Date Released: May 24, 2018
Date Played: October 21, 2021
I was so excited when Koji Igarashi, the creator of Castlevania Symphony of the Night, was launching a Kickstarter to fund the spiritual successor to that game. Afterall, he had made one of my favorite (if not actual favorite) games of all time when his masterpiece came out on the PS1. So, I decided to fund his campaign (something I'd not done before nor since). More and more money kept flooding in and I watched as they added stretch goal after stretch goal. As we all know, the game raised an insane amount of money. I waited patiently for my copy to come in the mail. When it arrived, I put it into my PS4 and played it right away. How did I feel about that game? Well, I'm not going to tell you. Because this review isn't even for that game! It's for an 8-bit prequel that was one of the stretch goals from the crowdfunding campaign. It can't be any good right? After all, it's just a little extra game that was tossed in with the main event... right?
Wrong. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is a full on 8-bit marvel that stands toe to toe with the games that inspired it. It was obviously heavily influenced by Castlevania III on the NES. So heavily inspired, in fact, that one review I watched said the game was in danger of copyright infringement. While this is a snarky comment meant to draw a laugh, there's some serious truth in those words. It plays almost exactly like Castlevania III, and that's not a bad thing. Honestly, if this game had been released on the NES, it would be considered one of the best games for the system and would be a classic that everyone waxes nostalgic about whenever the topic arises. Not only that, it hangs up there with some of the best retro-inspired indie games of the modern era.
You play as Zangestsu, a samurai who is tracking a great evil to a mysterious castle. He has a short sword attack and several sub weapons you can collect/switch out by attacking floating lanterns. These sub-weapons use energy that can be replenished by collecting mana bottles (just like Castlevania) As you clear each of the first 3 stages, you can recruit an new ally to help you. The first is Miriam. She is more agile, has a longer reach, and can slide on the ground. Next is Alfred, a wizard who is very weak but has strong sub-weapon attacks. Finally, Gebel is a vampire who has an awkward attack but can turn into a bat and fly. All of these characters have their strengths and weaknesses and utilizing them correctly is key to your success. You can switch between the characters at any time (provided they haven't died) and will typically be using them all in every stage. There are many areas and shortcuts that are only accessible by one character, so keeping them all alive is a big focus of the game. Learning which sub-weapons are best used in each area is very fun and is more thought out and balanced than the Castlevania games, in my opinon.
The difficulty balance of the game is one of its strongest suits. From the beginning, you have the choice of Normal mode. After that you can chose from Veteran or Casual difficulties. Veteran mode acts much like the Castlevania games on the NES. You have limited lives and can get extends by collecting the rare 1-UP item, or by scoring more points. Also, getting hit knocks you back... and anyone who has ever played one of the old NES games will tell you that this will be the main thing that gets you killed. There's nothing quite like taking a single hit from a medusa head that knocks you back into a pit of instant death. Luckily, the game has a pretty forgiving checkpoint system. When one character dies, you go back to the previous checkpoint with the remaining 3 characters to give it another shot. Once they all are dead, you lose a life. Surprisingly, this still drops you back at the checkpoint instead of the beginning of the level. Casual mode is much easier and basically eliminates the "Nintendo Hard" mindset of the game. You have unlimited lives and knockback is removed. This adds some much needed accessibility to people who don't have those die-hard reflexes developed yet... or perhaps lost a bit of their edge from their childhood. Personally, I liked Veteran mode the best and would recommend it for anyone's first playthrough. It's a good challenge, but isn't nearly as difficult as the games that inspired this one. Luckily, the game has a solution to this.
After finishing the game, you'll unlock other modes that can make the game much more difficult, add new stages, change bosses, and force you to take routs different than your previous runs. Also, there's nothing that says you HAVE to recruit the other characters. You're more than welcome to just ignore them... or kill them (a surprise is waiting for you if you do). Running through all the different permutations of ally recruitment unlocks additional endings and even more modes... and is one of the best features of the game. You can run through all 8 stages in about an hour, so the game was designed to play again and again. The levels have a good length and exploring all the different routs you can take is a joy. It makes those additional playthroughs feel less tedious for sure. Also, the boss fights are pretty great. They are the most memorable and fun parts of the game and I enjoyed each one its own way. Yes, this even includes the final boss on the highest difficulty without recruiting any allies (which took me about 10 tries). Trying to beat each of them using the various characters was a blast. I can't even remember the last time I enjoyed learning boss patterns this much.
Since you're going to be playing through the game several times, the stages better be pretty entertaining.... and for the most part, they are. You start in a town before catching a train, then travel through a clock tower, take a ride on a rickety ship, before arriving at the castle sewers, and finally working your way to the tip top to face off against Gremory, the final boss. Of the 8 stages, some feel a lot stronger than others. The first stage, in particular, has fantastic sprite work and a lot of cool parallax scrolling. Towards the middle of the game, things tend to blur together and the stage design can get a little repetitive. This never lasts too long and the rest of the level design is more than good enough to make up for it. The game looks fantastic for an 8-bit game. It's certainly not something that could be put on the NES for real, but it almost seems like it could. There are effects, death animations, and enough sprites on the screen to cause your NES to burst into flames if it tried to run this game, but it does perfectly capture the way playing one of those old games felt. This hits me right in the nostalgia and brings me back to those days of my childhood sitting in front of the TV with my friends and passing the controller back and forth while trying to make just a little more progress.
These games are known for their music, and Curse of the Moon comes pretty hard and packs a lot of heat in this category. It's not quite as memorable as some of the Castlevania music from the past, but it's close. There's some catchy melodies and rocking beats that range from baroque to metal. It's what you would expect to hear and checks all the boxes you could ever want for a game like this. It would certainly hold its own with the best of the best soundtracks from the chip-tune era.
Technically, the game ran great. I saw no flicker or slowdown like you would expect from an 8-bit game. There were no crashes, patches, frame-drops, or any other technical problems while I played. I mean... this isn't exactly pushing the system too hard. Still, there are a lot of ways the development team could have dropped the ball on this one, but they didn't
So, what's my final conclusion? This is a great game. If you're a fan of those side-scrolling staples from 30 years ago, this is a must play. Even if you've never played one of them in your life, this is a great starting point to jump in and give one a try. The fact that this is a supplemental bonus to a larger game is even more impressive. I'm so glad that this game got a retail release. I want to go back and play it again before too long. And, let me tell you, that's a strong statement considering I just beat the game 8 times in a row over the last 10 days. I was able to unlock every trophy in the game... and I never got bored doing so.
Final Status: Completed (unlocked everything and finished all modes)
Final Score: 9/10 (Amazing)
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