by pook99 Fri Jul 19, 2019 8:29 pm
104. Castlevania: Blood Moon (nes hack)
Blood Moon is one of the most famous castlevania hacks, I've read about it alot but have stayed away from it because it is supposedly one of the harder hacks, while this hack is on the more difficult side it typically does not feel cheap and does a few things that help you stay in the game.
The most notable thing that makes this game manageable is that you do not lose your sub weapon when you die or continue, if you have the double or triple shot, you will lose those, but you are never without a subweapon in this game barring the very first section. In addition to that you start with 30 hearts each time you die, and the game is very generous about handing out double and triple shots (represented by a small and large bible respectively), what this means is that once you find your favorite weapon you can keep it forever and it is really nice to basically never run out of sub weapons. This adds a nice new gameplay mechanic as you can really rely on your sub weapon of choice in a pretty big way, and you will definitely need them.
As mentioned above this is a hard game, but it is not one of those rom hacks that just throw 100 enemies at you every step making it feel stupid and cheap, I would say the general level design and enemy placement is very much in line with what you would expect from a mainline castlevania title but it is just a little harder. Difficulty of course varies depending on the stage, deaths stage was very tough thande death fight was a nightmare, imagine death only your surrounded by pits and there are 4 sickles on the screen at any given time, also because of where he spawns you cant cheese the holy water, complete nightmare and I cant believe I ever beat him. By contrast I beat draculas stage on my first try and dracula himself is pretty easy since there is a meat you can grab mid fight and you can stock up on triple holy water or boomerang really easy.
The hacked graphics look nice, all the enemies are sprite swapped, level designs are entirely new as is the enemy placement. There are one or two random parts where you will accidentally walk into a pit because you dont know what your looking at and while it is annoying when it happens, it doesnt happen often enough to hamper your enjoyment. There are also alot of cool outdoor backgrounds, which as the name implies, has an ominous blood moon hovering in the sky. The sounds are all from the original game and while some of the tracks are switched to different levels, there are no new tracks in this game which is just fine, I love the soundtrack of this game.
Blood Moon is a great hack to try if you feel you are an expert at castlevania, it is tough but in a way that keeps you coming back for more, this is definitely not a game that you should play if your new to the series but definitely worth a playthrough if your a veteran looking for a solid challenge.