Castlevania: Circle of the Moon retrospective: I spit on your Graves | Game Boy Works Advance  

Fun Fact: When I first played this game I cleared the underground waterway... without first purifying the water. You think it's frustrating with the clean water, just imagine it without.

22:00 "if you become soft, I'll take over for you". Have had worse offers..

I got this game yesterday, and I'm loving it so far!

This was my first and only Castlevania. I loved it. Didn’t beat it till like 2008ish but I enjoyed it a ton. Especially cheesing with the DSS glitch.

COTM is VERY underrated in ALL aspects. It has easily one of the best CV soundtracks and a great battle system with the DSS. Hopefully with the Advance Collection more people will come to appreciate this game.

He’s just doing this series so he doesn’t have to talk about Deadly Towers. Can’t say that I blame him.

I'd just like to say I love how well edited your videos are. Your virtual boy series was great too!

Circle of the Moon also has the best version of 'sinking old sanctuary.' Fantastic track.

You know, this used to be my least favorite portable Castlevania game because it's so hard and confusing, and the difficulty curve is all over the place. Then I played it some more and realized that it's actually really clever and inventive, and the layout of the map is close to perfect for a game based around exploration. And it's _still_ my least favorite portable Castlevania game, because pretty much _all_ of them are friggin' fantastic. P.S. It's good to see I'm not the only one who sucks at fighting Adrammelech.

I think this was my first Castlevania. I never beat it cuz dang is it hard. But apparently something about it made my dad curious enough to play it for a few minutes, and he practically _never_ played video games. He even figured out you can whip the candles and get items, which he told me about as he was playing -- a detail I honestly didn't know at the time. So that little memory is something I can thank this game for at least.

This game was actually my introduction to the _Castlevania_ series. ;o

This game, even with grinding, has arguably the most difficult final boss in the Castlevania franchise. It also has, arguably, the most awesome final boss music in the franchise.

We need a Metroidvania collection! GBA/DS games

Glad seeing you do justice to this great game. So many people bashed this over the years. Its one of my favorite entries in the series and my first metroidvania. I remember suffering through the Camilla fight because how dark the screen was, not being able to see the poison spores she releases.

It was a great metroidvania with a very adventurous kind of feel but the platforming physics are ass. >Design a game for a screen that's wider than tall >Make the jump arcs super high and the walking really slow and stiff

Jeremy, I was hesitant to click on this video. You always bashed CotM whenever you have the chance on Retronauts, but I'm glad that I give it a chance, same as you did with this game. I believe that you really did justice to it in this review. It's a shame that I can give it just one like. :) Talking about the shortcomings of CotM, never felt that s shop was needed. Playing later Aria of Sorrow, I found that it was very easy to buy a bunch of healing potions from the store and then wailing on the final boss and healing periodically from the menu. That was a very unsatisfying victory and made the battle against Dracula in Circle a lot more fulfilling in retrospective with the limited healing resources and high damaging attacks from the boss. Loved this game to death and played over and over in different modes (magician, warrior, etc.), everyone offering a new spin to delve into Dracula's Castle again with different strategies to conquer it. Anyway, keep the good work...! Or should I say "works"? :D

2:52 The fact that you’re thinking of doing another series is what makes me worried.

With the quality of his videos, youd think hed have way more than 43k subs. Got another here keep it up dude!

This game's obsession with luck and RNG is what made me hate it, honestly. Even by the end of the game, rolling around with a luck stat of 600+, I still felt like I was tediously grinding drops. Plus, I think by the time I finished the game, I'd only found two or three DSS cards.

Been playing through this again. What makes this one stand out to me is how snappy it feels. It's responsiveness is extremely satisfying

After owning this game for over a decade, I finally beat it just a couple years ago and was really impressed by its quality. Compared to its direct successor, Harmony of Dissonance, it's aged far more gracefully with its darker, deeper color palette and music that's on the upper end for GBA quality in general (love the bass in some tracks). I couldn't get to the end when I was younger because it was just too hard, but I appreciate the difficulty now, even if some spots really overdo it like the optional arena area, which nearly requires some really powerful DSS combos. The game has a bit of a different rhythm to it I really appreciate-the shoulder tackle for instance does as much damage as your whip, but leaves you vulnerable afterwards. This led me to memorize how many strikes enemies took to kill and often substituting the last with a charge to finish them off while passing right through them, giving me extra momentum through the castle. It's a small thing, but it comes up in the moment-to-moment gameplay so often that it gives a different flavor to the whole experience. I really like those little differences this game has and the way they add up into being its own unique entry.

