A fun side effect of writing about games, even on an amateur level, is that one ends up reflecting and researching on games a bit deeper and thus getting to know more about them than if they just hop from game to game. I originally planned to open this review by talking about the early days of the DS and PSP, how despite the DS being the best selling (and arguably best) portable in history, the two portables being presented in 2004 left audiences puzzled as to what Nintendo was thinking, and why anyone would want that quirky thing instead of the much slicker PSP. That's because I believed that to be the cause for Konami opting to play it safe and make the first DS Castlevania a sequel -- an assumption which proved incorrect.

No, Iga was pretty much sold on the DS from the start, and Aria of Sorrow's great sales on a Nintendo platform sealed the deal on the DS as the host for the next portable entry in the Castlevania series. As for why make a direct sequel, in particular, that is owed to Iga knowing that he and his team had accomplished something special with Aria, both in terms of storyline and gameplay. Iga truly loves the soul system from that game, and that would become even more evident years later, with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, but I digress.

As a direct sequel to Aria, Dawn of Sorrow might get criticised for being a rethreading of known ground, but the fact of the matter is, it's rethreading some damn solid ground. Most of what I mention in my Aria of Sorrow review applies to its sequel as well, from the robust gameplay systems to the beautiful sprite art. There are some areas in which Dawn attempts to stand out from its prequel, some of which are successful, some of which, not so much.

Immediately apparent from the cover of the game is that the art style for character art was changed, moving away from Ayami Kojima's (gorgeous) character portraits to... somewhat generic anime art. This change is said to be a result of demographics, with portable gamers being mainly children and, as such, it making sense to use character art that appealed more to that age group. Unfortunately, none of us happened to be in the room when that decision was taken to loudly point out that Aria was a success among that very demographic and that aging down the brand identity so suddenly might be a bad idea, so this is what we got stuck with.

It's not that the character art is terrible -- it reminds me of Rondo, which also used anime art and is still widely beloved by the fanbase -- but Dawn is trying to tell a story from a handicapped position and nailing the gothic horror vibes right from the cover would have helped its case by a lot. See, the position of a sequel to a work that was never written in a way to have one is a difficult one: the big twists have already happened and characters have experienced their respective growths, so what do we work with to make a new story?

(Incidentally, Dawn opens by spoiling the big twist in Aria, so absolutely play Aria first if you can.)

What immediately springs to mind are those Disney direct-to-VHS sequels that were mostly pretty forgettable, when not antithetical to the original work, as that's absolutely the vibe one gets when one mischievous gang of troublemakers shows up in the opening in Dawn to oppose Soma and his crew. The generic cartoon aesthetic makes for a poor first impression even though the storyline is actually quite competent and, for a game ostensibly marketed at children, it shows some rather dark imagery.

The idea is that, with Dracula being forever gone, a cult forms from people that desire a new Dark Lord, and a few of its head figures step forward as candidates to fill the power vacuula. They decide to have a go at Soma, attacking him and his girlfriend when the two are hanging out in town, and our boy doesn't take too kindly to that, setting out in pursuit of the group, pulling the whole crew from Aria in with him. What follows is a metroidvania romp just like Aria, which has Soma claiming monsters' souls as he brings down the Dark Lord wannabes.

Where Dawn successfully improves on Aria is in quality of life features as well as better tuning. On the former front, Soma can now use two different equipment sets that can be swapped at the press of the X button, a very welcome feature as it switching souls without entering the menu, thus letting the player adapt to each situation faster. The game also makes good use of the DS's top screen, displaying either the castle map or a screen with Soma's and enemy's stats. While having the map always visible is a godsend in this genre, having enemy info readily available is great when farming souls, as it does exactly the same thing the gadget from the Advance Collection does in Aria.

As for tuning, weapons have been rebalanced, emphasizing their variety. There's even a system through which, by imbuing weapons with certain souls, they can be upgraded, a nice addition that unfortunately ends up underutilized due to the rarity of some of the souls it requires. Having a use for excess souls, however, is a nice thought, and again I point to Bloodstained as the unofficial successor to Dawn, with Iga further refining this idea in that game.

Incidentally, while Aria already had souls that powered up with their count, Dawn brings this feature to the forefront explicitly calling it the Soul Level -- this is also a key feature in Bloodstained, where it exists for all souls-- uh, all shards. Souls have also been retooled in Dawn: while a lot of them are reskins from those from Aria, there are a handful of interesting new additions to the roster, and the player can expect to work with different toolsets than the ones the prequel gives. Of note is that late game souls are absolutely stacked, making them really gratifying to use.

And they have to be, because the best part of Dawn is its extremely challenging bosses. Aria's were great, but Dawn takes it to a new level: every boss is a unique enemy with a carefully crafted moveset, and their hits are extremely punishing. Even when spamming items, playing sloppily ultimately ends up in Soma getting overwhelmed, so instead, the player is expected to learn each tell and carefully avoid each attack. The magic seal mechanic is the cherry on top, forcing the player to remain vigilant for the prompt while adding flavor to finishing off the boss.

(Admittedly, if playing on an emulator, magic seals are an absolutely cursed mechanic, practically serving as an accidental form of anti-piracy . In that case, use the mod that removes them from the game.)

But is it better than Aria? Probably not: it will never be able to count on the simplicity and novelty factor that that game presented. However, even if it doesn't surpass its predecessor, it is a thoroughly enjoyable game that proudly stands at its prequel's side. Fans of Aria willing to look past a horrid first impression will find themselves a fiercely challenging game that brings back many of the original's boons.

I'm torn on this one, cause while I legitimately liked it at points there's so much here that prevents me from liking it as much as the previous games. Well I mean for starters I downloaded a patch to get rid of all the magic seal touchscreen bs, It did help out my experience more but even looking past that this one isn't as memorable as Aria of Sorrow in my honest opinion. I got lost way too frequently and the game isn't really good at telling you or pointing you in the right direction to go in all the time. The story is just ok, the gameplay is ok, it's just an ok game not much more I can add, if you're going to play this i'd highly recommend the patch for it since you can bypass all the annoying touch screen magic seal gimmicks easily that way.

It is without a doubt not as bad as people make it be, not even the rune system is as bad as they say, it made me lose like once or twice but pretty fair and not too annoying. The gameplay is good as always even better in some places the graphics are a pretty nice upgrade, specially those interactable environments like the cars at the starting area (that was legit incredible wish more games had it). But sadly the story and the portrait and visuals (cover, ui art etc) are quite a downgrade from the gba games, it literally threw away the castlevania legacy to become anime, and a bad one at that. The story is really bad with the shittiest villain so far and the most forced story in the post SOTN games. Somehow it had the worst final sequence of rooms followed by the coolest end of game final boss. Still overall a pretty good game sadly the story, artistic style and the more child friend nature brought it down a bit.

Um das piores experiencias que ja tive em um jogo

sem duvidas essa é pior experiencia que ja tive num jogo eu prefiro jogar a ate dmc2 do que jogar a versão base dessa jogo maldito.

começando com o leval design porco confuso que não indica o que se tem que fazer e te obriga a ir ao mapa inteiro pra saber onde tem que ir, ainda troca das lindíssimas artes da Ayami Kojima pra um design de anime generico e dos malditos selos QUE VOCÊ É OBRIGADO A FAZER PRA MATAR O BOSS DE VERDADE

em resumo esse é um jogo mas se mesmo assim se ainda quiser jogar o jogo eu recomendo so jogar o modo do julius que a unica coisa boa disso tudo.

Aria of Sorrow kinda has the novelty of doing all of these concepts and ideas first but DoS is still a worthy sequel. Still love how batshit insane the abilities in these games are, Soma Cruz is so cracked.

Recently played through the GBA trilogy so it was refreshing playing one of these games on a more powerful console. Some cool set pieces here that would have been hard to pull off on the GBA. Sprite-work is also, thanks to the ds, on par with SOTN which says a lot

The new artstyle is sadly very sauceless with almost soyjak-esque character portraits. Ayami Kojima, we miss you 💔

A sequel to AoS except it does everything even worse.

Yet again, another overhyped game that ended up really disappointing me.

All the problems with the Aria odf Sorrow return in this even worse game. Do you wanna grind for abilites again? Gotcha covered. So you want to be lost to find out a common enemy holds the ability you need to progress with no indication that is the case? Gotcha covered. Want to feel like exploration is even more a waste of your time? Sure thing! Want even less secrets to find? Here ya go! An even smaller map? Sure thing!

Oh but it gets worse. You want a stupid difficulty spikes and bad designed bosses? This game has it.

The final nail in the coffin, do you want the worst designed final boss in metroidvania CV? Oh let's talk about it. The first phase is laughable. If you have the right abilities you literally do not have to even move. The problem lies in phase 2. Do you want a boss that continues to summon enemies that do not die quickly? Do you want a boss arena that is way too big so you cannot hit the boss at times? Do you want oddly specific hit boxes for you to hit but the boss contact damage hit box is absurdly huge? Do you want a boss that can literally corner you and then stunlock you to death just because it wants to? Do you want to try and fight it normally like any other boss for an hour to realize it's actually a gimmick boss? I SURE DID! You get an ability late game that you don't realize is key to beating this boss. It fires in a straight line. The only way to hit this boss easily to be honest.

CV is known for it's different builds and play with whatever weapons you want. Play how you want. Not for this boss! It wasn't designed for that. It's a gimmick and there is no telegraphing that it is.

This final boss is such a slap in the face to Castlevania. Gimmick boss with one strategy to beat it reliably. Even with this strategy, it still is a frustrating fight. With the respawning enemies, bad hitboxes, and the stunlocks into death.

AoS and DoS are very uninspired. It felt like the devs forgot what makes CV fun. Exploring that makes you feel rewarded for doing so. Combat that feels good. And well designed boss fights. I will never play this game again. AoS and DoS only good contribution to metroidvanias as a whole is that they heavily influenced Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. A fantastic game that finally fixes the problems of the monster ability system.

You can like what you like. AoS and DoS are not bad games. I just hate them. They are mid at best imo. After a long time of making metroidvania CV games, I feel like this was their low point.

I did not like what AoS and DoS turned the series into. It would have been better if certain key abilities were given to you instead of you having to magically know a normal enemy drops it. It's bad game design to say all bosses give you things needed to traverse the world. But then have to kill random guy over here 30x times to unlock more traversal options. Even if they are only needed for optional areas. With a genre based on exploration that is a sin to do.

At least the music is good.