You spend ceaselessly ready for a brand new Castlevania (that isn’t a weird God Of War clone), and two come alongside without delay, albeit underneath a distinct title because of Konami doing their factor. We’re nonetheless ready on Koji ‘IGA’ Igarashi’s full resurrection with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, however its pseudo-8-bit Kickstarter stretch-goal companion sport Curse of the Moon simply rolled out on Steam, and by all accounts it’s a beautiful piece of old-school whip-crackin’, vampire-bothering enjoyable.
While the complete 2.5D Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night can be far more of a Symphony of the Night-styled metroidvania (as we’ve come to know the style), Curse of the Moon is closely impressed by Castlevania 3, which was a extra historically linear platformer however with a character-switching twist. In CotM’s case, you’ve obtained 4 protagonists, every with their very own mobility and fight quirks, with some paths solely out there to sure characters.
Despite the 8-bit stylings of the sport (adhering very a lot to the formulation of Castlevania 3, for probably the most half), this one provides it the Shovel Knight therapy of eradicating all of the arbitrary sprite limits, in addition to extending the playfield to 16:9 side ratio. It’s basic Inti-Creates stuff, and consistent with their different current retro-styled titles, corresponding to Mighty Gunvolt Burst and Blaster Master Zero.
The sport could also be comparatively brief in comparison with later Castlevania video games, but it surely’s constructed with replay worth in thoughts. There’s a whole second loop by means of the sport unlocked after finishing the principle story, with new routes opened by means of the degrees, amped-up boss fights and even some new story beats. From the appears to be like of what I’ve seen on A Raving Loon’s streamed playthrough here, that second loop is fairly dang powerful, too, and calls for lively character-switching in boss fights.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is out now on Steam for £9/$10