This game holds up well, played through it again about a year ago on a backlit SP. Such an ambitious game to kick off the GBA Castlevania line with!

Somebody made a hack recently on the romhacking.net forums that puts the cards in the game's map as upgrades for you to find and not random drops, it's pretty good When I played this game I literally got the Serpent card on my first try killing the Earth Demon and didn't realize any of that was a difficult thing, which is pretty funny I played Harmony of Dissonance right afterwards and even with the hack to darken the game's palette to make it more bearable I still found it to be worse in comparison

Great video! I just have a small nitpick about your comment regarding the developers "cheating" in the sound department. The GBA audio hardware was primarily designed for sample playback, like the SNES. The original Gameboy PSG chip was also thrown in, mainly for backward compatibility, but also for developers to use in a supporting role if they choose. Pretty much every GBA game I can think of relied on samples for the bulk of their sound generation, although they did tend to be at a lower, grainier sample rate than the SNES

Excellent work as usual. I felt this was a fair assessment of a flawed but enjoyable game. I recently played through it again and find that Jeremy does a great job of summing up both what is enjoyable and what is frustrating about this title. The castle, music, and DSS cards are great, and “Awakening” was an amazing addition to the Castlevania themes line-up.

You can tell you were there in 2001--I was too. You really nail all the problems with Circle of the Moon, and why it's so frustrating because it is otherwise so excellent.

This brought back memories of me being so hooked on this game. I was going to the doctor with my mom and brother and I almost got hit by a car twice because I was walking and playing. After that, I was not allowed to play as I walked. Also my first run I didn't know I had to purify the water so I beat that area first. That was so hard and frustrating and then when I purified the water I was mad, I was like what was the point of it? Second run I learned I could do it first. Good job young me.

Circle Of The Moon is a pretty solid Castlevania game. The arthritis I got from playing it is also pretty solid too. Thanks to its wonderful "Double tap to run" walking/running system.

The next biggest flaw of the DSS, aside from the scarcity of drops, is that only one combo can be activated. As such, a lot of combinations aren't worth using.

Circle > Harmony Fite me, nerds.

2:20 Ah, SOTN Cerberus. The lamest, easiest boss in the entire game.

I played it again last summer on the PSP, it is still amazing. I love CotM so much

Just wanted to say that the Advance Collection has restored the audio for the GBA games and now they sound AND look amazing!

This was my first castlevania game id ever played. I saw a walkthrough in a friends nintendo power and needed to have it. It was hard as fuck for 12 year old me.

I’m an S Tier Magician main and this is my favorite game. One thing I cannot stress enough: Brain Floats… we all know that you can use the ice whip(Mercury and Serpent) to freeze them to reach high areas early. What a lot of people don’t know is that with the ice sword(Mars and Serpent) you attack at the same speed and do the same damage for the same effect with slightly less range BUT it swings overhead and makes freezing the Brain Floats above you much, much easier. This allows for a significantly less frustrating time reaching those higher areas early on and remember as long as you don’t attack while they’re frozen you won’t accidentally kill them. As a Magician Main, grabbing those health upgrades REALLY help how squishy the class is. Tip No. 2. When you cast ANY summon but Unicorn, pause the game as soon as the animation starts(BEFORE Nathan leaves the ground) and swap your cards to Venus and Thunderbird(more damage per map percentage) for a BOOST to the summon Damage. This actually makes Cockatrice a higher DPS option than Thunderbird. This trick also works with the Skeleton’s Big Bone for a damage bump as well. Edit: This can allow Magician to consistently one phase Camilla and the Minotaur Room, The Devil Armor Room and The Devil Room in The Battle Arena(with the mind restore potion quick summon cheese).

Thumbs up if you played this at launch on the original GBA. That music made the grinding/RNG much more tolerable.

