Bloodstained and Castlevania fans alike have been waiting patiently for news on a release date of Koji Igarashi’s brand new title after leaving Konami. Some great news came out of BitSummit 2018 in Japan this year and that was the announcement of the promised retro tie-in game funded during the Kickstarter campaign.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was announced with an accompanying trailer on May 11th and is slated for release May 24th, 2018. That’s less then two weeks away and will be available digitally for Steam, Nintendo 3DS and Switch, Playstation 4, PS Vita, and Xbox One. Retail price will be $9.99, but Kickstarter backers that funded up to a certain level will be receiving free download codes for their platform/s of choice.
Such a price tag appears to be steal for the product shown in the announcement trailer. While Igarashi’s team has been hard at work bringing the main Bloodstained game to life, Inti Creates, has been working in parallel developing Curse of the Moon. Typically this would be a concern for a lot of players, especially Castlevania purists. Fear not, as the gameplay footage shown off in the trailer harkens back to none other then one of the finest entries in the series, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. Newer fans of the series should note that the lauded Castlevania animated series on Netflix is based on this title.
Miriam, Bloodstained’s protagonist, doesn’t look to be adventuring alone come Curse of the Moon. Taking a seat to the character Zangetsu. As players complete levels, Zangetsu has the option of recruiting up to 3 additional characters. New recruits will allow for swapping characters at a moments notice to allow for strategic approaches to platforming and battle, but also each having their own health bars to buffer the team’s survival. Zangetsu, Miriam, Alfred, and Gibil offer varying abilities for the player to leverage. Most interestingly is how certain abilities will allow for alternate paths through each level. Varying paths and the promise of multiple endings sounds like a recipe for substantial replayability.
Curse of the Moon looks to be the perfect experience to fill in the gap until Bloodstained’s official release, which is still slated for 2018. Stay tuned for future coverage of both titles as it is released. Until then, visit the official Curse of the Moon website and show your support for the project.
Breakable Walls 