Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 Reviews

Unplayable! No matter how many settings I adjust, or how many files I edit, the game runs at a snail's pace. My Xbox controller doesn't work. It won't recognize other controllers. Garbage. I'll change my review accordingly if ever I can get it to run like it should.

It's always a little awkward critiquing a retro platformer because the line between legitimate gripes and a skill issue can be pretty thin. Curse of the Moon 2 is a big enough step back from the original that I ended up pretty disappointed by the end, though. CoTM was a fun little game that was a little too short and easy (under three hours for two playthroughs and the final ending.) It was pretty clearly just a side project and promo piece for Ritual of The Night, but it had a really solid framework for something great. Both games follow the CV3 template of swapping characters, but the new additions (which are your sole party through the first run) are notably less flexible than the prior game's, filling niche roles that leave you pretty screwed if any of them are unusable at a time when the level design decides you need them. This is mitigated in later runs when you have all seven characters, but in your first playthrough where levels are patently designed around who your newest character is it can feel awkward. The rooms are generally ok, but the overall difficulty is bafflingly uneven, with a way too easy first half punctuated by a pretty insane difficulty spike. It's particularly noticeable in the platforming you're expected to do with tight jumping over death pits. Good luck in the last few levels if you're missing one of the characters with a float. There's also just not enough variety for the loop of beating the game three times. There's almost no change in the levels beyond there being a new room or two you can access with a new party member, but it's 80-90% the same experience. I ended up playing through run three mostly on Casual, just because I was trying to bypass as much of the game as possible to get to the thin amount of new content. On the subject of the difficulties, the gap between Casual (which is far too easy) and Veteran (where instant death abounds and you might as well kill everyone if you lose a single party member) is huge. Thankfully you can swap between the two if needed, but it does feel like there's a level in between that's missing. There's just a lot of weird gameplay decisions, too. For example Zangetsu, who feels rather underpowered before a mid-game power-up in the first run, confusingly loses said power-up for lore reasons in the middle of the second for the rest of the game, going back to his default status. The final boss has moon gravity, where you have to re-learn all of the spacing and pacing you learned from 95% of the game on the fly. There is a really fun shmup section in playthrough three (although apparently opinions on that are mixed,) arguably my highlight of the game, but it's also only about 7 minutes. It's entirely possible these gripes can be summarized as git gud, but I legitimately was not enjoying more than half of my time playing. It's not all bad, the music is solid (though half of it is unremarkable) and the game's pixel art is the perfect mix of modern techniques without defeating the point of being NES-inspired. But ultimately it's just a slog to play for most of the game, choosing quantity over quality and ending up inferior to the original. If you want a Castlevania homage either play the original or Infernax, which don't carry this game's bloat.

This game is a grand continuation of content from Curse of the Moon 1, now with co-op! The co-op aspect of this game is fantastic, and makes an already great game even better. Not only that, but there are new characters that play and feel different from the characters present in the first game, though don't worry, as those characters are in this game too. The endings are more fun to go through than in the first game, making replayability more enjoyable, and the new characters allow for unique traversal of the levels. There is a surprising amount of content in this game, and definitely worth checking out, especially if you played the first game.

didn't enjoy. there is no enjoyable difficulty: "casual" is dumb easy, "veteran" is too punishing (u get hit, u fell down the pit assured). go play the first game, it's way better.