I think you should continue your older x works series instead of just focusing on the current/new one. Just alternate between the different series instead of just focusing on one at a time. Maybe you should make a new episode of regular game boy works next since the last episode of that was a while ago. Just alternate between gameboy works, gameboy works color, gameboy works advanced and all the other x works series you have

CotM is a game I have particular fondness for: It was the first Castlevania I played, and while it had its issues, I enjoyed doing the grind while I had nothing better to do and was in a place where the portable nature of the GBA were useful. It took me a year to play the game to completion, and since then I've played every other Castlevania I could find. Really great to see you cover it.

The DSS system left me feeling overwhelming anxiety that I was constantly using the least effective ones.

Cicle of the Moon was the first GBA game I bought with my GBA after the day that it was launched here in the UK. I couldn't play it because how bad the GBA screen was so I ended up getting a wee purple light to shine on the screen.

I find the art design of the early GBA games to be fascinating, with how different devs were all trying to find ways to work around the terrible screen. It gives much of the GBA library a very distinct - if often garish - visual identity.

Every time you beat it you unlock a different type of character. The magician starts with all cards.

Favorite GBA game, hands down. Great video (as always)

I like how in all of the GBA ads and commercials they show a vibrant backlit screen. Great Video Jeremy. This is an underrated Castlevania entry and one of my favorites.

How come reviewers never mention the DSS pause cheat? The developers built it into the game for a reason. It really allows you to experience the game to the fullest and find the best possible combinations for each scenario.

Excellent video. I finally played through this game recently and was initially annoyed by its flaws. By the end I really liked the game. But everything you said is spot on.

Along the line of “arguably bests” the GBA SP itself might be arguably my favorite handheld.

Really glad you're continuing this series right after it started. The games on this system were really quite something and, dare I say it, even *_better_* than most DS titles.

I just LOVE how challenging the game is. All IGAvanias are shamefully easy in comparison.

My favorite game on the GBA and my favorite metroidvania after Symphony of the Night. You can critisize it to your heart's content it's still an insanely fun and satisfying adventure. Later installments in the series didn't feel as fresh and interesting, they largely were "more of the same" type of deal.

CIrcle of the moon is one of the best castelvania games and it was hard, much better than Harmony of dissidence and felt like it had DNA from both softn and Bloodlines.

This game always struck me as gimped. Movement is jerky, many cards are require lengthy grinds, and most of the combos are pretty worthless. The only positive thing to stick with me is the music.

Every time I see this game I want to finish it again, it's wonderful and also has a ton of replay value with the secret "classes"

Hey Jeremy, think you'll do a GBA Works Gaiden or something on the GBA Video series? Since they're not really games, and they wouldn't be worth reviewing individually unless you REALLY wanted to give us your thoughts on Shark Tale.

The GBA Castlevanias are really underrated!!

Weirdly enough, I actually like the double-tap run mechanic. It makes movement feel like there's some momentum and weight to it in a satisfying way. Compared to that, the movement in Aria feels like you're just floating through the game.

This might also be the first instance of the "so awkward to aim that it's often useless" handgun in the Castlevania series.

I still think this is the best looking and sounding game on the GBA

Fair and in depth review. CotM is my favorite GBA Castlevania.

Fun fact: The poison mist combination makes Death, Carmilla and most of the Underground Waterway trivial. Death in particular was a joke. The mist just destroyed his scythes, which means he wasn't really able to do anything. I was able to have it on continually since it barely used any MP. It's also great to find hidden rooms because you could just keep it active and it would auto destroy any walls you passed by anyway.

Disappointed this didn’t begin with “What a horrible light to have a curse.”

Hey rich from reviewtechusa sent me to this channel.

Loved circle of the moon. The remix of themes from other castlevania games were really good and the graphics are awesome. Of the 3 gba games I felt this was the hardest of the 3 games without exploiting the dss glitch and thought it was the best of the 3. Aria if sorrow was really good to but easier.

Despite this being really hard to get into, I'll find these tunes popping in my head far more often than I'll understand, considering the frequency of my playing this game.

