I'd like to write my thoughts on the whole Castlevania GBA trilogy before I forget, starting with the first one: Circle of the Moon
Right from the start, you can tell this is going to be a Metroidvania title, following the success of Symphony of the Night; however, the controls feel nothing like in that game. They are very clunky, to the point where you feel like you are playing one of the NES titles instead; even your melee attack is just the classic one-directional forward whip one. You do have a pretty sick move if you hold down the attack button, which makes your whip spin around and block enemy attacks, but you'll almost never find use for it. The Castle design feels very uninspired too, just inferior renditions of what Symphony of the Night showed us and sometimes even less than that.
There's also a card system going on where you can basically use various enemy attacks (called spells) to enhance your stats or add an element such as fire or ice to your whip to inflict various status effects on your enemies, but the only way to get the cards is by pure luck and grinding, and it just makes the gameplay more redundant than it needs to be.
Bosses are few and far between; however, I'd call most of them memorable, especially the Dragon Zombie one, which makes use of all the chore mechanics and really puts to the test your understanding of them. Cool stuff.
There's a plot going on, and it's nothing really special—just your typical, even cliché story about two pupils trying to make their master proud and one of them getting jealous at you because you are the favorite and... It's not bad, but you can see where the story is going from a mile away.
Music is also really forgettable; aside from some of the boss tracks, having played this game only a month ago, I really can't remember any of them. Some people blame the inferior GBA soundchip for this, but I've listened to better OSTs on a Master System, so I don't think that's the issue here; the music is just a very generic haunted Castle theme.
I'd say give this one a pass unless you are really interested in going through the whole trilogy.
There's nothing interesting to see here, folks; let's keep moving on.
Right from the start, you can tell this is going to be a Metroidvania title, following the success of Symphony of the Night; however, the controls feel nothing like in that game. They are very clunky, to the point where you feel like you are playing one of the NES titles instead; even your melee attack is just the classic one-directional forward whip one. You do have a pretty sick move if you hold down the attack button, which makes your whip spin around and block enemy attacks, but you'll almost never find use for it. The Castle design feels very uninspired too, just inferior renditions of what Symphony of the Night showed us and sometimes even less than that.
There's also a card system going on where you can basically use various enemy attacks (called spells) to enhance your stats or add an element such as fire or ice to your whip to inflict various status effects on your enemies, but the only way to get the cards is by pure luck and grinding, and it just makes the gameplay more redundant than it needs to be.
Bosses are few and far between; however, I'd call most of them memorable, especially the Dragon Zombie one, which makes use of all the chore mechanics and really puts to the test your understanding of them. Cool stuff.
There's a plot going on, and it's nothing really special—just your typical, even cliché story about two pupils trying to make their master proud and one of them getting jealous at you because you are the favorite and... It's not bad, but you can see where the story is going from a mile away.
Music is also really forgettable; aside from some of the boss tracks, having played this game only a month ago, I really can't remember any of them. Some people blame the inferior GBA soundchip for this, but I've listened to better OSTs on a Master System, so I don't think that's the issue here; the music is just a very generic haunted Castle theme.
I'd say give this one a pass unless you are really interested in going through the whole trilogy.
There's nothing interesting to see here, folks; let's keep moving on.