Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (2001)

I gave Circle of the Moon another try on the Castlevania Advance Collection. It's still a bad game. I had to rewatch the intro multiple times, with no option to skip it, since the very first save point is badly placed, and I died multiple times looking for it. The level design is obnoxious, with those "wells" where you have to jump from platform to platform, instead of the more serpentine, multi-floor designs of some of the later installments. What puzzles me, though, is that the earlier Symphony of the Night got the design right! Then there's the drop rate... The main feature of the game is that you can combine two types of cards to imbue your whip with different powers, giving you about 64 different options. Sounds great! And the nice thing about the Advance Collection version is that there's an indicator if an enemy can drop a card and if you already have it or not. But I spent probably half an hour farming for a very basic card, killing Axe Armor maybe 100 times, and I still haven't gotten it. You know what, this simply isn't worth it.

I was wondering why I left this off half-finished. Started a new save because starting at mid-point and not remembering what you've done so far in an exploration-heavy game is kinda a bad move. Now I'm cruising through this game, having fun though things being pretty easy, suddenly I'm hit with a spike in difficulty, a.k.a. the pair of Dragon Zombies, and I wonder: "Is this where I quit last time?". So I started up my old save to check, and yep, my dude's at the exact same spot as the new one. So I opted to find a new area instead, and I found one but waddling through an acid bath in turbo speed wasn't a much better option... Guess I just gotta git gud.

The map design is a bit bland (both aesthetically and level design), moving around the map can get tedious, and I still can't beat the final boss without cheesing it, but I think this still holds up well for the most part. I really like the DSS system and I'm actually a bit sad none of the other games brought it back. I was really excited whenever I got a new card and got to find out what ability I gained. The Advance Collection makes slight improvements too, which was a pleasant surprise. You get an encyclopedia for items, enemies, equips, and DSS abilities. You also get to see if an enemy you are attacking has the chance to drop a DSS card. In the original, you pretty much had to go in blind.

I remember feeling like all the GBA and DS Castlevania's just got different rather than getting better, so I basically rate them all around the same level of enjoyment. I am curious to see if opinion changes after replaying. I don't plan on playing any of the extra modes, just the main campagin for me for these runs.

Edit: I think it would be nice if they made improvements to the map. I prefer Metroid's map style where they mark where collectibles are. Or maybe even add the option to drop pins or notes. It's a pain having to remember where every collectible is for when I can't collect it when I enter the square it's located in. It'd also be cool to freely switch between sub-weapons rather than having to find them across the map.