blasteR]

i really like what COTM does to build a mood or atmosphere and a great story with barely anything.

take its art style for example. it's been criticized as basic, plain, even drab. i see where the critics are coming from, but for me this was why it did its job well. i felt like there was sufficient variation in the coloring and textures of the different areas to appreciate that i was in a different place. and places like the chapel and the throne room, despite not having the bells and whistles of harmony-style graphics, just looked a lot cleaner while still looking grand. i liked the innovation of the multiple moving parts of some of the bigger guys in harmony (i forget the technical term, sorry) but ultimately i couldn't take harmony's enemies as seriously. they were just too bright and colorful. but COTM really takes this one home.

i also think the rivalry here is great. i'm not going to compare its story to that of other games and say it's better or worse. but i do think that the rivalry here outshines that of harmony (if you can even argue that there's a rivalry there). here, it actually feels like you're competing with hugh and you're either one step ahead of him (machine tower) or one step behind him (chapel). in harmony you don't feel like you're really on the same quest as maxim once you see he's a not quite right in the head, and runs off doing his own thing.

didn't mean to make so many comparisons to harmony but it seemed the most applicable