This game is better than most people say, some of the music is very good and some is pretty low-effort. The point he made about dying to enemies after a boss is a huge problem in this game, but preventable if you buy the Steam version and make a save state after the battle. The battle arena is really fun if you're level ~45+. It still has a good solid castlevania feel and has tons of NG+ goodies if you want them, but the RNG aspects are kinda meh, needing to farm and grind is not something I want out of a castelvania. The DSS, while very fun, includes some stuff that kind of makes normal whip attacking inferior. So you end up just wiping rooms with summons. All DSS playthrough took me ~30 hours, second magician playthrough took like 3-4.

Agree almost completely with this assessment, but there are two unmentioned flaws that, along with its difficulty and grindy randomness, greatly downvalue this entry for me: * First, enemy variety, or rather, lack thereof. I guess this comes as a consequence of 100% new assets, and enemy recolors are indeed understandable and justifiable in many circumstances... but, f.ex., did there really have to be an armor enemy for every freaking element in the game? Sheesh. * And second, it's very subjective but, unlike the audio, the visual aesthetics of this game feel downright wrong: the enemies look so.... simple and ugly. And then there's the scale: Why is everything in this castle designed for a person like, twice Nathan's size, or more? Why is everything so effing BIG and SPACIOUS and TALL and EMPTY?! These two things make it look really amateurish, like a poorly proportioned drawing from a child.

I played Cotm before I played Symphony, mostly because 10-15 years ago it was much easier to get a hold of a GBA emulator and ROMs than get the PS1 emulator working and a CD image. Because of that, I loved the game. I didn't know until later that the game had mixed reviews. Apparently there is a way to cheat and finish the game within a few minutes.

Circle of the Moon is the best Castlevania game. Idk if you know this but you can just name your file "FIREBALL" and you'll start the game with all the DSS cards. There are a couple other special modes too.

This game's profile would've been significantly improved had they launched with a backlight and had Konami not made you double-tap a direction to run all the time, honestly, I think it stands the test of time better than much of the early GBA output. I know you've said that it'll be a while before you get back to this series, but I'm fascinated to see what you think about Pro Skater 2 on GBA as well if and when it comes up

13:28 I didn't grind for absolutely anything in my entire playthrough. Definitely not for antidotes, that would drop often from the same enemies that cause poison. Most of the time I didn't even care to use antídotos and I just took the damage

Hey Jeremy, i LOVE your vids. Quality content!

i think you're overselling the RNG point, mate, every CV has some items that make the game a fair bit easier if you get lucky with drops, Circle of the Moon is definitely worse with this, but unless your luck is absolutely terrible you're bound to find something that works. i also think save rooms are relatively well-placed, save for not having one closer to the count's room and maybe adding one to underground waterway i do think most DSS cards should be findable in the castle and not RNG i'm glad you actually gave this some good rep, i've seen this game bashed a lot by other reviewers and my friends

I got the Castlevania Advance Collection on PS4 and I almost beat this title but the last boss is so hard that I may come back to it later when I have the patience to try levelling up.

Looking at the ending scene of this game and then that of Harmony if Despair will certainly induce retinal whiplash. “Overcorrecting” is absolutely right. I do wish the latter game could get a more Ayami Kojima-accurate remaster with subdued lighting. Castlevania may be one of my three most favorite series but it’s disheartening to be reminded that this really was the last sprite based game with all original artwork; some of those enemy sprites may have had longer careers than Morrigan’s Darkstalkers sprite and that’s long past time for retirement. *remembers spending far, far too long grinding that earth demon and developing strong feelings about grinding thresholds because of it*

I bought this game brand new when it came out. I wish I had hung onto the box and manual. I wasn't a serious collector back then.

felt like this was the better of the three, it felt like the other two were cheap imo, and then it didn't help the others didn't have a dope soundtrack and felt bland to me, idk something about cotm just feels better

Great video. I was always bothered about why the machine tower sounded so familiar, and now I know why thanks to this video. It's odd, despite playing Castlevania 3 a whole lot as a kid (and both tracks being in my car's playlist), I just couldn't make the connection. On another note, I think one of the few things which made me tolerate fighting the last boss in CotM was the music for that fight.

CotM is less talked about because it is neither the worst nor the best of the handheld Castlevanias, there's just not as much to say about it.

this game is easily the worst metroidvania. i dont like it very much.

