Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
Happy Halloween, People of Perth and beyond!
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Castlevania series, a series long cherished by gamers globally for its ground-breaking mix of fun and frightening gameplay, and not to mention co-inspiration of the ‘Metroidvania’ genre. In case you are bound by magic in a deep, dark dungeon beneath Dracula’s very own castle, you’ll be well aware that Konami has celebrated the 40th anniversary by treating fans to a new instalment in the series in the form of Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, and for years now has also been publishing collections from its early era Castlevania games, from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) all the way up to the Game Boy Advance. But what is a gamer to do once they have played, or replayed, all of these games to death already? Well, dear reader, if you are looking for something fresh but also somewhat familiar to sink your gaming teeth into then I can highly recommend what is the greatest Castlevania tribute game of all time, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (CoTM).
Developed by Inti Creates under the guiding hand of Koji Igarashi, a veteran ex-Capcom programmer and writer who worked on multiple Castlevania titles including Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, CoTM delivers the closest thing a NES Castlevania fan could hope for albeit resurrected with modern quality of life improvements. The 8-bit aesthetic is creepily close to the original trilogy NES trilogy of games, although I quite like that Inti Creates went for a broader and brighter colour palate to make CoTM''s backgrounds, foregrounds, characters, and enemies all stand out. CoTM’s protagonist, Zangetsu, doesn’t wield a whip like the Belmont’s do but his platforming and combat abilities feel ripped straight out of the NES Castlevania trilogy playbook (or is that a dusty old tomb?). Indeed, almost all the classic hallmarks from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse (Castlevania III) in particular are here, from swappable characters, to character sub-weapons, to branching pathways, to the suspiciously frequent and destructible lanterns that dish out the goodies. Enemy designs often mirror their Castlevania counterparts - watch out for those overhead throwing axes whenever you see an armoured knight! - and pluck at the nostalgia heartstrings, coming perilously close to infringing on Konami copyright. When I first saw the flying ‘Dullhammer Heads’ bop through the air at what I swear is the exact same speed and height of the NES Castlevania III Medusa heads I couldn’t help but laugh, but also tip my hat to Inti Create’s developers for their love of the source material at the same time.
Even with (blood red) nostalgia tinted glasses on it’s fair to say that it can be difficult to go back to old school NES era Castlevania gameplay mechanics after experiencing latter installments that benefited from the processing power of future console generations. What makes CoTM more of an unearthed treasure than a horribly cobbled together Frankenstein’s monster, however, is how well it addresses so many issues I had with the NES Castlevania games growing up. First of all, players are given the option to choose a casual mode which fixes my biggest bugbear of all - it removes that bloody annoying knockback effect (hey don’t lie, you hated the knockback effect too!). Better yet, casual mode allows infinite lives so you won’t need to experience all of those rage quit moments you forgot about during ‘the good old days’ of gaming when death meant restarting the entire game. Whether you proceed with casual or veteran mode you’ll be sad to know that wall meat is gone, but hey who needs it anymore when every second lamp now spawns health. There’s also no more of this shared life bars nonsense, Zangetsu and all three of his allies have their own life bars although trust me when I say that you’ll be switching between them all on the regular just to stay alive.
