Everyone loves Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the 1997 PlayStation classic which blasted the Castlevania series to exciting new heights. It boasted a huge map absolutely crammed full of secrets, urging gaming explorers to unlock all its secrets. Though Castlevania II: Simon's Quest may have been the first title in the series with an emphasis on exploration and leveling up your stats and equipment, SotN perfected the formula, and it's certainly where the -vania in the term "Metroidvania" comes from. Frankly, it's a pillar of video games as a medium, and man, is it good.
Four years later in 2001, Konami put out the second Castlevania game in this style, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon for the Game Boy Advance. SotN is a tough act to follow, and Konami was working with weaker hardware to boot. So, did they pull through and make a game that's just as good as, or even better than Symphony of the Night? Read on!
The first thing you'll notice is that Nathan moves soooooooo slooooooooow. He's probably the slowest protagonist in Castlevania history! Before too long, you do find the Dash Boots which allow you to finally reach an acceptable speed, but only when you double-tap left or right. This is, frankly, super annoying. If you're trying to get a running start to make a big jump or trying to get away from enemies or their attacks, you'd better hope that double-tap registers, or else you'll be taking a leisurely stroll down a pit or into a fireball. If the basic act of moving your character is such a chore, there's something deeply wrong with your game. That's not the only part of the gameplay that's painfully slow, either. Later on you get the ability to move blocks so that you can access new paths and solve puzzles, and when pushing the blocks, you move even slower than your walking speed. That is to say, sloooooooow. One puzzle had me push one block for like, a full ten seconds. When you dash everywhere, the time it takes to push these things is even more noticable.
Another thing to note is the difficulty. In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, you steadily grow stronger, and you can really feel your power growing as you go back through earlier areas and absolutely smoke the enemies you were struggling to beat prior. In Circle of the Moon, this feeling never comes. Leveling up hardly seems to do anything for your power. The enemies will be absolutely ripping you to shreds as you venture forward into new areas, and you'll be begging to find the next save room (which also restores your health) all the while. Every time I push forward, I have to stop and wonder if I'm going the right way, because the enemies are just so strong. Oh, and don't even get me started on the bosses. There's no way to beat half of them without finding some way to cheese them, and even then, it'll probably take you at least a dozen attempts of slamming your head against the wall and hoping it works this time. That still probably takes less time than it would take to grind until you can actually overpower the boss. Enemies can drop potions, and that helps, but there doesn't seem to be any type of shop where you can stock up.
The game features an interesting system called the Dual Set-up System, or DSS. Don't let the lackluster name fool you—this is not some sort of computer program needed to set up Windows Vista. Basically, you have two sets of cards, and when you select one from each, they have a special effect. Every pairing has a different effect. Some give you elemental attacks, some change your whip into different weapons and one even makes you do martial arts! You can activate your selected DSS effect at any time with the L button, but watch your MP bar, as it'll drain as you use DSS. The catch is that the cards are all random drops, as far as I can tell. To fill out your DSS catalog, you'll either need to look up a guide and grind specific enemies until they drop their cards or just run around killing everything you can until your thumbs break off. In my time playing—without a guide, mind you—I ended up with just under half of the catalog, but players may be more or less lucky. I'm sure some card drops are more rare than others as well, so good luck if you plan to get them all. Good luck holding onto your sanity, that is.
Overall, DSS seems a little half-baked. A lot of the setups just seem bad. The martial arts one I excitedly mentioned is, sadly, basically never worth using, since you have to get in close, and the first two hits do paltry damage. The fourth and final hit of the combo deals a lot of damage, but you're all but guaranteed to take damage yourself trying to land it. It's also worth noting that there are no equippable weapons—DSS is all you've got. Your only equips are to your body and each individual arm. This means you get a lot less build customization than SotN, and a lot less useful gear, as well.
