Portable Symphony of the Night!!!!
Castlevania Circle of the Moon (CoTM) is one of the castlevania games that was ported to the new console (before) Game Boy Advance, what is the difference between the previous ones? well read through my review :D
at first...
before castlevania is an arcade based game, a score and special item to get through the whole game, it's not a story type of rpg and most of it comes on the arcade, but now afte Symphony of the Night, this game now takes a giant leap of its tracks...
Storyline:
*as you've noticed, at the intro of the game a different person spawns to slay Dracula... 3 of them actually, how ever this is because the game is a sidestory and this time, no BELMONTS are involved, in this year previous castlevanias are now moving off the tracks of the belmont like Order of Ecclesia and Dawn of Sorrows and Portrait of Ruins (all DS) how ever that doesn't mean this game is cool and awesome...
you now play as one of Morris Baldwin's Students, one is his son and you... Nathan Graves... (nice name huh) Nathan is somewhat of a newbie in vampire slaying, however this change in one hell of a night... he wields a nice dress (not an armor thou) and an ordinary whip, however he has a trick up his sleeves, the new Dual System (DSS forgot the other S) this DSS is a new type of gameplay through out the Castlevania franchise.
you'll walk through catacombs, towers, the undergrounds, storage areas and the final part of the castle, even the portal to the Abyss, encounter Different types of enemies and a wicked twist with Hugh Baldwin (Morris' son).
Good things:
*the new DSS system is a card combination that when used allows you to change up your status like increase your lucks,hp,speed,def and attack, but combined with different cards, you can summon out it's card descriptions for help and even transform your whip into a different weapon, also summon up farmiiliars. these are used to finish up the game faster, but not make it easy thou, in exchange for MP other than hearts, this is a hell of a useful system.
*Relics, what are they? probably leftover from the castle that allows you to boost your physical attributes. these are scattered everywhere in the castle, however this is the ones that you'll be after before facing Dracula himself, also the story has tons of obstacles and these will be the right tools for getting through... the cool part is... most of these relics are similar to Alucards abilities, like the roc wing, allows you to make a small flight to reach the roof, much like flying you can reach a lot of areas with these, some of them allows you to break walls, move crates and more! they may lead you into secret areas or the next relic!
*Combat, press to shoot or attack, simple but this isn't a change in the series, nathan still can't perform combos but he can now brandish his whip to prevent minor attacks from hitting you in some parts, also with the help of the DSS, it will boost most of your whips attacks to increase, transform and deal much larger damage against ANY enemy.
*environment, of course you'll be expecting a simple background display or crap right? well this game doesn't it display a wide range of colors that blend in properly with the enemies as well as the main character, you'll be astounded to see it and feels like you're really inside dracula's castle.
*animation, one of the greatest things about this game is it's animation, other than whip attacks, remember that mixing DSS cards also allows nathan to perform tons of new moves, like summoning and using different types of weapons like the sword transformation. the enemy has cool death animations as well so you can't say that it's just a BIT of it. they're not fluid however but it still lives up for what it lacks
*sounds, the game has different sounds in some different areas, it offers cool Background Musics as well as combat and dramatic for some cutscenes, i didn't hear all of them but they were cool, sometimes nathan also yells out and his death voice is sort of funny.. like gargling acid...
*wide range of enemies, castlevania mostly has a wide range of enemies to fight, but some of them are just palette swapped... this has less palette swapped enemies and more hell hound demons than you expect it to be... some of them came from Symphony of the Night, also different enemies gives off different types of attacks as well as animations, like the Axe armor, now with Poison armor, Thunder armor, Stone armors and so on! they also have some special enemies in special areas like the fallen angel and liliths
*level of design, the game is practically simple if you look at it, you just have to grab the relics so that you can have a better access through the castle, but the difference is that there are some backtracking which gives off a nice reward in return
*rpg type, nathan is now allowed to equip different types of armors (except weapon) that would boost physical attributes, also leveling up has never been this great, backtracking to some areas while killing the hordes again gives you enough experience to level up, a fascinating addition since it increases your attributes by a small point but permanently and can be slapped together with your armors and DSS you can get the hell out of the castle in a blink of an eye. it also makes it easy for you to backtrack to minor areas!
Bad things:
*conversations, the first bad thing is that there is only little tale to tell within the castle, some of the bosses reveal what is happening to your master and your friend, at the and it also reveals an ample amount of stuffs about your past, and about your friend... also the intro's half-baked, why? you wont get to find out how they were able to surge instantly inside the castle, get through a vast number of enemies that you FACE now, also you'll get only a peak of nathan's past, and nothing more stories to be told about Morris' family and Hugh.
*DSS hunting, DSS cards are one of the things that's hard to find in the game, the more powerful the card is the harder to find it, it's not REALLY an easy walk in the park since you'll take 3 hours just to find 1 card and also kill a powerful enemy, which really consumes your time. it is rewarding once you obtain it, but what if it's not that much of a help to you?
*long backtracks, this is supposed to be good, but sometimes when you backtrack after collecting some relics that allow you to access previous locked areas of the castle it will take a while before you get there, specially if it's in the other side of the castle, it's also rewarding but some of them aren't that rewarding, you'll even face a much powerful enemy within the visited area >.< what if you weren't able to save
*map completion, the good thing about this is that some DSS will base it's effect on the map completion, the bad thing is that what ever you see in the screen are the only ones completed, so if you missed a small part of the area you'll see it as a black pixel, it's kinda annoying and if you didn't care you'll go down having a minor boost in attributes with your DSS cards
What i think?
this game is a ported version of SoTM but somehow, it's storyline is a switch and makes it very different and awesome from other castlevanias, since you're only holding an ordinary whip in slaying drac... :D also there's tons of playback of the game, you can play with all your DSS cards and head out, it's still challenging since a lot of enemies are still more powerful than you are, also your items and stats will reset (this isn't a cheat so don't count on too many perks and freebies :P) summoning using DSS cards is one of the awesome things of the games, as well as summoning special attacks according to the cards, using item crush (Cross, Knives etc.) even if you have collected the relics, all of the DSS cards, has the powerful sets in game, you still need the proper tactics and ways of how you defeat your enemies and your bosses... if you're a mindless killer then this game won't get you anywhere :P