Johnny vs. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

[Music] before I head into the next marathon I forgot to do a couple of individual videos first and good timing to because today we got one part of a package I've been drooling over for some time now there's no secret that I'm a big supporter of koji garages upcoming blood-stained ritual of the night the kick started not Castlevania that Castlevania fans are eager to sink their teeth into what it eventually releases which I'm hoping is at the end of this year like it says but if it's early 2019 and that's fine with me - as a backer of this project I was able to sample the Alpha bill to fit nearly two years ago and though it was very early in its development stage I was already in love the metroidvania genre is one of my favorites in all of videogames if you couldn't tell already for watching this channel for a long time ritual of the night is looking to be that next Castlevania adventure I've been longing for since order of ackley just released way back in 2008 Jesus Christ it's been close to 10 years since the last Metroidvania alright the last traditional Metroidvania sure it's an almost permanent despair but it's not the same thing and Lord the shadow is an entirely different can of worms I should probably save all this for the eventual review of ritual tonight but one of the stretch goals of the Kickstarter project was the promise of a fully 8-bit retro style prequel game where fans of a more classic style Castlevania could get their fixings while blood-stained ritual of the night has been produced by 505 games blood-stained curse of the Moon was develop int creates because of course it was [ __ ] inti creates they've been responsible for pretty much all japan's retro style games for the past decade Mega Man 9 and 10 the gun volt series blaster matches the road just the name of foo the list goes on well a couple of weeks ago that title was released for the Nintendo switch the ps4 the 3ds the Vita the steam all that [ __ ] blood-stained curse of the moon right now I want you to blur your eyes a bit and look at the title screen yeah they're not even being subtle this is basically just Castlevania without being called Castlevania and you know what I really don't have a problem with that I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who have want them to do their own kind of thing but listen man I'm just glad I'm getting my Castlevania fix in some capacity because God knows when Konami will make another attempt at it I mean maybe that'll happen I'm sure mighty number 9 has something to do with Megaman 11 be greenly in the first place so maybe the interest in this can convince konami that hey you people still like castlevania them there's the Netflix show but can I get my $19.99 game now so how does blood stain curse the moon stack as both the spiritual successor to Castlevania and as a video game period everything we need to know is told to us in this opening Chrome not sure if it was intentional or not but it sort of reads awkwardly when said aloud not as bad as the Castlevania 3 opening from the six year old but on that night either the demons of the Moon itself would feel the wrath of his blade yeah stuff sounds kind of silly there lives a man named Zen gets to who after being cursed by demons some time ago made it his sole mission to hunt down every demon in his pathway until the cows come home one night saying guess who felt the presence of a great demon and started making his way towards this mysterious castle in the distance it looks like a hand as anybody I'll see a hand I see a hand anyway that about does it for the plot your Zane gets who you have a sword now go kill some demons and just by looking at this game yeah this is about as NES Castlevania is you can get especially Castlevania 3 Dracula's curse immediately I was glad to see I could jump on stairs but you can't jump off with him so I'm guessing Zhang gets who likes to practice safety protocol selectively he's got the Belmont jump - once that [ __ ] leaves he ain't changed directions until he hits the floor once more you gotta practice caution when pits are concerned and guess what else is back knocked back old-school unforgiving miserable knock back it's not all bad though before your adventure starts you can choose between veteran difficulty and casual difficulty if you pick the ladder knock back is completely gone and you can't infinite lives a good way to ease in new players I find even so I think curse of the moon is nowhere close to the same level of difficulty as any of the NES games so that get juiced a fault weapon is a short-range sort kind of reminded me of soma crew is from aria Sauron da no syrup or Ryu Hayabusa from the old ninja gaiden games it doesn't have much in reach but it's pretty fast so you can sort of spam attacks if it careful enough by destroying certain objects you can also get some sub weapons you can get a diagonal whip attack that you can't aim in other directions for some reason you can grab these fire bombs that are basically like holy water maybe do constant damage on the ground and you can even get this fiery aura that makes you pissed off and do more damage for a limited time sub weapons do require weapon energy to use though but you can find plenty of that but within these lanterns located pretty much everywhere one detail I absolutely love is lanterns that have sub-weapons in them are differently colored than the usual ones meaning I don't have to worry about accidentally picking up something I didn't want to get because of bad luck or some other [ __ ] I appreciate this because you can't switch sub-weapons if you happen to pick another one up and now that I know the purple lanterns have weapons in them I have no one to blame but myself if I pick what the wrong thing I gotta say right now though it is so [ __ ] weird that hearts in this game are actually health pickups now instead of ammunition for weapons I'm serious this