As of writing I've reached Death, but no further. Considering Death is almost always an end-game boss in Castlevania titles, I'll say I've played enough to pass judgement on this game (and I'm not talking about Castlevania Judgement), and it's not great. Interestingly, barring Mr. Nutz, which I started but TruKuu finished, this makes Castlevania: Circle of the Moon the first game I've reviewed on the site that I haven't beaten beforehand. I didn't have a terrible time playing it, but it certainly says something that I hit a certain point and just said, "okay, I get it. That's enough." I may go back and try to finish it sometime, or at least collect some more cards if I'm able, but I dropped it a few weeks ago and haven't really felt much of an urge to return yet. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that Castlevania games have a reputation for being difficult—I've beaten some of the hardest ones, after all, so I have plenty of firsthand experience. This one, though, is hard in a kind of boring way. I know I can beat a boss if I grind for a loooooooong time, or I can just keep grinding out attempts until I eventually get somewhere. It's not really trial and error, it's just trial. Trial and trial and trial again. Trial or hours of grinding, which may or may not ever actually increase your stats; it's honestly hard to tell.
The soundtrack is pretty good, though it relies very heavily on remixes of older Castlevania themes. They're cool to hear for sure, and the compositions are solid, but It's a bit of a series tradition to save those tracks for later in the game, and to use them sparingly. This makes it all the more impactful when you get to an area that plays a classic throwback jam, and it really gets the blood pumping. Well, I looked it up, and of the 19 songs on the soundtrack, 13 of them are either remixed or taken note for note from previous Castlevania games. Yet another song seems to take cues from a Castlevania Bloodlines song, but the jury is out on whether or not it counts as a remix. Listen, anyone could tell you that Castlevania is a series with great music, but this just comes off as lazy. They should've made some more great, iconic music instead of just reusing what was already there. It leaves this game's soundtrack without much of an identity of its own, which is quite sad for a title in this series.
The game looks good for GBA, though you do tend feel the small screen size. A lot of rooms and even bosses are pretty large, so it can be diffucult to keep up with everything that's going on. There are a few rooms populated with enemies that chase after you, so while it's tempting to save time and run away from them, doing so just means they'll pop out from an unknown edge of the screen and attack you. Most of the bosses are in rooms that are too large to be fully seen at once, so if you flee to the other end of the arena, when you go back on the offensive again, it may be in the middle of swinging a giant limb around, just in time for you to move directly under it. Aside from that, though, the graphics are solid and the monster designs are what you'd expect from an entry in the Castlevania series. Just as monstrous, just as gnarly, just as wicked. There is a pretty high number of palette swap enemies, though. If you like the Axe Armors, you're gonna love the Flame Armors, Thunder Armors and Forest Armors. Don't forget Stone, Poison, Holy and Ice Armors! There are apparently even more Armors than that, but I havent encountered them.
As stated earlier, I haven't finished the game, so I haven't seen everything it has to offer. The game opens with a man named Morris Baldwin storming Dracula's castle in an attempt to stop the Demon Lord's resurrection. Following directly behind him are his pupils, Nathan Graves and his own son, Hugh Baldwin. Dracula promptly blows a hole in the floor below Nathan and Hugh, separating them from Morris and forcing them to traverse the trecherous castle in order to find him before it's too late. However, Hugh has a grudge against Nathan, who was chosen over him to be Morris's successor and wield the Hunter Whip. Will Hugh force Nathan to do battle with him, or will he be able to put aside his personal feelings for the sake of his father? I don't know! I didn't finish the game! It is an interesting bit of tension to keep you going, though—If you can get past the gameplay. Outside of the story, the writing seems mostly fine, though I did catch an obvious error in a DSS description. To once again bring up the martial arts DSS combo, it states you need to hold the button to perform combos, when you actually have to repeatedly press the button.
I don't think I'd recommend this game to anyone but hardcore Castlevania and/or Metroidvania fans. The exploration can be fun, but it's hurt by the poor movement. It doesn't help that the game is difficult in a way that just doesn't feel good. It's all the difficulty of Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse, but with none of the fun and satisfying platforming. You beat a horrible boss and instead of celebrating, you just go, "ugh, finally." Maybe some of the DSS combos are total game changers, but none of the ones I found really blew me away, and considering it's random whether or not you'll even find them, it may be even worse if that is the case. The game is not without its Castlevania charm, but you're much better off replaying Symphony of the Night for the 50th time. Now THAT'S a Metroidvania! Ahem... If you'll excuse me, I think I need to put away the GBA and go hook up my PlayStation. It has a little something for everyone.
Published 3/18/26
