6/10 game. Total Castlevania worship and is missing QOL features that have been standard for these style of games for the last...oh, I don't know, 20 years. You can't steer your jumps and the controls are very clunky. It's VERY old school.

Art style good, bosses well designed (even though some are very annoying to fight), and it's a short game with decent replay value too.

This game is amazing. If you can handle fixed jumps, it's worth your time. Otherwise, learn how to handle fixed jumps and then play this game.

It is a real shame that with one of the recent updates, some Curse of the Moon players (including myself) can only experience the game at the pace of a slow crawl in Full screen mode. Allegedly, some were able to fix this weird frame rate issue by forcing vsync to be turned off, or changing their PC display refresh rate settings. Others, including myself, found that these changes fix nothing. Though surprisingly playable, I feel that this is not the proper fast-paced Castlevania-like experience that the developers intended to bring to life. It definitely makes things less action packed by giving you more time to think about each jump and your next move. I doubt they will fix this, as the whole point of the update was apparently to fix another display issue, but if the developers care, they should really investigate this. They could at least consider releasing the version that precedes this one as a beta installation so that some of us can experience the game properly.

Otherwise, the game is a pretty awesome take on a Castlevania III type game, with awesome visuals and soundtrack to go with it. I am appreciative of the casual mode, though some may find it way too forgiving. Bosses have a neat gimmick that becomes apparent immediately, and they don't disappoint in terms of creativity and tie-in to Ritual of the Night. This said, the portrait mini-bosses are straight out of Rondo of Blood, which is a random quirk for a game that otherwise more creatively pays homage to the Castlevania franchise.

In terms of level design, rather than having divergent paths to different levels like in Castlevania III, this game instead has one linear set of levels. However, there are different routes within each level. Different shortcuts may require specific character/sub-weapon combinations. This becomes more interesting once you unlock the new game plus mode, "Nightmare Mode", as you move much more quickly through the game (if you are not suffering the slow frame advancements that I did). It's good this mode progresses quickly, so the alternative final level can be reached without the game feeling much too repetitive. Compared to the final level of the normal mode, Nightmare Mode's final level is not very interesting, other than the final fight. In any case, it is probably worth experiencing both modes, especially since the game is not all that long. There are more than 2 endings, but some players may find it most worthwhile just to rescue the full ensemble of characters, beat the game, then run through the unlocked Nightmare Mode (and finally, Google the remaining endings). That said, all endings are unique in a sense, and it builds hype for the game's sequel ( there is no true good ending, but several uniquely tragic ones . I really hope Curse of the Moon 2 does not have that slow frame rate issue (though recent reviews suggest the issue persists), because I would look forward to trying it out.