Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (2018)

Beat on Veteran mode. This game was like someone took Castlevania 3 and improved upon it in almost every way. Almost. The candles were color coded so I knew which ones had sub weapons and thus could avoid accidental pick ups. Candles and enemies sometimes dropped health so there was less need to find hidden health. The checkpoints were generous and the optional casual mode was a great way to help offset the difficulty of this style of game. I did find the game overall to be not as difficult as the classic games, with fewer scenes of infinite enemies and cheap enemy placements. Most of my deaths were from platforming rather than combat and I finished with 12 lives. Nice touch putting a 1 up just before the final boss. The one thing I did not like was the inability to control any character while in mid air. It made every jump a commitment that needed to be planned, and caused me a few deaths. Even Castlevania 3 allowed the rogue character to adjust position in midair. I know it was a deliberate design choice but it just made the game unnecessarily harder. At least casual mode should have free movement while in the air.

The best part of the game by far was the character switching system. Unlike Castlevania 3, you got all 4 characters at the same time to swap between on the fly, each with their own health and abilities. The levels were designed around this with optional shortcuts and powerups that could only be reached with certain abilities, and there was a lot of tactical depth in their combat styles and sub weapons. I preferred the girl with her mid range whip and better jumping. She was overall the most useful but that meant she was usually the first to die. Her knife sub weapon was the best because I could use it to snipe annoying enemies from long range. The 3 upwards knives were good for hitting those giant bats on the ceiling before they swooped down, but I found them redundant with bat guy's normal attack. The scythe functioned like the classic cross boomerang while her axe was very powerful but short range so I did not want to use it. The main guy had the most health with a pretty good short range sword. I found her whip to be just as strong though the sword may have had a faster attack rate. I am not sure what his best sub weapon was. The diagonal up whip was the poor man's way of attacking higher up enemies, but its mid range made it inferior to the knife spread, and the cost made it inferior to bat guy. I ended up using this for most of the game just to have a backup up attack in case bat guy died. The scroll was a great way to hit down since only the homing lighting could angle that way, but it was rarely necessary to hit enemies that were lower. Then his flame buff which I read improved damage, which would be great for bosses. I did not test if it carried over to the other characters. The alchemist had a terrible basic attack but amazing spells. Of those mirror image was the weakest, allowing the image to safely smack stuff while the real guy was at a safe distance. Ice fired straight ahead like the knife, freezing enemies solid for easy kills. There were optional paths blocked by flaming golems which I assume this would solve. The fire shield was probably the best sub weapon in the game. It did contact damage to enemies and even stayed active when switching characters. I used it to rush through platforming scenes without worrying about taking a hit and being knocked into a pit. It could also stun lock cat girls in mid air to avoid their stomp attack and prevented the instant death from the painting miniboss. It could also destroy projectiles, making some of the most annoying enemies trivial, and the constant damage could smoke bosses if I got up close and personal. The lightning was a full screen homing shot that could hit anything from any angle. I think fire beats it out as being more useful though, especially during the final boss. Lastly, bat guy was a direct clone of Alucard. His normal attack was mid range forward, up diagonal and straight up, making him invaluable for hitting those enemies. He could not hit short enemies straight ahead through. His special turned into a bat to fly and just like in Castlevania 3 this was the single best use of sub weapon power. I used it to skip several annoying platforming scenes and it could even attack enemies and destroy candles. It was also very useful that destroying sub weapon candles as him made them drop mana instead of a weapon. The only thing I did not like about the multiple characters was that if any character died it returned to the last checkpoint rather than allowing the survivors to pick up where the deceased left off. This was most annoying during boss fights as the boss would fully heal but the surviving characters would not. The game always had health drop before a boss fight so it was technically still possible to win without all the characters.

