If that was the only goal, it succeeds with flying colors. It looks and feels like a game from three decades ago. Naturally, this knockback is an homage to old Castlevania games, but it results in more than a few cheap deaths.īloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 may as well have come out in 1989. You can turn this effect off, but only by playing on the easier difficulty.

At the same time, even during my first playthrough, Curse of the Moon 2 provided a sizeable challenge, largely thanks to a knockback effect whenever you get hit.

This repetition is annoying, but I appreciate the opportunity to unlock new characters, and I was happy to see that the bosses get remixed, making them harder to bring down. Curse of the Moon 2 doesn’t put an interesting twist on these classic tropes – it just recycles them.Īfter you reach credits for the first time, you unlock Episode 2, which asks you to replay each level to unlock the true ending. These sequences perfectly fit the tone of the game, but I couldn’t escape the sense that I’d been here and done this all before. And it wouldn’t be a side-scroller if you didn’t jump from rock to rock on a river of lava. In classic 8-bit style, some areas have you dodging poisonous clouds of smoke, while others have you skating over frozen ground. I like the variety this offers when replaying a level, but aside from a handful of health and attack upgrades, there aren’t many reasons to explore every path through a level. Some routes offer a lighter challenge, while others provide a more direct path to the boss. For example, Dominique was rarely my go-to in combat thanks to her slow-moving spear-attacks, but her extra-high jumps made her instrumental during challenging platforming sequences.Ĭurse of the Moon 2’s levels feature several branching paths and a good variety of locations. Each hero brings something new to the battlefield, and matching their talents to the challenges ahead puts a unique spin on the traditional side-scrolling action. On the other hand, Robert is physically weak, but he's also a skilled sniper who eradicates enemies from across the screen. Zangetsuto feels like the traditional Castlevania hero he has a short attack range but makes up for it with quick movements and a sizeable health pool. Naturally, every hero has their own strengths and weaknesses. You switch between these heroes as you battle a throng of gothic beasts.

As with the 2018 entry, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 lets you control four distinct monster slayers.

Witcher 2 the blood curse