On the topic of allies, how CoTM integrates its’ four playable characters into the moment-to-moment gameplay is absolutely brilliant. As with Castlevania III your main protagonist Zangetsu will come across three allies, one at a time, and all four playable characters have their strengths and weaknesses making them fun to juggle throughout each stage according to the situation at hand. If you are aggrieved by the fact that Zangetsu wields a katana then you’ll be relieved to know you can still get your traditional Belmont action gameplay on as soon as you meet up with Miriam, as she strikes at longer distances with her whip, can throw small knives or boomeranging scythes, and even use a slow swinging, highdamage, wall breaking battle axe. Her natural high jump and ability to slide also made her my go-to-girl for the more tricky platforming sections. Alfred, the group’s Castlevania III''s equivalent of Sypha, has a dangerously low health bar but compensates for this with some brilliant magical abilities including a protective wall of fire (which other allies can use too, neat!) and a gigantic ice bolt, although I’m not sold on his mirror image spell, and his fighting staff has the damage and reach of a child’s lollipop. Of all the Castlevania III ripoff...uh…‘inspired’ characters Gebel clearly takes the copyright cake. Just like Alucard he has no unique sub-weapoins but can transform into a bat which is essential to traverse to secret areas as well as a three-way fireball that’s useful against all enemies. Of the four I gravitated towards Zangetsu due to his high life bar and ability to buff his attacks, but used all three characters quite evenly to navigate and survive each stage’s challenges, always turning to Alfred whenever a rare green lantern appeared to score the holy grail sub-weapons, the Votaic Ray (e.g. homing magic missile of death). Just wait till you try it!
As much as I enjoyed CoTM’s quality of life improvements and characters the real show stealer here is its boss fights. They are an absolute treat, they really are. Back in the old school gaming days bosses in most games were an event on their own, but if I’m honest most in the original Castlevania trilogy looked pretty cool but were more frustrating than fun to fight. Who truly enjoyed the grind that was the multiple mummies from the first Castlevania game (unless you had the holy cross equipped of course), or any of the ridiculously unfair final boss fights with Dracula? Perhaps Konami is less to blame as there were of course so many limitations with what it’s developers could achieve with the limited tools of the 8-bit era. Not so here, thank goodness Inti Creates goes all out and breaks the 8-bit spell weaved so well in other parts of CoTM with it’s spectacular, unforgettable boss fights that see players finish each stage on a high note. Bosses range from a screen-sized, multi-headed, fire-breathing dragon armed to the absolute teeth (quite literally) to a demon possessed train that tries to drag you into its coal-fueled belly. Every single boss uses the full-screen to great effect, has multiple phases, and will test your troupe’s entire range of skills as well as your own ability to swap quickly between them to survive and triumph. Andrealphus, a skeletal peacock demon who zips around the screen, for example had me leaping high into the air with Miriam to dodge his swoop attacks, then to Gerard to avoid his hurricane blast at just the right moment, and then to Zangetsu to buff my damage output and make the most of a few rare hits before Adrealphus retreated to the air again. Once defeated, I was pleased to see that whoever I had used to strike the final blow during a boss fight was rewarded with a simple but nice little victory animation, or peered off into the distance at the next challenge that would bring me that little bit closer to finally breaking the curse of the moon.
Like any Castlevania game I must say that CoTM isn’t perfect. Losing any of the four characters, especially life bar tanks like Zangetsu and Miriam, make it a tall order to complete any stage let alone take down that stage’s boss. The platforming also isn’t quite as diverse as I would like it to be. It was cool to come across running water and the (not quite) mermen that lurked beneath, or watch book shaped platforms in the library stage materialise and then vanish to make traversal more challenging, but beyond these exceptions most levels are limited to simple staircases and gaps to leap over. CoTM also lacks the option to choose between branching pathways in between stages, which was a feature I loved in Castlevania III, although it does have alternative pathways within a stage, if you have the right character to reach the alternative pathway that is. Those issues noted, there is a more substantial story here than in any of the original Castlevania NES games and secrets both in-game and post-game too, but I’ll those to you to discover for yourself.
Whether you’re playing Vampire Survivors, Belmont’s Curse, or any of the Castlevania Collections this spooky season don’t pass on CoTM. CoTM is far more than a Castlevania clone, it’s one of the best tribute games I’ve played across any genre in gaming. The Belmont’s themselves would be proud.
Need more ideas to celebrate the Castlevania series 40th anniversary? Why not check out our 2D Castlevania or Metroidvania series spotlights over on the Perth Gaming Crew show?
How about more tribute games in your preferred genre? We have articles on The Messenger and Tiny Barbarian DX too!
---Jonathan @PGC
31/10/26