BIL wrote:This is with years and years of familiarity, though.
I can understand that, there are certainly games I enjoy in no small part because I happen to have some non-forthcoming foreknowledge of how they work and where stuff is (Battle Garegga's scoring and rank control tricks come most immediately to mind), but with a backlog as ludicrous as mine I just can't be bothered revisiting a title from years ago whose design is an unquestionable and massive step backward even from its predecessors, let alone its descendants; I really need to start cracking down on the massive pile of stuff I've barely touched yet.
...so of course I immediately start replaying Circle of the Moon.
In its own way this one can also sometimes be ugly and/or janky; the visibly bored Gremlin/Gargoyle enemies always stood out to me:
Not to mention that half the item descriptions are basically variations on:
Snarkiness aside, in my view this one does possess a number of notable upsides:
- Part of Circle's unique "vibe" comes about because it was developed by a different team than the other Konami "Metroidvanias", which takes a bit of getting used to because it attempts to blend the "classic" 'vanias with the "search action" spinoffs, but also lends it the most unique feel and ambience of the bunch, which gives it an extra layer of appeal and memorability IMO. On the flipside, Harmony was much more focused on invoking SotN, and was thus doomed to come across (albeit partially because of the native hardware) as "that, but worse".
- The stiffer movement feels weird at first, but the game wisely gives you the dash and double jump very early, so you seldom feel overly constrained when it comes to movement and have ample time to learn their quirks. The flipside of this is that a lot of the following upgrades feel kind of flimsy in comparison, but in my view it was a sacrifice worth making. It also helps that this game's whip has a particularly nice, satisfying snap to it, if you ask me, though the delay between a standard attack and the defensive spin when you hold the button down can feel just
slightly too long when enemies can launch distance attacks at you before you can even see them.
- I also prefer how spells and heart-consuming weapons are not linked here, so you're encouraged to make use of both without having to constantly open the menu to switch the magic books on and off (though you obviously still need to do so to pick which magic you want). In HoD I almost never used the found weapons because the spells were so much more powerful (and made the fact that you could find items to increase your hearts but not your MP feel extra silly); here it feels more balanced.
- The lack of an in-game encyclopedia is a bummer, but M2 saw fit to remedy that, thankfully, and I actually keep the gadget on so as to have an idea when something is carrying a card and switch on the luck-boosting spell.
Guess we'll see if I can push through to the end of this one...wondering if i ought to just go all out and revisit Aria after this, to see if it still holds up as arguably my favorite "Igavania".