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Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 Review


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509076434_BloodstainedCurseoftheMoon2boxart.jpg.c65d7a9409e4c23b83a28938ca7ced53.jpgDeveloper Inti Creates continues to keep the spirit of NES-era action games alive with Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2. Like its predecessor, it's a love letter to NES Castlevania games, combining the simple controls and visual style with a few modern twists to spice up the gameplay. The game walks a fine line between nostalgic throwback and tediously old-fashioned, but for the most part stays on the former rather than the latter.
 
Curse of the Moon 2 brings back Zangetsu as the protagonist, a demon-slaying swordsman who is on the trail of a new supernatural threat: the Demon Tower. Like the first game, Zangetsu teams up with fellow fighters—including a dog in a steampunk-style mech suit—which has an impact on how the story unfolds across subsequent playthroughs. Storytelling is still not the focus of the game, though. In true NES fashion there are pretty minimal plot scenes outside of the opening setup, and even when brief dialogue sequences do pop up it's easy to ignore them entirely.
 
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The gameplay feels like classic Castlevania, down to the stiff, specific movements of your characters. Each one has a standard attack as well as subweapons that cost energy to use (energy that can be refilled, of course, by destroying lanterns, candelabras, and more). The gameplay feels simple and streamlined, though the reliance on old-school conventions perhaps hurts the game more than it enhances the experience. On standard difficulty you'll get knocked back by any hit, which makes pits incredibly deadly when there's a bat fluttering overhead. Your jumps are also locked to very specific ranges—you can't just adjust your trajectory midair, and you can't even jump forward from a stationary position. If you're after that classic NES feel, Curse of the Moon 2 does a great job of recreating it. Other players might be annoyed by the tedious design though, or at least want to switch to easy difficulty which eliminates the hit knockback. A happy medium between easy and standard would have been convenient, as easy mode eliminates almost all challenges from the game.
 
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Both Curse of the Moon games do shirk old-school design with the party system though. You can swap between characters at any time, and each has their own health bar, mechanics, and subweapons (though all subweapons use the same energy). Dominique, for example, jumps higher than other characters and can use her spear as a pogo stick to bounce off of enemies or lamps, which sometimes allows her to reach hidden areas or alternate routes. Playing through the game just once only takes a few hours, but exploring all of these optional areas and truly seeing everything the game has to offer will last significantly longer. Mixing up the standard side-scroller action with unique characters and alternate paths goes a long way toward making these games feel unique and not just imitations of an older era of gaming. Curse of the Moon 2 also introduces 2-player co-op. Having two players gets pretty hectic during platforming sequences but it's an interesting inclusion if you and a friend want to really challenge yourselves.
 
As usual Inti Creates knows how to do a lot with very little, when it comes to the visual design of the game. The pixel art is sharp and bosses look great (even if they can be incredibly tedious to actually fight). The soundtrack isn't half bad either and nicely balances new and old influences to feel both fresh and familiar.
 
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Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 is another fine-tuned homage to Castlevania made for fans of those original NES games. The feel of the gameplay is undeniably old-fashioned, but the challenges that that affords will appeal to many nostalgic players, and the variety of characters, abilities, and paths through each level provide a fun modern twist. Just be ready for some frustrating deaths once you start jumping over pits.
 
Rating: 7 out of 10 Moon Curses
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