With both the 3D Castlevanias falling well short of expectations, Konami needed to find a way to bring the series back and reinvigorate some interest in the series, and there was no way better to do it than to make another 2D Castlevania game. Shortly after the announcement of Nintendo's Game Boy Advance hardware, Konami released shots of a new Castlevania that looked somewhat similar to Symphony of the Night for the PlayStation and that would be available for both the Japanese and US Game Boy Advance launch. Castlevania fans started to salivate at the very possibility that Konami was working on an unofficial sequel of sorts to one of the greatest Castlevania games created. Even with such high expectations, Circle of the Moon has attained a spot next to some of the more memorable Castlevania games.

Circle of the Moon begins in a crypt where a woman named Carmilla successfully resurrects Dracula. After Carmilla and Dracula exchange a few lines of dialogue, an old vampire hunter named Morris Baldwin, along with his son, Hugh, and pupil, Nathan, charge in to put Dracula back in his place. Dracula laughs at the trio's feeble attempt at stopping him and then captures Morris and opens a pit beneath Hugh and Nathan, causing them to fall deep into the catacombs below. From this point on, you take control of Nathan, and your main objective is to find Morris and to defeat Dracula yet again.

	Name Recognition
	The name Morris appears elsewhere in the Castlevania timeline. In Castlevania: Bloodlines, one of the hero's names was John Morris.

Getting to the new items isn't as simple as just stumbling onto a hidden room, because nearly every item is guarded by a sublevel boss, whom you fight in a confined arena. After defeating the boss, a door on the opposite side of the arena opens, revealing the special item inside. While it may not seem like such a daunting task initially, defeating the boss and obtaining the item is only part of the equation, because Circle of the Moon doesn't automatically save your game after you've defeated the boss. So, if you're killed before making it back to the save point, you have to fight the boss all over again, and as you can probably imagine, there's nothing more frustrating than defeating one of the tougher bosses, only to be killed by some miniscule creature just outside the arena.