circle of the moon always seemed like one of the cooler castlevania games to me, the card system always looked so cool (i love any game with cards) and the fact it was a launch game for the GBA was really neat, i ended up getting a CIB copy yeeeears ago but never played a ton of it until i picked up the advanced collection very recently and i am glad i waited on it for reasons i'll get into, but despite some issues with it i did really love the game, it has so much to love and it stands as being a very impressive game for its system and one of the best metroidvania's out there, certainly one of the most polished ones.

i don't usually mention controls but here i do feel a need to, the games really slow to walk and you need to double tap to run which will be your main method of getting around and this always really ads up to making even basic traversal a little iffy, especially in some of the more enemy filled areas, it's not a huge deal but it was super annoying sometimes, but the controls are fine beyond that. with the gameplay you have a lot of your standard castlevania thingies like the whip that this time actually has something similar to an alt use like in super CV where if you hold it down he swings it in a circle and can deflect some stuff with it, you have subweapons, of which the holy water and the clock were the most useful for me, special moves which get their own button like a super jump and a push that are mostly used for obsticles but i did find the super jump really good for some bits of the combat, but others like the block push just felt really one note and had zero use otherwise, the last big thing you have is the games magic system which comes in the form of cards.

this card system is the DSS system, it's basically a super customisable magic system as well as a fun little collectable card tree for you to fill out. some enemies (which in the original version the game does not tell you) will drop these cards in one of two types, you can combine these two types in a menu for different effects, some passive like an elemental shield and some active like screen clearing summons, new weapons, elemental weapons or familiars, it's such a diverse and fun system to play around with and some of these are really game changing like being able to use those new weapons, my main was the rose sword which had a much larger range than the whip since it hit at a 45 degree swing versus the whips line, but some like the elemental shields just weren't very good and there is an issue where two of these are locked behind the battle arena which is so late you won't really have much to do with them, though on a new game plus you do get a code to start with all of them by default, so it's not all bad, though this replaces the NG+ characters you see in many other castlevania games, it's just extra varients you get in NG+ like this or one that gives you a stronger whip.

the game feels, stylistically and with the lack of anime prettyboys, is like a mix of the old castlevania with he classic games more western stylings and darker colour palet, the monsters and even music in some bits, with the gameplay of the Igarashi games, it feels like a passing of the torch between the two styles if anything. which is weird isn't by iga's team or the older castlevania team but by a different section of Konami, that being Konami kobe, who also did the n64 castlevania games , which admittedly seem like some of the coolest ones, but who never worked on those 2D games. it gives it a really distinct feeling among the later 2D games and i just think it's neat how much it stands out, though being by a different team puts it in a weird place, like how its maybe non canon? and how it doesn't follow the belmonts at all, the story is about Nathan graves and the baldwin family, though it's not like there's much story here to begin with, less than a page of dialogue if i'm being generous, it's not a good story.

the levels are really cool here though and super non linier too! for example you're usually supposed to do the sewers much later after its been purified since it's full of poisoned water that will damage you, but you can just do it anyway if you have enough health, i did it without even realizing the water could be purified!!! though it does turn it into the games most annoying segment and did hurt my experience a lot, but its so cool that you can do it! and different parts of the map can be done out of order too depending on how you do things, it's a good set of levels, varied and for a launch title they look *really* good, the church area is especially a treat and the obligatory clock tower looks nice too, you'll go to catacombs, basements, castle walls and various chunks of fancy interior and each one looks super detailed, there's even some art scattered around that's done in this chunky pixel style, it's adorable, oh! the characters look cool too, Nathan has a cool look and a lot of the bosses here look amazing, they're so big and detailed and they can take up the entire screen, sometimes they won't even fit on it like with the twin dragons or the huge guy in the organ room, but there are some small ones too like death who shows up as an optional boss you can fight. the layout feels very intentional, with each area flowing really well into one another, especially compared to its sequel.

the music too, god, the music, this has one of the best OST's both in its series and on the console, though most of it is remixes of those classicvania games it takes its influences from, in fact only 6 of the games songs are original, though fate to despair and awakening, especially awakening, are two of the games best songs and awakening is one of the series best, but the remixes are real good too, sinking sanctuary is the games best song, clockwork is a great clock tower theme and it has one of the best renditions of vampire killer, Sōtarō Tojima (who worked on many pop'n games, Konami krazy racers and some yugioh and MGS games, he works on halo now, weirdly) and Hiroshi Mitsuoka (this is his only credited work)did a fantastic job here. the difficulty is pretty extreme here though, so quick warning there, save points are pretty infrequent and you don't have any kind of cash system to help with healing, pair this with how rare healing items are and this is a game that its very easy to die on if you don't cheat like me and use the ported versions rewind feature, i flat out do not think i could have beaten this without cheating, the final boss especially is just far too hard even with some level grinding and i don't think i could have beaten him legitimatly, it's ridiculous, even with rewinds and cheating i found this a very difficult game, but with cheats and grinding i was able to finish the final boss and the battle arena with enough pushing, but just so many of the enemies and bosses here make it a very tough time, especially the poison ones in the basement or the awful devil and void knight enemies near the end of the game, you just take way too much damage and their attacks are so hard to avoid and other, easier enemies like the dolls are still annoying because of the games overuse of status ailments like curse that stops you from attacking, it's a frustrating game.

it's not a super long game though maybe 8-10 hours for a full 100%, card grind included, less if you really cheese it with the rewind feature (i did for the arena cards) but you do have some replayability with those alternate movesets and the magic system is deep enough that you might want to experiment a lot in magician mode here. for ports you have a few options, the original is one of the cheaper castlevania games, running you about 20-25 cart only but i'd recommend the advanced collection version over it, for the save and rewind features plus the card system help, it's about 20 digitally but i'd eschew that for the LRG version, which i own, that one will run you about 40, which isn't too bad, it helps you also get the other GBA games and they throw in Dracula x too! this would sadly be Konami kobe's last game, which is a huge shame, they made those earlier mentioned n64 games but they also did Konami krazy racers, rakugakids and some really cool goemon and pop'n stuff, it's a shame they didn't last and it's a shame they didn't get to follow this up, instead the sequels being done by Igarashi's team, plus other followups like the amazing ps2 games and the more recent lords of shadow games by mercery steam. the producer and planner Kōji Horie would help with a good few other games at Konami, like later CV games like the DS castlevanias, he also worked on the metroidvania shaman king games and even some yugioh stuff like duel academy and 2004 WC. the game stands out as being one of the more interesting metroidvania games out there even now, i think, it's a genre thats became super oversaturdated but its games like this that really shine through that and show why the genre became the way it is, even if it's not a genre i find myself very attracted to, this game is cool and it's so polished to boot, if you have an itch for one, give this a try, i find it usually gets overlooked compared to some of the others in the series.