Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

Released on May 24, 2018 for the Nintendo Switch, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon brings back the 2D, Castlevania-esque platforming action of yore.

Castlevania is my favorite video game franchise after Zelda, but I somehow missed longtime series producer Koji Igarashi's Kickstarter for its spiritual successor, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. To put my Castlevania fandom in perspective, despite my vehement Nintendo fanboyism in the late 90's, I played through the PS1 classic, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, three times. That's like Nancy Pelosi wearing a red Make America Great Again cap while watching Last Man Standing and cleaning her Beretta.
Unfortunately, Konami, the once great studio that created Castlevania, Metal Gear, and Silent Hill, among others, seems no longer interested in making video games. Hence, Igarashi, Kickstarting this new Bloodstained series. Thankfully, Ritual of the Night not only met its creation goals, but met a stretch goal promising supporters an additional game in the style of the classic NES 8-bit Castlevania games. Even better, the release of that bonus game, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, has preceded Ritual of the Night. The game is currently free for Kickstarters, and only $9.99 on the Nintendo Switch EShop for everyone else, i.e., me. I pounced!

Evil, demonic castle, you have no idea the things I am about to do to you.

Thankfully, venerated 2D retro-style game developer Inti Creates was chosen to work on Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. With this game that could have just been a toss off, their skill at and love for classic 2D platformers is on full display.
Curse of the Moon's graphics look like high quality NES work from the late 80's, down to every garish color, blocky foreground, and hand-drawn background. The four main characters might look like modern anime characters in the game's accompanying artwork, but in-game, they look like classic NES protagonists, animated in perfect 8-bit style. The game's chip-tune soundtrack is right up there with the legendary, memorably complex bleep-and-bloop symphonies of the NES Castlevania games. There's even a nonsense story, something about the protagonist, Zangetsu, being hexed with the moon's curse by demons, and then deciding that all the demons have to go.

Demons, begone!

So with all of these elements in place, why is it the game doesn't work?
Just kidding, this game is awesome. Inti decided to design Curse of the Moon after Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, generally considered to be the best of the NES Castlevania's. Like that game, the protagonist is joined by three sidekicks. Unlike that game, the player gets to have all three sidekicks on-call throughout Curse of the Moon's entirety, once they've been acquired (throughout the game's first three levels). By pressing the right shoulder button, the player can cycle between the well-balanced, sword-wielding Zangetsu, the whip-wielding, high-jumping, low-sliding Miriam, the physically weak, but magically powerful Alfred, and the vampiric Gebel, who can turn into a flying bat, and toss weaponized bat-knifes from his cloak. The four traverse nine 2D stages designed to make the player strategize character usage, stages full of evil monsters, even more evil pits, and branching paths. The controls are NES-Castlevania spot on, in that they are highly responsive, and yet, the player cannot change direction once they have jumped. The latter always takes me a while to get used to, as I am quite a twitchy player.

My parents took a lot of drugs.

All four characters have individualized secondary attacks, which can be changed by grabbing a power-up from one of each stage's plentiful purple candles. Ammo for these secondary attacks can be grabbed from the even more plentiful golden candles. Zangetsu and Miriam get things like fireballs and throwing knives, while Alfred gets a variety of powerful spells. Gebel only gets one secondary attack, which is to change into the aforementioned high-flying bat, who can reach areas others can't, and also perform a useful dash attack. Each player has their own damage meter, but if one dies, they're lost for the remainder of that life. Lose all four, and you're down a life. If the player is close to running out of lives, they can always invoke the curse of the moon, which allows them to start back at any level in the game they want with however many lives they had back then...which definitely doesn't sound like a curse, and maybe instead of going on a journey of slaughter, Zangetsu could have gone on a "thank you, demons!" tour. Of course, that would involve considerably less bloodshed, and likely result in a far less entertaining game.

Bloodstained: Appreciating the Moon.

However, instead of a Bob Ross-esque happy little cloud adventurer, Curse of the Moon's bloodshed is plentiful, and often it's your own. Yes, this game will kill you many times...you being your game character, not your actual self, as that mechanic would never have made it past Nintendo's storied quality control. If you play on the "veterans mode, which, if you have any NES Castlevania experience, you certainly should, enemy attacks knock you backward, making jumps in enemy-infested areas a nightmare. However, you can always switch to "casual mode." In "casual mode," you have unlimited lives, making the need for the curse of the moon mute. Also, hits don't knock you backwards, meaning you won't really need those unlimited lives anyway, outside of maybe for each level's quite-challenging end boss. You aren't penalized for playing the game in "casual mode," expect by the shame you'll feel deep in your soul.

 

This is exactly what your shame will feel like.

Beat the game through the first time, and you're given the additional challenge of "nightmare mode." Curse of the Moon also has multiple endings and unlockables, whose awardance is based upon who you beat the game with (you don't have to let the sidekicks tag along), and whether you've played through original or nightmare mode.
With all that in mind, at $9.99, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is quite a value. It takes at least two hours to get through "veterans mode" the first time, unless you are a platforming game robot, and then another couple for nightmare mode. Eventually, the game starts to feel less like a kickstarter bonus, and more like its own beast. Now Ritual of the Night doesn't just have to live up to the Castlevania legacy--it's got to live up to this.

SCORE: 8.2/10