Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2

I was a little worried when a sequel to Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was released in the short period after the release of the first game. The first Curse of the Moon was created as a lark, an appetizer to whet the appetites of what Igarashi thought would be the delicious main course (Ritual of the Night). He seemed to have underestimated the loud stomach growls of the 2D platformer Castlevania fans because people seemed to salivate more at the prospects of a game that emulated classic Castlevania. Once Ritual of the Night was released a year later after Curse of the Moon, it seemed like Igarashi’s work was done and Castlevania fans could breathe a sigh of relief that the new Bloodstained IP released two games that covered all bases of the Castlevania experience. While browsing the PSN store for sales, coming across Curse of the Moon 2 unexpectedly almost made me facepalm. The gaming industry never knows when to quit. A fun little tribute to one of gaming’s most illustrious series is now its own franchise that seemed to be on the same path of fizzling out, eventually being forsaken like its inspiration. With the first game practically perfecting the flaws of the NES Castlevanias, a sequel seemed totally unnecessary for anything else but to milk the Castlevania fans dry. Because I am one of those fans, I decided to see if Curse of the Moon 2 was worthy of prolonging this revival franchise.

Direct sequels were not a common practice in Castlevania’s initial run. The game that followed the first Castlevania was the only sequel that continued the story of the first game before the developers explored the realms of prequels, remakes, etc. Curse of the Moon 2 continues the story of the previous game, something that only Simon’s Quest has done throughout Castlevania’s entire run. Some may also recognize familiar characters from Ritual of the Night, but Curse of the Moon 2’s continuity lies entirely with the previous Curse of the Moon title. Dominique, a central character from Ritual of the Night, uncovers a harrowing castle being constructed by the demon legions. She sets Bloodstained’s overzealous hunter Zangetsu up to the task as him and his team prepare to endure another eight levels on the way to vanquish the demon lord. Curse of the Moon 2 does not offer an intricate story, nor does it really retain an ongoing arc presented by the first game. However, it further solidifies Zangetsu’s role as the franchise's resident demon killer by continuing something already established.

Despite all of the comparisons I’ve made so far, we can thank the lord that Curse of the Moon 2 is nothing like Simon’s Quest. The experimentation made to make Simon’s Quest discernable from the first Castlevania failed miserably and Konami learned never to make that same mistake. I’m happy to report that Curse of the Moon 2 does not have Zangetsu visiting cookie cutter towns, being subject to jarring day and night transitions, or humorously giving bosses the cold shoulder like a scorned girlfriend. It was clear from the quality of the first Curse of the Moon that Igarashi knew which Castlevania games to emulate from, and Simon’s Quest was not one of them. Curse of the Moon 2 is more of the fast-paced 2D platforming action like the previous title, and this sounds promising in theory. However, Curse of the Moon 2 is practically indiscernible to the first game to the point where I forgot that there were two Curse of the Moon games and I wasn’t playing DLC. In fact, if someone made me do the Curse of the Moon Pepsi challenge with both games side by side, I’d probably guess the wrong one. Every single graphical and mechanical property returns without any differentiation. Classic 2D Castlevania wasn’t confined to the NES as the formula surpassed the 8-bit era with many entries. Why couldn’t Curse of the Moon 2 the presentation of a 16-bit game like Super Castlevania IV or Bloodlines? Blasphemous achieved this revival style only a year prior to Curse of the Moon 2, borrowing some obvious presentational influences from Rondo of Blood. Was there a crunch time that forced Igarashi to release each Bloodstained game subsequently each year after the first Curse of the Moon? I’d be more eager to play something in the vein of an untouched Castlevania aesthetic, but the reusing of 8-bit graphics here already sets a sense of fatigue.

Gameplay also has not changed in the slightest from the first game. If you like 8-bit Castlevania and were enthralled by the updated sheen of modern gaming hardware presented in the first Curse of the Moon, then the sequel will gladly not subvert your expectations. Considering how Curse of the Moon 2 makes no effort to expand on the foundation of the first game, the same gameplay was to be expected. The one aspect Curse of the Moon 2 takes to at least deviate slightly from the first game is offering a whole new roster of characters for Zangetsu’s posse. Three new faces offer their services to our protagonist the same way the three previous characters did, but with an entirely different array of skills. The aforementioned Dominique jumps with less gravity like Miriam before her, but her choice of weapon with a long range of attack is a spear instead of a whip. The spear’s base movement feels more restrained than the whip, but it compensates for this by acting as a pogo stick that attacks enemies from above like Shovel Knight (or Duck Tales, the specific inspiration referenced in Shovel Knight). She also serves as the team healer with her special moves, giving an individual character a smidge of health or resurrecting them after they’ve died. Robert is an old gunslinger whose bullets do middling damage but compensate heavily with their high range. Lastly, everyone’s favorite new addition to the roster (me included) is Hachi, a corgi that pilots a burly mech suit. Besides the obvious reason as to why this little scamp has dazzled every player, the mech suit can glide, has twice as much health, and its bulky nature makes it less susceptible to blowback coil upon taking damage. I’m impressed that the developers conjured up three more characters that fit a unique team dynamic like the ones in the first game, but it's far more unbalanced here. I never wanted to stop playing as Hachi because he became an overpowered crutch, which made the points where I couldn’t play as him more difficult than losing a character in the first game.

