Akumajô Dracula: Circle of the Moon

(www.plasticpals.com) It's not often that a system gets a launch title with as much clout as Castlevania, but the GameBoy Advance got lucky. In this adventure Nathan Graves fills the role of the vampire hunter when Camilla revives Count Dracula in 1830. It's a race to the finish as Nathan's mentor, Morris Baldwin, is being held somewhere inside the castle and will be sacrificed at the next full moon to restore the vampire to his full power. A rivalry between Morris' son Hugh and Nathan builds as they both scour the castle in an attempt to rescue him.

Created by Koji Horie, Circle of the Moon takes its general game design directly from Symphony of the Night, but incorporates a new game play gimmick called the Dual Soul System. What makes it interesting is that it enhances your standard whip with elemental powers. Using the DSS, you can infuse your whip with the power to petrify enemies (even floating ones) which can then be used as time-limited platforms to reach higher areas.

The DSS uses two types of cards, frustratingly dropped by enemies at random, which are then combined (one type is useless without the other) to form new abilities. These round out the repertoire of dashes, double jumps, slides, and shoulder smashes that can be performed once the necessary equipment has been found. These abilities are effortlessly enacted using the L and R shoulder buttons during a given action (such as crouching, jumping, or dashing), and are often the key to discovering secret areas. By pressing and holding the attack button, you can perform the pinwheel attack from previous games.

Circle of the Moon takes hidden secrets to a whole new level of depravity. At times it feels like almost every single chamber in the massive Castle Dracula contains one or more secret holes in the walls, floors or ceilings that can be slashed open. These will sometimes contain coveted HP or Heart increases, but are usually items or equipment – and with so many of these secrets littered throughout the game, the only way to discover them all is to go around the contour of each room slashing like a madman.

The graphics were rightly lauded for being great for a portable game at the time (a GBA launch title no less), but also criticized for its dark colour palette, which proved difficult to see on the system. This isn't the only complaint; the character and enemy sprites animate too stiffly. Despite this, the backgrounds look great and there are some cool spell effects. The music is decent but not quite up to Castlevania standards, with certain tracks taken directly from previous games (such as the rare PC Engine version Rondo of Blood and Bloodlines).

Circle of the Moon was a welcome launch title that, for the most part, lives up to fan expectations. It is, however, an uneven experience exacerbated by the required level grinding due to its extreme difficulty (the second and third installments are cakewalks by comparison). While it is a bit rough around the edges it is superior to its next of kin, Harmony of Dissonance. Though it doesn't really hold a candle to Aria of Sorrow, it is probably worth checking out if you're a die-hard Castlevania fan.

This is truly the best GBA Castlevania game ever. Better than Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow. I found this game more challenging and a lot more fun and interesting to play with. I never got tired of it unlike the other two GBA titles which got boring after a while. The graphics are not over the top but they are still amazing and beautiful to keep you playing the game.

The monsters were challenging, the game-play was challenging (especially the use of the Hunter Whip NOT the Vampire Killer), and the Battle Arena is still the hardest Battle Arena in any Castlevania game to date. What made this game even more fun and memorable was the music.

I love the music that was place in the game. It kept me going and kept me hooked for hours. Leveling Up is the most important thing in this game and yet it is challenging to achieve high level ups as your progressing.

What made this title so memorable was the new use of a DSS system of cards (Attribute and Action cards), which when combined, made interesting new magic spells or upgrading of your Hunter Whip. The bosses were more challenging than the two other GBA title ones and the strategy behind each one made it that more memorable. The downfall is that the game has no Enemy Library to know the info of monsters and that it has no Boss Rush Mode to make things interesting. Other than that a great game to the series and up there among my favorites.

The retcon of this game got me mad but i hope things will turn around and make CoTM part of the storyline. Again a memorable game and up there along with SoTN, Dracula X Rondo of Blood and the original Castlevania for the NES.

SoTN Dracula X CoTM Castlevania 1 (NES)

All time favorites. =D

9/10

Circle of the Moon was the first Castlevania to Game Boy Advance.In this game, you are not a Belmont, but you use whips. You are Nathan Graves, whose whip could be compared with Simon Belmont's. In this game, Dracula is(again...) resurrected by a lady called Camilla.Then, he kidnaps Nathan's master, Morris Baldwin. It's now time to Nathan and Hugh Baldwin, Morris son, defeat together Dracula and save Morris! Circle of the Moon has an interesting system of making magics.You have to fuse two types of cards(One is always a Roman god and the another is always a mythical beast) to make different magics. The only problem of Circle of the Moon is its light.The game's too dark. WARNING: Playing without light(GBA SP recommended) will occasionally blind you in the future. My score is 9/10.

It's hard going from Castlevania Symphony of the Night, one of the best game of all times, then go over to the next one in the release order.

I know it was a different team than Symphony of the Night because it feels stiff the castle design is kind of boring and teddies, Castle just so vertical.

I really don't like how they design the castle. There's so many times, where just feel like I'm jumping from the left to the right from the left to the right in a room, where I am just why is it designed like this, this feel so awkward for the finger to handle on the stick.

The main characters animation looks sad, it has two frames to walk and two running frames and it looks so sad.

I like that card mechanic. I think it takes a bit too long to get some of them, but it is an interesting Mix and the rpg mechanics makes it so it never feels like you're wasting time when you're killing the enemies. I think the game in its bones is fun enough I could see myself play this in 2001 on my Gameboy Advance, but nowadays I see no point.