First things first, I’ll say I previously played the Rondo Of Ruin hack for Portrait Of Ruin, which I had some mixed feelings about, but was a fairly entertaining hack overall that I enjoyed progressing through, although I found some parts quite rough. I was a bit skeptical over Circle Of The Realm which at first I thought was just going to be more of the same.

Actually ended up really surprising me. The quality of the new character custom portraits aside, I really liked what was done with both Nathan and Hugh working together, the duo truly feel very powerful, befitting of their status as veterans. Hugh in particular felt like a proper Warrior/Mage hybrid that executes both roles exceptionally well. Neither character felt particularly weaker than the other, if anything, both felt outright busted to me and I love it.

Although if I have one nitpick with the balancing, I think the gun weapons on Nathan are way too good, especially with their ability to pierce though multiple enemies and even through walls. Hugh on the other hand I had more fun with his weapon variety on top of his spell casting. I got way more mileage out of his offensive spells than I would normally with Charlotte in the normal game, being able to cast in mid-air is a huge game changer. Really dig that both characters get access to Maxim’s goodies straight out of Harmony as well, Nathan with his insane Shuriken, and Hugh with Maxim’s Sword. There’s just a ton of variety in how you can play both characters, and it really hits the sweet spot.

I also really enjoyed many of the new music remixes taken from Circle Of The Moon and other Classic Castlevania titles, and I like that the level layouts weren’t absolutely crazy like Rondo of Ruin’s, although some I felt were a bit too crowded with huge mobs resulting in some minor slowdown.

Finally, some of the new dialogue had me cackling, particularly Nathan making a threat to put the vampires into a grave, befitting of his family name. That had me rolling. Love it. However there were a few errors here and there, as well as descriptions of items like Cursed Robe that read “Second Paragraph” below its initial description. The script’s comedy has some charm to it in the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish, highly recommend this hack if you are looking for some quick goofs. It’s not a particularly challenging hack compared to Rondo Of Ruin, and it’s much easier than the original Portrait Of Ruin in the long run. The Whip’s memory was pretty frustrating, more so than the original games fight since far as I could tell, there’s no worthwhile weakness to net actual big damage numbers, so relying on more unconventional abilities to score damage like familiars began to look like an attractive approach to the fight.

Overall, very solid hack and I like it a lot.