Wasn't the Retronauts consensus that this was the definitive dud of the "Metroidvania" side of the series? I will say that, while this game is an uneven patchwork of ideas that are somewhat awkwardly stitched together, I did find that replaying it was at least more intellectually engaging that some of the other titles. Like with Zelda II, when the core game is solid (though maybe not "great"), the shortcomings feel almost subversively engaging in contrast to the more polished games because there becomes a sort of meta-game to understanding it, rather than the routine of objectively tighter games. I think this is why the refinement of games like Metroid Zero Mission and Castlevania Aria of Sorrow make for satisfying games for a first playthrough, but don't have as much of an appeal to me on a second or third playthrough. I should note, however, that I am a fundamentally broken human and feel guilt over feeling joy without suffering.

If you are a really experienced player and you want to challenge you can beat the underground water eria without purifying it

Dude your output is insane. I can't wait to eventually watch all of these.

Actually Adventure ReBirth is the last 2D release in the series to not recycle sprites or backgrounds. M2 really went all in on that game.

This was my first Mtroidvania. I enjoyed it so much I played it to completion

I first played this game a month ago, and it was my first contact with castlevania, I liked it, but it has too much things of, watch a guide or kill every enemy hundreds of times to get an upgrade. Edit: I forgot the soudtrack, I'm playing the other gba castlevanias and this one's soundtracks is still my favourite

Fond memories of the hours spent playing this directly under the brightest fluorescent light in my basement...

I'm really glad the recent re-release addressed some of the issues mentioned here. Now you can tell which enemy drops cards by defeating them. Obviously the screen issue was long ago remedied with the Wii U Port, but now just as well with the Switch. Also, save states help mitigate the sparse save locations. Overall, it's nice to see a classic gem like this get a few quality of life improvements. I just hope the DS titles receive the same treatment in the near future.

really appreciated this video, on retronauts and rankings you always sound like you absolutely hate this game, but it sure was something special when it came out, and i feel like you really sell that along with its shortcomings.

Circle is easily my favorite of the Castletroids. The only thing it's missing is better sprite animation. I love the music and I like variety of attacks from the card system, which made the followup seem kind of lacking since it was whip only. They should have done the sprint and the rolling bash abilities in reverse, so the roll would be double tap and then sprint would be holding R.

Despite growing up in the 90s and being 13 years old but a time this game was released this was actually the first Castlevania game I've ever played. For now it is my favorite Castlevania game, but there are some more I have played since including prior Castlevania games like Super Castlevania 4 and Castlevania bloodlines. I still have yet to try Symphony of the Night but I would love to play it at some point. For some reason I didn't really enjoy area of Sorrow as much as this game even though it came out later than this game and for most people it was an improvement. I think I just preferred the DSs system over having to equip a variety of different weapons. I did enjoy a portrait of Ruin quite a lot when I actually for once cut my hands on that game a couple of years ago but then that game pissed me off because I defeat a boss pretty early into the game and then I actually had beaten the game. Or gotten one of the endings. So I have to avoid fine this boss entirely if I want to truly progressed to A better ending. I didn't really like that.

I member this was one of the games I got at launch along with some shooter. I wanted to love the game, but man, the visibility killed it for me. Also the tiny D pad made it difficult to control. By the time I got the Gameboy player, I kind of lost interest. Maybe I should revisit it?

Heh, that opening pun. Glad to see this moving at a good clip! Got this on Wii U a year back, enjoyed but never finished it.

I loved this game back in the day! It's still one of my favorite Castlevania games.

That 3 frame run cycle absolutely boggles my mind - much, much more powerful hardware with the GBA & the team goes for a run cycle straight out of an NES game.

This is why Castlevania advance collection is so amazing: save states and replays!!!!

This was a great entry! I've always had a nostalgia for CotM, with basically the same set of fringe reservations you laid out in much better explanation (save points, great but flawed Stat and magic systems). Thank you for continuing on into the GBA!

would have been satisfied with playing sinking old sanctuary and calling it a day but sure i'll take all the rest of this as well

This game has one of the best music in the entire GBA library.

So glad you chose Circle of the Moon! One of my all times faves!

Jeremy, have you made or are considering making a video in which you discuss the influences from one Castlevania game to another? Like the DSS (system) and the Soul system from Aria of Sorrow? EDIT: I mean in general, I just saw that you did comment specifically about DSS vs SS in this video.