kept tripping me up during my first run-through I also kept expecting to find wallmate to replenish my HP whenever I found breakable blocks but no most of the time I found these books it looks like which I think only gives off points get enough of those need an extra life assuming you're not playing in casual mode saying get suit wasn't too bad of a character everything considered but there was something a bit lacking I found he didn't have nearly the amount of sub weapons available as the Belmonts didn't exactly have the Belmonts truck I don't know if it was just something oh ho ho wait a minute here this game has the partner mechanic of Castlevania 3 all right here we go now we got something here and it's here we find out that saying getsu is kind of an [ __ ] for the first couple of stages after defeating the boss you end up rescuing the unfortunate soul that's been trapped inside the whip-wielding Myriam heroin from ritual the knight The Alchemist named Alfred and Chapel gebel I don't know the not dracula / Alucard this universe after rescuing them from their dire situations and guess who has no qualms stating that he should just finish the job right now and kill these guys since they sort of use demonic powers to help enhance their abilities look I know you had this hate boner against demons man but calm it down a bit they can't do anything to you like this like what poor Alfred here this old man he's out of breath he's weakens and guess who's like oh I guess I'll leave your head on your shoulders for now and now for it's like okay thanks dick I didn't ask well barbed personality aside saying guess who can either prakruti 'he's characters after rescuing them straight up ignore them if you're a fan of using just saying get su or to my surprise you can straight-up kill them and gain undue ability as a result yeah this caught me off guard you can murder these guys on the spot and steal their souls like so mcruiz doing so will actually net you special abilities such as a different aerial attack uh double jump to help with positioning and a dash maneuver to get you through areas faster and make longer jumps kind of like X's - in the Mega Man X series immediately this does make sense get some more fun to play with you could really hold his own by using these special techniques and it's required if you want to unlock the game's ultimate mode by playing the game this way you can't really take advantage of player specific shortcuts or secret rooms for with to pick us but I found the interesting there was still plenty of routes I didn't initially take previously and that I was still getting more out of the game even after my third run-through but even with a beefed-up Zheng gets you I still think it's better if you recruit the others to your team not just because you're able to have more than one partner for a total of four characters and that switching between the fix let's play second I'm like Castlevania 3 where it takes 5 hours but every single one of these guys bring their own variation of pain to the mix and ways both familiar and refreshing Miriam's last name might as well be Belma in this game because that's basically what she is a Belmont she wields a whip that has great range she has the highest jump she can slide into tight spots and she has some of the best sub weapons I love the three directional daggers are the Primo choice for aerial threats in the massacre boss fights when used a close range unsurprisingly she's the one I handed up using the most I find her play style fits the game structure perfectly alfred is the cipher Belle Natas of the group a magic user that has miserable range physically but makes up for it with magical sub weapons well most of them make up for it he has this one spell that makes a clone of him but I didn't use much of this maybe if I switch to another character while using it I didn't think to try that but he has a fire shield that heats up any projectile that deals constant damage to everything it touches a nice attack that freezes anything and I mean anything in place that can then be killed in one hit afterwards and lastly he has an electrical attack that homes in on whatever is on the screen and wipes it out if you're looking for an easy time with some of these bosses use this and watch it do the job for you still magic aside I didn't switch two out for a whole lot unless absolutely necessary as magics great but again you only have so much weapon energy if you share that between all the characters his physical attack range is pitiful and you hit the lowest amount of health between all four characters it doesn't take much to kill this geezer the last character Joe Ghibli is Alucard in everything but name he doesn't throw those balls at things but his bat projectile share a similar trajectory that's actually really good for taking care of aerial threats and it does a lot of damage at close range he only has one ability though and that's the classic bat transformation he eats up a lot of weapon energy but you can use this to bliss to a dangerous corridor climb vertical areas with little trouble he was great in a tight spot or trying to stop giving a [ __ ] you sometimes you don't feel like fighting [ __ ] and rather just fly past it and the g-man here allowed me to do just that with these four at your disposal gameplay and curse of the Moon becomes much more versatile and again it really helps that switching between characters is so quick many pathways open up I haven't access to these guys and by keeping an eye out you can find special items that can permanently increase your health to your weapon energy there's an item your attack power your defense it pays to have these guys on your side there's a catch to this though if you die that character is unavailable into either complete the stage or if every other character dies as well a good thing about this is that you don't technically lose a life until all four characters or deaths so if someone falls down a pit