#shenqu

I’ve been looking into Konami and Shenqu’s new mobile title, Castlevania: Moonlight Rhapsody. At first, I thought this was going to just be another dumb gacha game meant to cater to nostalgia and just rehash old storylines.

While it does appear to have some mobile game trappings such as a mission/quest based progression structure, random dropped equipment designed to be upgraded via fusion and farming, and playable characters locked behind a paywall, it also looks like much more thought was put into it.

For starters, the gameplay looks to be a proper Metroidvania, as it has a large, continuous map instead of being broken up into levels. The map will likely start off fairly small at first, with new areas being added in updates, but it’s still there.

Second, there are only 8-10 characters so far. Normally, mobile games are all about earning new characters via random gacha-style summoning. But because of the smaller character pool and the fact that said characters can wield a variety of weapon types from the gameplay footage I’ve seen, the random/lootbox element may come from the collectible equipment instead.

Finally, the graphics and art style are gorgeous. I’m not ashamed to admit that I actually have a soft spot for the anime art style used in Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin. It detracted from the dark, gothic setting, but it wasn’t horrible. Moonlight Rhapsody blends elements from the Kojima artwork, DS-era anime style, and even the Netflix series to create a style that blends the best of each.

What really sold me on the artwork is how they got around China’s strict rules on the depiction of the dead. Long story short, games aren’t allowed to depict dead bodies or gore. Gore I can understand, but the dead bodies part means that they can’t use any skeleton enemies. So they replaced the skeleton enemies with armor knights, vampire soldiers, or werebeasts with similar attack patterns and weaponry, while Death was given an admitedly impressive redesign. My favorite example was what they did with one of the playable characters.

One of the planned playable characters is a warlock named Vincent. While Vincent’s gameplay hasn’t been released yet, his opening animation when you highlight him on the character select screen has him doing a punching combo, followed by summoning a creature similar to the winged skeleton enemy (those flying skeletons with spears), except its made of crystal fragments. I thought that was pretty clever and a cool (if unintentional) shout-out to Castelvania’s spiritual successor series Bloodstained.

Granted, there are parts of the game I’m not particularly fond of. I’m on the fence in regards to the new characters, as they come off as generic, demon hunter anime archetypes (there’s a guy who is literally the priest from Dungeon Fighter Online with a different haircut and outfit). I’m especially unimpressed with Elvis - the new dhampir protagonist -, due to his name and that he seems to be a rehash of Alucard with Richter’s color palette.

But despite it’s flaws, I’m looking forward to seeing what Moonlight Rhapsody brings to the Castlevania universe. Canon or not, I wish Konami and Shenqu the best of luck and hope that the game does well.

If you’re interested in checking out yourselves, here are some links to get you started:

Moonlight Rhapsody’s page on the Castlevana Wiki. (Includes links to some YouTube videos of the game).