Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (2018)

This is a retro-inspired action platformer created by Inti Creates as a companion project to Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It serves as a love letter to classic NES Castlevania games, particularly Castlevania III, with its 8-bit visuals, gothic atmosphere, and deliberate platforming. It even has some of the same creators of the original classic Castlevania titles making this game, so you know that you are in for an amazing experience.

The MC is called Zangetsu, a demon slayer who can recruit other characters along the way, including Miriam, Alfred, and Gebel, which are all playable. Each character has distinct abilities that add strategic variety and allow for multiple ways to approach stages and bosses. Switching between them in real time is one of the game’s strongest mechanics, encouraging experimentation and tactical play. Not a very unique mechanic, for example, Trine has done this a very long time ago, but since the level design is very high quality, it makes it so that this mechanic is masterfully implemented.

The game is short, often completable in just a couple of hours, but it makes up for that with branching paths, multiple endings, and several difficulty modes that reward replaying. I highly recommend doing 100% on this one, it is very rewarding and it was really meant to be played this way, the regular mainline quest is just half of it, but be aware that it'll be a much more challenging playthrough. Its music and pixel art capture the spirit of late-80s action games, while subtle quality-of-life improvements prevent it from feeling dated, so if you are no a fan of this I recommend skipping this one.

While some people may find the controls stiff compared to modern platformers, the overall package delivers exactly what it promises: a polished, faithful homage to the golden age of side-scrolling gothic action. It’s a compact but memorable experience for fans of classic Castlevania or anyone looking for a nostalgic yet well-crafted challenge. I'm a big fan of the Castlevania series and I consider this one of the best games that I've ever played, don't skip it if you are into any of that to any extent.

Curse of the Moon tells the tale of Zangetsu, a samurai cursed by demons who now seeks to destroy them all. Zangetsu is a character that I encountered first in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, and I really liked him. I decided to play the other games in the series to learn more about him.

This game is very short, although there are multiple endings that you can get depending on the difficulty and the companions you choose to help you out on your journey. Right now, I am not up to beating the game again multiple times, but maybe I'll try it out later. Nevertheless, the true ending is played on normal and not complicated, so I appreciate that.

Something that was a little bit disappointing is that I wanted to know more about Zangetsu, but the game doesn't tell much... it just repeats things that I already knew while playing Ritusl of the Night. A wasted opportunity in my opinion...

The game is very retro, like the old Castlevania games. Pixalated, simple color palette, synthesized music, and super clunky controls. I didn't mind it much, but I believe the jumping could have been made better. For some reason you have to walk forward before jumping, or the character won't move. You can't change the direction of the jump midway.

It was fun watching the enemies from Ritual of the Night in pixalated form, and the synthesized music. Nevertheless, the game lost an opportunity to add lore and be more elaborate.

The pros outweigh the cons with this one. Seriously, this is a well made Castlevania like game that can sometimes feel like complete plagiarism! Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but the developers really nailed the 8 bit feel here. The music is awesome, the aesthetics feel very authentic, and the game mechanics are fair enough to give you a good time. Heck, they even made it easier to play for people who are not into NES style punishment. My main complaints are the bosses which look good but are quite easy. Also, sometimes switching characters feels forced even though it can be interesting.

Overall this is a good indie title that will certainly amuse and entertain fans of the 8 bit era of gaming and of course Castlevania fans

PROS

• A solid throw-back to old-school Castlevania games
• Tight controls make for tense action-platforming
• Some cool boss fights and enemy designs

CONS

• Character switching is a poor gimmick that screws with learning the controls and also makes dying and losing lives an unnecessarily confusing process
• Overall, this feels exactly like what it is: a Kickstarter stretch goal bonus game

If you grew up playing NES or SNES games, this one has all the feel and fun of one of those games from back in the day.

You have the option of switching between four different characters (once you unlock them all, that is) and you'll need to learn how to use each one of their powers to beat the game -- although, it is possible, but very challenging, to beat the game with only one character.

There are 8 levels to play, including different game modes. On every level, skeletons of fallen adventurers will point you in the right direction, however, there are also multiple paths to the end of each level. I found it best in my first play-through to follow the recommendation of the skeletons.

All in all, this was a fun throw back game to explore if you enjoy 2D action and adventure games.

The game is supposed to remind you of Castlevania 3 with it's "8-bit" graphics and similar mechanics. Only someone with the most superficial understanding of older NES games would find it on the same par as them.

The most immediate offensive thing about this is the visuals. All the characters from the monsters to the heroes are a detailed, complex design, but it's all being done with sprites that have few pixels and a limited color palette, something that only works well with simple designs. The result is an ugly garbled mess, th fact that it doesn't even confirm the limitations of NES games is the least of the problems. The game is still shit even if you ignore the visuals.

The pacing is terrible, downright boring, well below the standards of any decent platformer from any era. There's no time limit, steady supply of respawning enemies, nor do the enemies seem particularly aggressive. They don't even come in quick succession of each other, with too much dead space between encounters. Even the bosses are paced poorly with long wait times between their patterns where there is little to do. It's totally free of excitement. I didn't play it long enough to see if it posed a real challenge but the general answer seemed to be a definite "no" (I've seen reports of people beating it on it's hard mode in less than 2 hours). Not that it would matter much when it's not even designed well.

The only thing keeping this out of the 1-star range is the visual design at least has cool concepts, you are still a demon-hunter killing gruesome monsters and going through interesting locations, it's just executed terribly.

Don't let the nostalgia-tugging con you out your time or money. Avoid.

I really enjoyed it, this is a truly well done retro title. It feels like it could have been on the NES, think Castlevania IV, if the SNES hadn't been out yet. Of course, that is without the infamous NES slow-downs. It would screech to a grinding halt with some of the superb 8-bit animations in this game.

The length is an issue if you pay $9.99 and you're not the type of person who likes to play hard mode, revisit the game for alternative paths, or speed run it (I'm not). It literally took me under 2 hours to beat it, and I'm not the greatest platform player in the world. As a free bonus game to my Bloodstained kickstarter contribution, on the other hand, it's way more than I expected. The quality of the gameplay and game design is superb.

I loved the switching back and forth between the 4 characters depending on the situation, it was wonderfully well done, and I would love to see them make a longer game (maybe even an actual Metroidvania) with these graphics and gameplay. I would definitely buy that.

I vaguely remember KickStarting Koji Igarashi's Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night a while ago. At least, it certainly sounds like something I'd back. And so, given my tendency to barely skim update emails, I had no idea this odd little... prequel? prologue? appetizer? was coming my way until it got here, and lo and behold, the dang thing's good! And not just by the standards of free giveaway prizes you get for supporting indie game developers; Curse of the Moon is a solid platformer which also manages to hit every visual, audio, and game design note necessary to generate maximum NES-talgia. With callbacks to classics such as Contra and Mega Man and, er, possibly Shovel Knight?, this grimdark lil' gem feels fresh and wonderful while simultaneously bringing you back to a thousand games you've already played.

It might be a little short on complexity, and a lot short on narrative, but these flaws come along for the ride when you're trying to make something that feels properly authentic. If you're a backer who's got a copy sitting around untouched, definitely give it a try. For the rest of you, if you like games from the golden age of platforming frustration, I'd say it's well worth throwing a couple bucks at.