Topic: Unexpected gem: Castlevania Circle of the Moon

[Cobra951]

I once badmouthed CotM as frustrating and inferior to the other GBA entries, Aria and Harmony.  About a month ago, I somehow ended up reading some reviews on the game, and I was puzzled by all the praise.  So I tried it again, and stuck to it through the early frustrations.  OMG!  It opened up into a terrific experience.  The amount of depth and replay in this game is unreal.  I've been in it ever since, and just tonight finished the last mode.  There are 5:  vampire killer (default), magician, fighter, shooter and thief.



The vampire killer has balanced stats.  The magician starts out with all the DSS cards and has a big intelligence boost to the other lowered stats.  The fighter has a lot of strength and defense, but no magic at all.  The shooter has a lot of subweapon hearts and power, but is crappy otherwise.  He also gets a unique homing knife that even does loops onscreen in search of a target.  The thief has ridiculously high luck and is otherwise weak.  Magician, fighter and thief are a lot of fun, because their high strength in one area can be exploited to great advantage.  These 3 play in very different ways.  The shooter is too much work, because his subweapon prowess doesn't seem to make up for being so weak in every respect.  He's the only one I didn't much enjoy.

The original mode is fine too.  I learned all about the magic system then, and how well it works.  But it wasn't until the thief and his ability to get every single item drop that I realized how much stuff there is to find in the game.  So in short, I regret not giving CotM the chance it deserved originally.  It's a beautiful, huge, and absolutely addicting game.  And I missed the great music too.  It's the only GBA Castlevania that has music of this caliber.

[TheOtherBelmont]

I was almost the same way when I first played it and it took a little bit of playing for me to get into it initially, but it ended up being a great game.  Aria of Sorrow is still my favorite GBA Castlevania title though.

[Cobra951]

Yes, I agree that the more SotN-like entries are better overall, Aria in particular.  But I was assuming that CotM was plain lousy.  Big mistake.

[Quemaqua]

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with all 3 of the GBA entries, and though I think I liked Circle of the Moon less than the others, it was by no means a poor game.  I think the biggest hit against it was that it didn't look as good, heh.  Small complaint.  I did like it quite a bit.

[scottws]

The biggest problem I had with CotM was that it was so dark on the original GBA screen.  Other than that, I found it to be an excellent game though I did like Harmony of Dissonance more.  I never played Aria of Sorrow.

[Cobra951]

I forgot about that.  I remember now about the darkness complaint.  That's not an issue on the backlit DS or an emulator, of course.  I think the GBA SP eventually went backlit as well.  The first version was lit from the sides, with mediocre results.

I think the reason the graphics are not as pretty is that the characters are smaller than in the later games.  Less pixels, less detail.  The upside is more playfield on the screen at one time.

[K-man]

I enjoyed it, but I don't think it holds up very well compared to the others.

[Xessive]

I just got my hands on Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for about $20 and I gotta say I am impressed. It's a complete remake of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood with new graphics, sounds, voice acting, and redone soundtrack. It also includes the original 2D version + Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with redone voices; which makes for a great deal.

If you're a Castlevaniac and you have a PSP this is a must-have title.

[gpw11]

It's good to see this thread.  As I was playing Castlevania: OoE on the DS I started to think how much I liked Circle of the Moon.  I played it on a standard GBA over a roadtrip and a really boring week at work, and apart from the whole 'spend five min. shifting around to find a good light source' the game was great.  It's probably the latest Castlevania game I've played before OoE, and I'd say at this point I still like it a bit more than the new one.  I'd love to see it on the backlit screen of the DS, but it's locked away in storage somewhere with my GBA, so that will probably have to wait.

Anyways, it's too bad I don't have a PSP because that sounds pretty badass.  I do, however, plan on playing through all the GBA and DS Castlevania games I missed in the near future.

[Xessive]

I'm still digging at Dracual X Chronicles (DXC).. Pretty tough game.. I really wanna unlock Symphony of the Night!

If I could hack my PSP I'd just install a PSX emu and play the original.. Speaking of which I slapped my SotN into a CD player and I found a remix of the Alucard theme on track 2! It starts out with Alucard saying "As you can see this is a playstation black disc. Cut #1 contains computer data so please don't play it.. but you probably won't listen to me anyway, will you?"

Personally I like the music of Castlevania in general. The soundtrack in DXC is nostalgic and pretty impressive quality.

[K-man]

If you don't want to bother with the unlocking, you can just do what I did and download a save game from gamefaqs.  I was much more interested in playing SoTN than I was Dracula X

[Xessive]

If you don't want to bother with the unlocking, you can just do what I did and download a save game from gamefaqs.  I was much more interested in playing SoTN than I was Dracula X

Oh yeah I forgot about the internet's might! hehe thanks for the tip

I'll see how much I can take, if I reach the point where I just can't handle it anymore I'll resort to downloading a save file.

[Cobra951]

If I could hack my PSP I'd just install a PSX emu and play the original.. Speaking of which I slapped my SotN into a CD player and I found a remix of the Alucard theme on track 2! It starts out with Alucard saying "As you can see this is a playstation black disc. Cut #1 contains computer data so please don't play it.. but you probably won't listen to me anyway, will you?"

Personally I like the music of Castlevania in general. The soundtrack in DXC is nostalgic and pretty impressive quality.

I love Castlevania music.  Years ago, I ripped all the music files out of the SotN disc and converted them to MP3s.  That includes the track you mentioned, which is Redbook audio Track 2 on the CD.  If you insert the disc into a normal audio CD player and skip to Track 2, you can listen to it.  All the computer data looks like Track 1 to an audio CD player, which is what the intro speech you hear is all about.

SOTN Bonus Track

[gpw11]

Castlevania certainly has some of the best videogame music out there.

[Cobra951]

It slowly came back to me how much obsessive work it was to rip the music out of SOTN.  The MP3s were last modified in '03, so it has been a while.  The music is not stored as separate files, but as a single XA audio stream.  I had to manually scan and find the start and stop point of each cut.  Then I had to edit them out into WAV files.  I had no idea what they were called, so I came up with my own names.  I went with whatever they made me think of in the context of the game.  For example, what I called "Antihero" is Track 6 on Konami's OST CD, and is called "Dracula's Castle".  "Dungeon Jam", a favorite, is officially Track 24, "Wandering Ghosts".

I have 17 tracks in my compilation.  There are over twice as many in the OST.  I'm thinking I put together as many as would fit in a single audio CD, which I also created, complete with scanned and printed jewel-case front insert, and a track list for the back.  Scanning through the longer OST now, I can tell I chose the tracks based on how much I liked them.  I probably have the rest of the cuts somewhere, perhaps still as WAVs.  Most might consider the exercise a waste of time, given the official OST release.  I enjoyed the process, I have no doubt, even if my memory of it has faded.