Castlevania: Circle of the Moon Deathless (100% Map Completion)

As the second-ever Metroid-style Castlevania game, Circle of the Moon was put in the unenviable position of having to serve as the follow-up to Symphony of the Night. In this context, I believe Circle of the Moon attempted to correct what few criticisms could reasonably be leveled against SotN: specifically, that the game was too easy, and didn't feel "Castlevania" enough. Circle of the Moon brings back both the vicious difficulty of the older games and the classic whip-wielding protagonist. Circle of the Moon's high difficulty level forces the player to engage with the new DSS system, in which different combinations of magic cards can produce different effects, be they buffs or magical projectiles or self-healing. The DSS system is both the most interesting part of CotM and the source of its biggest problem: the game's difficulty heavily incentivizes farming for specific DSS combinations in order to render the game - specifically some of the boss fights - more manageable. And since the drop rates for these cards can be relatively low, stopping to farm for them hinders the game's pacing. Another potential criticism that could have been leveled at SotN was its redundant high-power rare items. Crissaegrim, which I discussed extensively in my PS1 SotN video, is absurdly overpowered and also completely redundant, since Alucard is barely threatened throughout most of the game. Circle of the Moon retained the presence of extremely rare, powerful items, but added a combat challenge zone, the Arena, demanding enough to make these items relevant. Because DSS cards are not active in the Arena, these random rare drops are the most significant source of player power in its context. This compounds the farming problem, since the player is now incentivized to farm not only DSS cards, but absurdly rare items. That being said, the game's visuals and audio are top-notch and the DSS system is very interesting and rewards creativity and experimentation. CotM is similar to Simon's Quest in that it has several endemic problems, but is a fascinating piece of art nonetheless. Done on emulator, mGBA.