Halloween is just around the corner, and as my favorite holiday of the year, I like to start celebrating it a month or so in advance by watching, reading and playing various horror films, books and games. When it comes to horror themed video games, one would be hard pressed not to immediately think of Castlevania, one of the most iconic video game franchises of all time. Unfortunately, besides the stellar Netflix series based on Dracula’s Curse, and the surprising and welcome inclusion of the series into Super Smash Bros., when one thinks of Castlevania at the moment, they will likely be disheartened with the current limbo the series is in. Following Konami’s controversial decisions in the past few years over their video game franchises, there has been little to fill the void of Dracula calling us all a miserable little pile of secrets.
Enter Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – a Kickstarter initiated by longtime Castlevania director and Metroidvania codifier Koji Igarashi. Igarashi’s games, dubbed “Igavanias” were one half of the dual identity that the series was known for, the most famous of the style being Symphony of the Night, while the other half is made up of the classic and grueling platformers (and if you want to be technical, the 3D games starting on the Nintendo 64 and ending with Lords of Shadow 2 in 2014 can be considered a third facet).
It was funded faster than a whip crack back in 2015, and was the highest funded Kickstarter game of all time before Shenmue III dethroned it later that year. So successful was this Kickstarter that stretch goals had to be created at a rapid fire pace, one of them being the development of a retro styled version of the game, which leads us to today’s review: Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon.
Though Igarashi is famous for the Metroidvania style of games in the series, his favorite title is actually the NES classic Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. Curse of the Moon is very similar to it in terms of gameplay, character swapping and archetypes, but the story and setting is distinctly its own creature of the night.
The gameplay is solid, and arguably controls better than the original NES games and the difficulty is much more forgiving. The stages are all distinctive, whether it be a ride on a nineteenth century train or desolate, frozen wastes. The music is also very well done, but I cannot say it is as memorable as the actual franchise it is based on (how can you beat classics like Bloody Tears or Vampire Killer?!).
The starting character is Zangetsu, a demon-killing samurai warrior. Where CotM’s gameplay differs from Castlevania III is rather than have the option of recruiting one other allied character following a boss fight, CotM allows you to have up to all four of them playable at once. In a shocking twist, you can instead choose to kill the other characters and Zangetsu will become powered up with their energy, allowing him to take on some of their traits – one example being a higher jump that someone like Miriam (who plays a lot like a classic Belmont with a whip type weapon) has. Allowing or disallowing a character to join, killing some, all, or none, all have heavy impact upon the story. The game has multiple endings, and there is a true ending unlocked via a new game mode, which acts both as a new game plus as well as a sort of chapter two to the storyline.
As a package, Curse of the Moon is spectacular. For just $10 whole dollars you get plenty of bang for your buck with some fun and nostalgic gameplay, a cool setting, a branching story path, fun characters to play as, great, if not as legendary, music, and a nice warm up for Ritual of the Night. If you are a fan of Castlevania, especially the classic style of play for the series, or even just a casual gamer looking for a nice spooky game for around Halloween, you cannot go wrong with Curse of the Moon. Now enough talk! Have at you!
Graphics: 9
Music: 8
Story: 8
Controls: 9
Gameplay: 9
OVERALL SCORE: 8.6
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is available for PC for $9.99 via Steam.
Related: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night E3 Steam Demo Impressions
Steam Review
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Overall Score - 8.6/108.6/10
Your local neighborhood nutjob, gamer, and teacher! I'm an avid fan of many genres such as platformers, shooters, horror, etc. I am also an avid tabletop gamer - hugely into the worlds of Warhammer and all of their spinoffs. I'm a big believer in being objective - even if something is not my cup of tea, I want to talk about it on the objective level - is it well made, crafted with love, and with care for the fans? If so, that's a good game in my book for someone and well worth their hard earned dollarydoos!
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