i feel like i’d honestly be into it if only the game did more to draw your attention to the highlights, the little contrasting details in the scenery that are there and arguably do look good. like i don’t know, have there be signs of traps that you need to look for, or blend the stage elements in with the backgrounds a bit more.
instead the gameplay and graphics mostly feel detached. again, there’s that tween-generational sense. it’s reaching into unexplored territory without really understanding what works yet. the original games have you walk on these floating stone slabs, how do we make that “16 bit”? uhh, add some depth shading or 3d perspective i guess? so you end up with this weird, sprawling, sum-of-parts experience where the individual pieces may be polished but don’t much take each other into consideration
i’ll always love that chunky overhead font, though. gold, emerald and blood red are the best HUD colours
Circle of the Moon is such an interesting game. It tries so hard to bring the classicvania feel into the open-ish-ness of SotN, and ends up being a little worse than either. But not THAT bad, you know? And pretty unique for what it is.
The fact that metroidvania games have descended primarily from SotN’s and Super Metroid’s extremely floating physics feels like a missed opportunity in a lot of ways. I wonder if that’s part of the appeal of Hollow Knight for me, it’s a lot heavier feeling, especially at first. In fact, it kind of evolves from the more classicvania feel into the SotN feel as you get progressive upgrades and badges.
Anyway, Circle of the Moon is a very interesting game and I enjoy it despite its flaws.
I feel like this is probably easy to look up but I am both lazy and here so: is there a “better” version of Castlevania III between US and Japan? I recall hearing that the difficulty got futzed with in I think the US version, but I have no clue if it was a “it’s just a bit harder” case or a “you broke the damn game you monsters” one.
IIRC, in Akumajou Densetsu the amount of damage you take from an enemy stays the same throughout the game. In Castlevania 3 the damage you take from any damage source depends on the current stage (CV1 did this as well, but I don’t think that was a regional thing there).
it has an extra sound channel but the soundtrack is quite a bit different outside of that IIRC. there’s not a definitive version but most people agree the FC version sounds nicer. Here’s a really interesting thing that mixes both - I personally think it sounds punchier than the JP version but retains the fullness of it:
still find it kind of incredible how easily you can dip into the game for a moment and get such a concentrated rush of, “whoa, yeah, actually videogames are good”. the way it’s just this consolidated mass of partly-refined, partly-hodgepodge mechanics and art that don’t necessarily all amount to anything meaningful but are so clearly made with gushing love for the medium
