Castlevania Circle of the Moon

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Complete in box

Box, manual and game — all original, all in the photos. Game condition guide →

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Item Condition

Complete in box: the cartridge, the manual and the box, all original; anything beyond that is included only if you can see it in the photos. The photos are of this exact copy — look them over closely for its condition, packaging and details. Every cartridge's shell, label and board are checked for authenticity when it comes into the store, and it's tested before it's listed. It ships in a collector's bag or a hard plastic case.

Item Description

Nathan Graves has barely reached the doors of Dracula's castle when the floor gives way beneath him. His mentor, Morris Baldwin, is carried off, the newly revived dark lord sweeps away, and Nathan is left at the bottom of a vast gothic labyrinth with nothing but his whip and a lot of climbing to do. It is a dramatic opening for a launch title, and the rest of the game lives up to it. Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe took the sprawling, ability-gated castle that Symphony of the Night had introduced and squeezed it onto a handheld cartridge, and in 2001 the idea of a full Castlevania exploration game in your pocket felt almost too good to be true.

The castle is one continuous building, and it opens up the way the best games of this style do. Dash Boots, a double jump and a Heavy Ring for shoving aside massive blocks each turn a dead end into a doorway, pulling you back through rooms you thought you had finished. Nathan never trades up his whip, so his growth comes from levels, armor, accessories and, above all, the Dual Set-up System. Enemies drop magic cards in two families, Action cards named for Roman gods and Attribute cards named for mythical beasts, and pairing one of each produces a new power. A fire card with a whip card sets the lash ablaze; the same fire card with a summon card calls a fire demon down on everything on screen. Ten cards of each type means a hundred combinations to find, and coaxing rare drops out of stubborn enemies becomes an obsession of its own.

This is a tougher, more old-fashioned game than the Castlevanias that followed it. Nathan moves with a little classic stiffness, enemies hit hard, and bosses like the Iron Golem, Adramelech and Death expect you to learn their patterns rather than out-level them. Running through it all is a personal rivalry with Hugh Baldwin, Morris's own son, who resents that his father chose Nathan as his successor. The art leans dark and moody, famously so on the original unlit Game Boy Advance screen, and the castle's catacombs, chapels and machine towers carry real atmosphere.

Clear the game once and new ways to play open up, including a Magician mode that hands you every card from the very start. Circle of the Moon opened the Game Boy Advance's Castlevania trilogy and proved the exploration formula could travel. Nathan never got a sequel, but the players who carried this castle around in 2001 never forgot him, and the game still rewards anyone willing to meet its challenge on its own terms.

Fast factsgame data via IGDB

Released: 2001
Publisher: Gradiente
Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe
Genre: Platformer, RPG, Adventure
Players: Single player

About the game

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is the first of the series to be based on the action/RPG structure of Castlevania:Symphony of the Night rather than the level-based action style of all previous Castlevania games. Dracula's castle is a single continuous building, and as Nathan discovers artifacts within it he gains new abilities that allow him to explore more of it. While Nathan can only use his Killer Whip as a weapon, he can find and equip different kinds of armor and accessories that change his stats. Unique to this entry in the series is the Dual Set-up System, where a combination of two cards will give Nathan unique magical abilities. For example, equipping a fire type card with a whip card will give the Killer Whip a fire attribute, while equipping it with a summon card will let Nathan summon a fire demon to attack onscreen enemies.

Summary from the IGDB community database — the condition and contents of this listing are described above and in the photos.

Watch gameplayCastlevania Circle of the Moon on Game Boy Advance

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