Finally getting around to trying Curse of the Moon 2. I can't really dig up the posts that were made by people previously, but I did find this one by Herr Schatten which I think is worthy of quoting in full, because I agree completely with everything being said here:
Herr Schatten wrote:
I played it a bit, but haven't even beaten episode 1 yet. The game kicks my butt hard, it feels much more difficult than the first.
I like that the individual characters play much more differently from each other than the quartet from CotM1 did. The downside of this is that certain levels and bosses seem much more tailored to certain characters. If you happen to lose the key character along the way, you can as well restart. The first game was much more flexible in this regard. I also think that the checkpoints are spaced too far apart, especially the ones before the bosses. You always have to cover a lot of ground until you can try again. Which you will. A lot.
I said it before, but I still hate it that 'retro style graphics' are inevitably synonymous with 'using the garish NES palette'. If you don't even try to mimic the other constraints, what's the point? I would have preferred it if CotM2 had upgraded to 16 bit visuals.
The strengths of COTM2 are definitely different from the first. Each character is much more unique, and the way the game utilizes each character's unique strengths is really where it's at its best. When you first get a new character you get to play a short segment where their skills are demonstrated so well that they feel almost overpowered, but eventually you're tossed into situations where their weaknesses become a lot more apparent.
It's a lot of fun, but the way each area is tailored to each character feels incredibly restrictive. You either make use to the skills the game expects you to, including very liberal usage of very specific subweapons, or you're not just gonna have a much harder time, but also a
much less enjoyable time. The game essentially embraces the people who love to route out Mega Man games using the various subweapons, but takes a big fat dump on the people who want to play through using only the buster.
The "second episode" of the game is more interesting this time around, compared to the "nightmare mode" of COTM1, because the character you lose is the one allround character that actually makes most sections easier, and can be used to heal the others as a backup plan. So the game is still well tailored to the rest, while demanding a more consistent performance from the player. Comparably, COTM1's Nightmare mode felt either easier than the Normal mode, or identical later on, because you had every character's special skill available from the start.
Like Schatten would also proceed to claim, if you lose a specific character in a specific spot you might as well retry, especially if you are at the last checkpoint before one of the later bosses. There's a harder setting in the game which causes you to lose a life and retry every time any character dies, instead of just losing that character, and I honestly wonder whether that really makes the game any tougher at all, or just less tedious.
Unfortunately it's a little too easy to just randomly lose a character at any moment to a stupid fuckup or the occasionally wonky controls. Although I'm happy they kept both knowckback and the dedicated jump arcs of classic Castlevania games, there are moments where you'll just fall vertically down to your death and it doesn't feel like it fits the game's gameplay style at all.
Especially the Corgi's hover move just works in the most unintuitive way I've ever seen such a skill implemented in a game. Hold down the jump button long enough and it'll activate on its own, but let go of the button, and it will keep going either until you press it again, or its duration runs out. This wonkiness caused a lot more than a few deaths for me.
The game is much, much harder than COTM1, but in general, I'm feeling a lot of throwbacks to Mega Man 9 and 10 which similarly display Inti Creates' complete inability to make games more difficult while at the same time feeling engaging, rewarding and enjoyable. The most challenging sections need to be tackled with a combination of patience, stopping and waiting out patterns, and figuring out a precise approach and playing that back, rather than relying on reactive inputs.
The harder bosses are beyond stupid in how they rely on character skills to take them out. You better bring the right characters and/or the right subweapons, or be prepared for a ton of tedium and/or tanking of damage. Hell, there's at least one boss that pretty much
expects you to use the corgi's invulnerability skill to just sit and repel damage while wailing on the boss. Looking at recordings of clears of the game on YouTube, I still have yet to find any that don't end up relying on just tanking damage, since it's consistently more effective than hoping to dodge some of the BS you're met with.
I loved COTM1, but COTM2, though still fairly enjoyable, really proves that the previous game must have been a fluke more than anything.