![]() I can’t count the number of times I’ve made a jump only to get hit by something I couldn’t even see that was above me, shooting down. There’s nothing wrong with that in principal, but most of the time these projectiles come shooting in from off screen and snipe me before I even know what happened. A number of enemies straight up have shmup-style bullet patterns. I can count on my fingers the number of enemies that attack you with some variation of melee combat - everything else constantly shoots at you. Namely the fact that a vast majority of the enemies in this game use projectile-based attacks. Which is easier said that done, as another major problem with this game is the enemy design. Circle of the Moon just asks you to tough it out. Even Dark Souls was more forgiving than this at least when you hit a save point in that, it gave you more potions to heal with. In the 6 hours it’s taken me to get to Dracula, perhaps ten potions have dropped. Health-restoring potions are random drops, too. Even cruising Dracula’s castle with +700 luck, I still struggle to get what I need - namely, healing items. Luck begets luck.īut it’s still never enough. The game is definitely trying to encourage you to kit yourself out in stuff that will raise luck, and soon it begins a cascading effect where you equip gauntlets that give you +15 luck, which makes it easier to find a ring that gives you +40 luck, which makes it easier to get armor that gives you +175 luck, so on and so forth. There are more pieces of armor in this game that boost the luck stat than I think there ever have been in Castlevania before. The determining factor in all of this is your “Luck” stat: the higher it is, the greater chance a monster will drop something upon death. A hulking Knight might be carrying an amazing set of Platinum Armor, but chances are, you’re not going to get it from defeating him just once. Circle of the Moon has no monetary system everything the game gives you is dropped from a defeated enemy.ĭrops are, of course, randomized. In most Castlevanias, you acquire money which can then be used to visit some sort of merchant where you can buy healing items, get new armor, and so on. The most prominent of which is how the game handles items. The recommendation of Magician Mode largely stems from one of the game’s biggest problems: luck.Īlmost every system in Circle of the Moon is predicated on luck. And if you didn’t already pick up on my implication, you cannot access this bonus mode until after you’ve already finished the game once. In Magician Mode’s case, you start out with almost all of the best equipment in the game. Magician Mode is this game’s “Richter Mode”, in which you play through the game a second time as a different character with a different set of moves. The primary response to this I’ve gotten is to just use “Magician Mode”. I’m currently at the game’s final boss, and I can safely say with certainty: Circle of the Moon actually kind of sucks. But for how much praise the game has received over the years, curiosity finally got the better of me. Chances are, the last time they thought critically about Circle of the Moon was 13 years ago when there was still novelty in having an experience like Symphony of the Night in your pocket. If somebody tells you that Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is their favorite Castlevania, they’re probably lying.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |