Bloodstained Curse of the Moon Makes for an Excellent Speedrun

Modeled after the NES classic title Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon has launched on all consoles, but the Xbox One (June 6th) to be a surprisingly competent tribute as well as a start to the much anticipated Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Curse of the Moon hearkens back to that 8-bit style as a gothic platformer action game, with four playable characters, multiple paths through levels, and several modes of play. 

Due to Castlevania games being fairly popular among speedrunners, a few runners have already set out to make strides in Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. Master of most Mega Man titles and just about every Castlevania in some capacity or another, Mark “Strizer86” Clazie has been putting the time and research into Curse of the Moon, already hitting well below the 30 minute mark.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was developed by Inti Creates, who are most known for their Gunvolt games and were involved in the Mega Man Zero titles on the Game Boy Advance. It was announced very recently and came as a bit of a pleasant surprise for those patiently waiting for the Kickstarter slam dunk that was Ritual of the Night. We’ve spent a bit of time with Curse of the Moon on the Switch and it hits that retro vibe perfectly.

We’ve chatted with Clazie before about his marathon Mega Man speedruns, as well as the Game Over Cancer charity marathon he helped organize. Now that Curse of the Moon has become a point of interest for a lot of runners, we caught up with Clazie for a few quick words on his impressions of the speedrun so far.

We first asked about Strizer86’s thoughts so far just on a casual level. “The game essentially feels like a mix of NES era Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, and a little Shovel Knight,” he said over Facebook.

“The game offers multiple categories and difficulties; the Ultimate Mode will likely be the fastest pace based on abilities offered.”

Now at first we had yet to discover any major exploits like there are in Castlevania runs, but runners have recently discovered a zip or two that could affect the route. These trick how the game transitions screens and warps the character to another location. Aside from that and future endeavors though, routing is pretty straight forward. 

“The foundation of early routing has been taking the most direct route combined with optimizing boss fights.”

For those just trying to get into speedrunning this sort of game, Curse of the Moon is a decent place to get started.

“Easy to pick up, hard to master, is how Strizer86 described the speedrun. “To do precise platforming quickly takes practice. Especially on Veteran where you deal with knockback and the risk of instant death. The game itself handles very well.”

Runners are currently keeping track of both IGT (In Game Time) as well as real time. So far, Clazie has been sticking to the top of most of the categories, but there are a few other runners making strides as well. Not bad for a game that had only been out for a couple days.

Because of similarities between this and Castlevania titles of the past, we will likely see the time continue to plummet as similar glitches and exploits are utilized. Also since there are plenty of categories, there are a lot of opportunities to jump in and get on the boards.

Either way, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is a game to watch as a speedrun.

Find Strizer86 continuing to push the time down on Twitch.

*Article has been updated with a new Twitch video to reflect further progress on the run*