The bosses were well designed with learnable patterns and enough cues to figure out what to do. The difficulty was in properly executing what needed to be done. Platforming was excellently incorporated into the fights too. They definitely felt like Castlevania bosses and I was getting some Mega Man vibes. The first boss was no trouble. I failed the ice boss on my first try because there was so much going on. This was the boss that I most often accidentally jumped into. I burned up sub weapons on him and mostly used the girl to outrange the bubble shield and jump over him. Bat guy would be good for destroying the bubbles, and fire shield would likely easily wreck them. The gold coin boss was not difficult but I was thrown for a loop when I could not jump over the 3rd coin stack and took some damage. This would be a good boss for the attack boost sub weapon, since the boss was easy to hit. The dragon boss was a challenge that took a couple tries. The scroll sub weapon was great for killing the lower head but it was easy enough to kill with regular attacks. The top head was trivial as bat guy. Then in phase 2 I used the throwing knife so as not to rely on jumping back and forth to the platform. I was blown off the edge during my first attempt at the lightning boss, so bat guy had to sit out this fight. I had a lot of trouble hitting her so I used up all my mana on lightning magic. I was not in great condition when I started the fight with blood lady, but she was not difficult at all as I very quickly realized how to use the umbrellas to avoid her attacks. The next boss was similar with a designated platform to be on to avoid damage. I beat him first try and he got absolutely wrecked by fire shield when he stood still after his sequence. The timed platforming scene before the final boss was the most difficult part of the game. I first used the girl and died not realizing how little time there was. Then I tried bat form but he did not fly fast enough vertically. Then the main guy was too slow. Old man alchemist was the only one who made it up. I lost the first attempt on the final boss as I figured out what to do, then mastered it for the second attempt. For phase 1 I used fire shield and attacked with bats. When the boss attacked with bats I avoided it as best I could; often using the girl to slide under the bottom platform. For phase 2 I made use of every character. The old man used fire shield and jumped into the sickles to destroy them and collect mana. Then main guy dodged the hooks, made a couple platforms on the right and grabbed a mana power up. Then the girl attacked from the high platform until it was time to jump over the boss's attack, when I switched to bat guy to get 1 last hit in during the jump. The only tricky part was her ultimate attack, which took up almost the entire screen so the only safe spot was right at the edge by the death drop. I figured the risk of being knocked off the tower was too great so I used the main guy to tank the hit. Everyone still had good health when I won.

Then I played Nightmare mode. I started on Veteran but after dying within the first few screens after flying up, I decided to start over on Casual. I did not need the change but I did not want to risk losing much progress. I used online maps to find all the powerups but the health in the first level that required flying up was the only thing I missed on Normal. I also used the maps to plan out the shortest routes and it was interesting to see how everything fit together and what powers unlocked which shortcuts. This playthrough was pretty much the same as Normal only without the main guy. So a lot of focus on using the girl, fire shield, and bat form to skip platforming. The ice spell one shot a painting miniboss. Even though the bosses were a bit tougher the only time I died was on the dragon boss. The girl simply took too much damage from having to crouch to avoid the fire breath in phase 2, and the other 2 had too much trouble platforming. On the next attempt I conserved mana in phase 1 to save more knives for phase 2; it was so much easier just hanging back and throwing but I still had to finish him off with whip. I switched to the guys to avoid the breath and spikes just to preserve her hp. The final boss in this mode was extremely difficult and took around a dozen attempts. This was because he moved so fast and his attacks were very difficult to predict. It took all those tries to learn the attacks well enough to survive to phase 2, then another couple to figure out what to do there. The knife was great for phase 1 but I had to be careful not to throw it while he was running because there was not enough time to recover from a throw and jump over him. The upward knives would have been better for phase 2 because it was difficult to hit those orbs coming from up high.

Then I beat Normal Casual by killing all of the companions. I did not even realize that killing or ignoring them was an option. Playing through with only 1 character was a challenge, especially with platforming. 2 of the 3 powers I got from killing the companions were good. The best by far was double jump from the alchemist, which was even better than the girl's jump. It made phase 2 of the dragon boss trivial and I even used it to save myself from death pits since it was treated as a separate jump with new direction input. The aerial slash from the girl was great for hitting slightly above and below but maybe not worth the sacrifice. The sprint from bat guy was useless and definitely not worth the sacrifice. I used the attack buff for the dragon boss and the whip for the rest of the game. It was important to have an up attack. The instakill painting minibosses were tough; I had to be aggressive and hit with 3 whips before it attacked. The final boss was more difficult with only 1 life bar and took 2 attempts. The only upgrade I got was armor as I could not see how to get any others with only double jump. I used crescent slash to kill the yellow sickles and jumped over the red, whip to hit the boss, and went to the edge to avoid the ultimate. I unlocked Ultimate mode and boss rush but did not play them.

Excellent game, well crafted with near perfect homage to classic Castlevania, and great modern quality of life improvements. It could have improved upon a few things, like more story and more optional things to find, but those might bloat the homage.

9.0/10

I like the basic idea and style but It doesn't play well. Hitting enemies is slow and doesn't feel good.

And the play control is way too old school. Even Super Mario Brothers 1 had better controls. For example, if you jump and don't push forward at the beginning of your jump you can't change your mind mid-air. I get that they are being faithful but that's just dumb.