don't stress out too much because you still have a chance to get things done with the other characters no assuming you like those other characters everyone also has separate health bars so if someone's about to die you can switch to someone at the last second to save their life and get them back to good health when you find the next health drop I didn't expect this game to take a page from the NES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game but here we are the biggest pain in the ass and losing a character though is that you can't take advantage of their ability to locate alternate routes because most of the time those kind of routes have those health upgrades and the like and the only way you're getting them now is by either intentionally killing everyone off to get another chance or by heading back into the states later by using this feature to let you go back to a previous level I mean it's not the end of the world if you don't grab these upgrades but it's a principle the thing I see a pathway any Myriam for I want to keep Myriam alive so I can see what's going on on the other side some bosses are also much harder to deal with with certain characters especially in higher difficulties where bosses are more aggressive and have nastier attacks the bosses in general though aren't too bad a lot of them are big and imposing but they Telegraph their movements in pretty obvious ways that make them easy picking when you react appropriately in fact I kind of find them lacking in normal mode you get an extra life if you manage to avoid their desperation attack but other than that they're not that big of a deal a nightmare mode the Hard difficulty things are a lot more intense their attacks a harder to avoid and as such they're more satisfying to kill for sure but I still think these guys don't hold a candle to earlier Castlevania bosses that dick kick you without remorse no I would say even on the higher difficulties curse of the moon isn't nearly as hard as the games it takes so much inspiration from because of this I do think it's a fantastic starting point for those looking to give the old fashioned Castlevania style a try stage design is large it's very full of challenges that aren't overly punishing or antiquated for that matter yeah there's knock-back assuming you're playing on veteran mode but I only died a handful of times because of that kind of [ __ ] by the end of this game I had more lives than I would ever have at the end of Castlevania 1 or Castlevania 3 even on nightmare and ultimate mode yet this game isn't that hard I think anyone can play and beat this easily having up to four characters at once gives you plenty of options to handle specific obstacles and locate extra goodies and their ability to make short work of anything in front of you as long as you got the weapon energy to spare blood-stained curse of the moon I gotta say was a great I played in beatin it four times for this video once on normal mode nightmare mode I did a playthrough using only Zen get to in his solo abilities and then I finished things with ultimate mode where you can use then gets with all the special soul abilities and still get to recruit other characters kind of makes normal mode obsolete thinking about it but not once did I get tired of any of it curse the moon also wasn't very long should only take you about two hours to finish it and it gives you plenty of reason to go back I love the look of it I love for the feel of it the graphics are colorful while simultaneously paying homage to its grim and cheesy horror themed counterpart and the music is a great listen as well a long time Castlevania series composer Michio money returns to the scene along with other great composers to deliver an energetic and catchy collection of tunes that'll get you in the demon killing mood though out of curiosity I did play some castlevania music during one of my playthroughs and I wasn't surprised to hear it fit so well [Music] this game gets the Castlevania aesthetic right on so many levels and yet that might be a little derivative in the eyes of some but speaking as a biased Castlevania fan I don't care either way it's a good game regardless you don't have to be a Castlevania fan to enjoy this I mean it helps because you're probably starving like I am but again I don't think this title asks for much the game may look like it's from the 80s but it does incorporate a lot of modern design choices that I think would make it accessible to a lot of folks out there about the same level as a shovel knight I want to say if you have to play just one action adventure platformer that pays tribute to the NES days this coming summer make it blood-stained curse of the moon I don't know man I don't want to jinx anything but it's looking really good for the blood-stained series so far the retro game delivered and then some and I'm really hoping ritual the night you just knocks it out of the [ __ ] park not now just so I could have a good Castlevania game again this is that we have a good game in general I think that's what's really important is good this game does well in general like everybody can enjoy we get more of this [ __ ] and I'm always down for that sort of thing but we'll find out in due time I suppose well I'll catch you guys on the next video thank you all for watching have yourselves a fantastic night and take care [Music]

Channel: SomecallmeJohnny

Views: 336,212

Keywords: Somecallmejohnny, Somecallmejohnny Video, Somecallmejohnny Review, Johnny vs, Video Game Review, Somecallmejohnny Bloodstained Curse of the Moon, Somecallmejohnny Bloodstained, Somecallmejohnny Bloodstained COM, Somecallmejohnny Castlevania, Somecallmejohnny Bloodstained Ritual of the Night, Johnny vs. Bloodstained Curse of the Moon, Johnny vs Bloodstained, Johnny vs Bloodstained COM, Bloodstained Curse of the Moon, Bloodstained COTM, Bloodstained Ritual of the Night

Id: 7Z4IU6KxFbA

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 08 2018