Indie developer Inti Creates has been churning out retro-inspired titles for a little more than two decades now. The company made its name with the Mega Man Zero series before hitting it big with Mega Man 9 in 2008. Since then, it has become a powerhouse of NES-styled adaptations of bigger indie titles.
One need look no further than 2018's Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. A companion title to Ritual of the Night, it hearkened back to the formula that made Konami's original Castlevania titles such a big hit. It was an intense, focused, relatively brief romp through gothic-inspired architecture that adhered closely to what made fans fall in love with the Belmont clan. It also had a nifty hook where different choices could result in drastically different playthroughs.
Many didn't expect a sequel so soon, but here we are with Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2. Surprise announced during the New Game Plus Expo a few weeks back, fans were pleasantly surprised to see a continuation of the classic Castlevania series in the absence of anything official from Konami. Does this sequel end up improving anything over the original? Was it perhaps rushed to release to capitalize on Bloodstained hype?
To the second question, I can safely say no. To the first, it's going to depend on what you wanted from a second outing for Zangetsu and friends.
Back To Basics
The basic formula and makeup of Curse of the Moon 2 doesn't change all that much from the original. A brand new secondary cast of characters brings with them new abilities, but that's about the most dramatic change on offer. These new abilities change the fundamental designs of each level, but you're looking at essentially the same experience as the first. Having different characters unlocks different paths and you can take shortcuts to speed up subsequent playthroughs, something carried over from the first Curse of the Moon.
This time out, you cannot sacrifice your allies to gain new abilities at the end of each level. The original tinkered with the idea of finishing the game in five different ways as a means of having a player-controlled difficulty curve. Instead of that, there are now specified episodes that remove certain allies or task you with acquiring different weapon parts. It feels more focused, as a result, but could be interpreted as being less malleable.
With Friends Like These...
The largest addition has to be the inclusion of a cooperative multiplayer mode. Allowing two players to team up and take on the monsters of the night, it really is a blast to play. It absolutely decreases the overall difficulty, but it can also be infuriating when your friend isn't exactly in sync with you. To accommodate the extra player, an additional Zangetsu is introduced, but that's the only co-op specific change. It otherwise plays the same as single-player in that you can swap between your characters on the fly. You can even revive in the middle of a level, which makes the boss fights a tad easier to deal with.
While I can't fault the first Curse of the Moon for sticking so closely to Castlevania III, I feel the new cast in Curse of the Moon 2 is overall stronger. Zangetsu remains mostly the same apart from a few new abilities, but all three of the newcomers are just better than their previous counterparts. Dominique can practically break the game with her upward slash, Robert is Alfred if he was actually useful, and Hachi may just be the best character in the game. If you have any trouble with tricky platforming segments, Hachi's float ability is an immeasurably wonderful addition.
That later episodes bring the original cast back also means Curse of the Moon 2 feels more diverse in terms of options. The introduction of Miriam, Alfred, and Gebel doesn't feel contrived, and taking them into co-op means veterans can stick with what they know while newcomers get to experiment. It's a blast figuring out the ins and outs of each character.
One might think that repeating the same trick as the original would get boring, but Curse of the Moon 2 cuts out the fat from the first game. A basic playthrough will take you a little less than three hours to complete and you're only required to finish three episodes to get the "true" ending. The different characters open up new pathways that feel like entirely new levels, so it's not even a matter of repeating things you've already seen. It's a really inventive way to get extra mileage out of the same amount of content.
The second episode, in particular, has two endings, which ultimately unlocks another episode. One requires you to find specific items while the other is about ignoring them. The level-select option from the first game returns and has better readability (it notes what upgrades you missed and on which levels), so you can easily blast through the main path, then jump around to get the alternative ending.
Not So Cursed
About the only part where Curse of the Moon 2 stumbles is with difficulty balancing. The seventh level, in particular, is the hardest in the game and its boss fight actually reuses an enemy from the original. Everything else is brand new content, so it's kind of strange to see a boss get recycled at all. The eighth level of the first episode is also a bit cheap, but its difficulty gets reduced in alternate playthroughs. The final episode has a completely different last act that makes a genre shift, so it's absolutely worth dealing with the uneven curve.
What it comes down to is a game that is easy to recommend for fans of the first, but a little hard to review in general. It's a lot of the same stuff and while I enjoyed the co-op more, I can't definitively say this is a better experience. It's still a really great game and one that fans of Castlevania and Bloodstained are sure to enjoy, so don't hesitate to grab it if you liked the first.
A PC copy of Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 was provided to TheGamer for this review. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 is now available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2