A nitpick I had with the first Curse of the Moon was that it wasn’t too difficult. I’ve aired my grievances about how relentless classic Castlevania is, but the difficulty is one of the most vital factors in recreating a genuine Castlevania experience. Refinement inherently makes the experience smoother, but separating the blowback mechanic from the regular difficulty settings will naturally entice even experienced players into making the game more facile. Curse of the Moon 2 finally makes an effort to evolve the first game by more accurately exuding the feeling of “NES hard”. The player no longer has the option of pussyfooting through “veteran” difficulty by omitting the blowback feature, as Curse of the Moon 2 makes it requisite for the normal difficulty. The levels also accommodate a sturdier challenge by offering more calamitous sections with more bottomless pits and more crowded screens. Difficulty curves progress gradually, even though the fiery fifth level “Chains of Fire” feels leagues harder than the previous level. Some screens are so chaotic that they can extinguish all four characters in a flash if the player isn’t careful. Alternate paths are almost places of respite, but they are even harder to access because they all involve Dominique pogoing off of a series of candles, which is always finicky. While I felt more tense and frustrated with Curse of the Moon 2 than its predecessor, I rarely ever felt cheated by any inconvenient deaths or was too overwhelmed by what I was facing unlike in Castlevania III. The game presents the player with plenty of support to make sure they stave off getting decimated. The asinine score from the first game has shifted into an extra life bar fueled by every source of points. Checkpoints are made clearer and are represented by taller candles that ignite upon contact like the checkpoints in Shovel Knight. Only difference is, I’d never chance breaking the checkpoints in Curse of the Moon 2 for extra rewards.

Curse of the Moon 2’s bosses are also more defined. Each boss in the first game’s health bar was obscured, causing the player to hack away at them in a frenzy. Visually apparent health bars accompany every boss in Curse of the Moon 2 so that the player will be aware of how much health a boss has and how much damage they are doing to it. Thank God the developers decided to change this because they’ve amplified the overall difficulty of the bosses. Even if the player could go to town on these bosses with Zangetsu’s sword, the bosses do not present a copious window of time to do so as the player must wait for golden opportunities to attack. Every boss in Curse of the Moon 2 is guilty of this whether it be the ghoulish tongue of the Drago-Symbiote or the fiery phallic point of the Gladiator Dozer, but the worst offender is Titankhamun, the ancient Egyptian-inspired boss of the sixth level. This colossal-sized sarcophagus cannot be reached unless the player jumps onto quickly moving platforms that emerge from the sand, and their position on these platforms will most likely be compromised by the onslaught of projectiles from every corner of the screen. As a frame of reference, Gremory, the final boss of the first game, offers his first phase again as a boss in this game, and the player will notice how easy defeating him is compared to the new bosses.

Curse of the Moon 2 is also meant to be replayed more than once, and it finally gives the player some incentive. The developers implored the player to finish the first Curse of the Moon multiple times, but playing through the same game to achieve middling rewards was not worth the effort. Finishing Curse of the Moon 2 once will unlock more “episodes” that involve different circumstances. Unlike the different outcomes of playing the first game, these episodes streamline the process of receiving a new ending. If the player collects the pieces of a mystical sword called the “Zanmatou” across corners of three levels, this will unlock something totally unexpected from this series or Castlevania for that matter. Zangetsu and company will prepare their launch to the moon via a space shooter sequence that feels as out of place as the one from No More Heroes. The final chapter involves a random roulette of every character across both games to face the real final boss. Curse of the Moon 2 offers much more than the first game, but the means to unlock all of it is ultimately the same tedious process. The player should be able to collect all of the Zanmatou parts during their first playthrough to unlock the full ending as an addendum, but the developers did not think this through.

I really don’t have much to say about Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 because it’s almost the same game as the first Curse of the Moon. My fears were affirmed as Curse of the Moon 2 does not make any progress from the first game. Doing so might have been a hard task considering the first game was already the pinnacle of Castlevania, so the only way Curse of the Moon 2 was going to stand out was to borrow the aesthetics of a 16-bit Castlevania game or at least ground that hadn’t been tested yet. The developers, however, thought it would be better to churn out the same game and hope for the same impact, but it never works like this. The only discernible appeal that Curse of the Moon offers is a higher difficulty curve and new characters, but they aren’t enough to justify the game’s existence. The Bloodstained franchise now reminds me more of Mega Man than Castlevania, a series of 8-bit 2D platformers on the NES that burned itself out by releasing too many formulaic titles. If the potential Curse of the Moon 3 ever exists and it looks exactly like the first two, I will be forever shaking my head in disappointment. If you liked the first Curse of the Moon, Curse of the Moon 2 offers the same quality Castlevania tribute, but I’m not as easily pleased.