Amazon Maximum Age: 17 years Amazon Minimum Age: 156 months Binding: Video Game EAN: 0083717500018 ESRB Age Rating: Teen Label: Konami Manufacturer: Konami Platform: Game Boy Advance Publisher: Konami Sales Rank: 6485 Studio: Konami
Amazon.com Review: One of the best side-scrolling game franchises makes a successful debut on the Game Boy Advance in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. This time around you follow the adventures of Nathan Graves as he attempts to stop the recently resurrected Dracula. In the fine tradition of Castlevania vampire hunters, Graves carries a whip as his primary weapon, and will soon discover the traditional secondary weapons of holy water, dagger, boomerang, time freeze, and more. New to the series is the dual set-up system (DSS), which allows you to use 20 cards (randomly found) for up to 80 power-ups.
The game plays like a side-scrolling classic without seeming too dated. Players traipse around a nonlinear dungeon, defeat monsters, and unlock new parts of the dungeon, often through the use of new abilities. It's similar to the excellent Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the PlayStation, with the obvious aural limitations of a cartridge-based handheld system.
Unfortunately, the game's dark graphics are difficult to see on the Game Boy Advance's fickle screen. Long sessions require consistent overhead lighting, so this isn't the ideal game for travel. The animations are also lacking, making character movement appear jerky. Despite these graphics shortcomings, this side-scrolling wonder makes a fine addition to your GBA library. --Raymond M. Padilla
Pros:
Classic gameplay
High replay value
Great sound for a handheld game
Cons:
Dark graphics are butchered by the GBA screen
Mediocre animation
Amazon.com Product Description: Konami's Simon Belmont started hunting vampires back in 1987, and he hasn't quit yet. Now he's chasing them across the Game Boy Advance in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. He'll use his trusty whip, as well as a few magical items, to combat Dracula and more than just a few foul minions. The game takes advantage of the GBA's rich color palette to create detailed, moody environments and intricate spell effects.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - old school style fun
I like the Castlevania series, so I have no complaints about this game. Controls are good, and it sticks to the tried and true platform genre.
Rating: - This is the 2nd best one for the GBA
First of all, yes this game is infamous for it's darker-than-any-other-GBA graphics. It is probably highly recommended that you play this game on a backlit GBA, the Gameboy Player or the DS. This is why I gave it the overall 4 star rating.
Now for the actual game itself. After the great but overlooked Symphony of the Night (due to the fact that Sony and everybody else, which is the audience, wanting 3D games), known for it's gameplay and amazing 2D graphics, fans wanted more so when the GBA launched, a month later, this game came out. some think that this game wasn't as good as Symphony of the Night. Well, even though their mostly right, but people have to remember that this was a game that was meant for a Handheld so of course it's not as pretty as that game. the gameplay is just like Symphony of the Night except there are a few differences. Graphics are good but a bit choppy, your Whip is the only weapon you can use, the Card system is great and has a lot of experimenting, the replay value is good, The Game is not quite as large as the other one (there were 2 castles in the PSone game), The gameplay is more of "as soon as you defeat this boss this is the next area to go to" unlike Symphony of the Night in which you can have multiple paths to go (make your own decision on where to go, but still not every place you can go quite yet), the EXP system is actually better (in SOTN, whenever you fight enemies for a long time, they go from whatever EXP points they have to simply 1 EXP so your maximum level to get to is 62 to be exact) but this game doesn't have that so you can go to level 99 in this game. Because this is the rarest of the 3 GBA game (the other 2 were rereleased in a 2 in 1 cart.), some people might make their price higher than 30 bucks so get it while you can. this game is Better than Harmony of Dissonance but not as good as Aria of Sorrow (or the other non-GBA RPG Castlevania games)
Rating: - Challenging and dark Castlevania game.
This game is just plain old fun. Its very challenging, unlike most other new Castlevania games, and really gets you into the adventure.
The special items you can obtain all make the game more interesting and the magic and card system just plain rocks.
You can change your whip into fire/ice whips, get magical swords and even summon a dozen monsters to help you.
The card system is what really makes this game shine.
Pick this game up if you really want a fun and exciting dark adventure, but be warned that this game requires a bit of skill to get through as it very tough.
Rating: - hard but gets better
I reccomend this game to good thinkers and people who like strategy games and long action-fantasy games. I first had trouble with this game but then it became easier to play though some bosses are hard.(use Holy Water when facing the IRON GOLEM)I liked the story, and its better to use a GameBoyAdvanceSP or a regular GameBoyAdvance with a light to catch the good graphics.Its very hard to get all the dss cards(unicorn and black dog are gotten in the battle arena).To defeat Draculas second formI reccomend URANUS WITH THUNDERBIRD DSS CARDS.Its a very good game, so buy it.
Rating: - Ack! Weak game.
This was a shock to me. For one thing, this game was raved all across the internet. For another thing, I'm familiar with the series (as far back as the first three NES games, to the SNES one, and Symphony of the Night), so I thought this would like those. Well... the gameplay mechanics are here, it seems, but everything else...
Lets figure this out piece by piece. First, the graphics were okay. Even though they're dark, and even though they're a bit lacking in animation (only THREE frame to show the main character running??!), the style was okay, and it added to the environments.
The sound was nice, and the music was great, but everything here just seemed like it could be done much better (the music sounds a bit MIDI-ish, but the melodies are good).
The controls... here's where everything really goes down hill. I'm no stranger to the Castlevania control scheme, having playing the first four games. However, for reasons I cannot fathom, this game has by far the worst control setup of all of them (which says alot, because I've replayed the first three games recently, and they haven't aged that well). First, controling your character is much like controling a big wooden stick. While the same could be said for the first four games in the series, this game takes it to far worse extremes, especially when considering the enemies move so much better (in other words, they're attacks seem more suited to a game that has you moving your character as franticly as a Mega Man X or Mega Man Zero game). Also, the option to have the whip spin by itself became rather annoying. Unlike Castlevania 4, which allowed you to move the whip around by holding the attack button down, this one only makes it spin on it's own, which is somehow amazingly counter-productive. Some of the abilities are nice (high jump, wall jump, etc...), but they don't alieviate this problem much, and actually require over-utilization in some areas (trust me, you would never survive the final battle without high jump).
Now the gameplay. I've played other games that used the "Metroid-vania" style (free exploration, found in Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow, as far as the ones I've played). Somehow, this one takes that system and just makes you lost. Seriously, this castle was not as fun to explore as all of the others. The boss battles (mostly refering to the last 4) were super cheap, requiring me to over-use the DSS system to the most extreme, which was a far cry from the more "down to earth" battles from Castlevania 4 and Aria of Sorrow. Much as I enjoy difficulty, I can't stand not being able to have a clear shot at a target with my whip due to the enemy being over-sized or too quick to dodge.
This is by far one of my most hated Castlevania games. If you even think about buying this game (since a lot of other people liked it), I recommend you find a way to rent it first. Otherwise, you may get yourself into a snag like I did. Lucky for me, this was only $15 at K-Mart, which is about as low as GBA games get.
- old school style fun
- This is the 2nd best one for the GBA
- Ack! Weak game.
