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just a disclaimer before you read: I went through this game by playing the Definitive Edition+ hack which changes up some of the gameplay features, meaning I technically didn’t play the vanilla game as it was meant to be intended, that said I’ll still bring up some stuff about the vanilla game and compare it to how the DE+ version handles them, oh yeah spoilers for Aria of Sorrow since this game is a direct continuation of that

so Dawn of Sorrow, looks like Konami wanted to continue the 2035 storyline so Soma and his friends are back again for a second round. I don’t know, I thought Aria of Sorrow ended off on a good note with the whole Dark Lord rejecting his fate and confronting the Chaos inside of him, but I guess there’s still some more story to tell somehow.

a year after escaping the eclipse, Soma and Mina are just chilling around talking about their day when all of a sudden they get jumpscared by a woman. she sends some monsters to beat the crap out of Soma but unsurprisingly he takes care of them rather easily before the woman goes “blah blah blah they must be a Dark Lord blah blah blah” before disappearing. her name’s Celia Fortner, a member of a cult (different cult than the one in Aria btw, yeah another cult just popped out of nowhere) that wants Soma dead so the title of the Dark Lord can be succeeded by her two cronies: Dario Bossi, a criminal who has history with arson due to his ability to control fire, and Dmitrii Blinov, who can copy the magical abilities of his opponents as well as having an extremely punchable face. Soma’s pretty pissed about the whole situation so he decides to take the initiative and makes his way to their headquarters himself, going as far as ditching the fur coat in exchange for the Seto Kaiba attire, that’s when you know he’s serious. of course, all of Soma buddies such as Yoko, Hammer, Julius, and Arikado are there as well as they proceed to repeatedly tell Soma that he shouldn’t be there and that they will handle it while Soma replies with “shut up, just let me do my thing”. the story’s a bit odd this time and a few of the characters act ever so slightly differently this time around, especially Hammer with how down bad he is for Yoko in this game, not that I blame him really. despite the very minor hiccups, I think it’s a worthy followup to Aria of Sorrow’s storyline, in a few instances I actually like some stuff about it more, such as how Yoko doesn’t nearly die halfway through so she actually has something to do this time around. I also do enjoy the villains even if they aren’t the most menacing ones compared to what we’ve seen in the past. they really are just a bunch of losers attempting to fill in Dracula’s big shoes. I’ll at least acknowledge that they gave out a few plot twists I didn’t see coming, so they’re neat in my book.

there’s no Dracula’s Castle in this one since it got permanently destroyed last time so instead you have to settle with the Diet Coke version. there’s a lot of cool areas here like an abandoned snowy village you have to go through to enter the castle, a mysterious magic lab with a secret underground area, a chapel that has some ghosts forever dancing for eternity, a guest house with waiter skeletons, not one but two towers, and some old runned down similar to the castle entrances of a lot of Castlevania games. oh yeah, there’s also a bunch of random ice blocks cluttered around in some areas, how did they even get there? I get that the castle is located near a cold climate but what benefit is there to place a bunch of ice blocks in these rooms other than to annoy Soma even further? they must be made out of some tough ice too because the only way to get rid of them is via an upgrade that lets you destroy them with the touch screen, which leads to this next segway.

Touch Screen!!! what year was this released? 2005? yep, here’s your touch screen gimmicks. you want to play the game? sign your name with your finger. you need those ice blocks gone? place your finger on them. need to defeat a boss? swing your finger around like a dork. alright joking aside, this game’s going to make you use your touch screen sometimes. all of those ice blocks areas I’ve mentioned? most of them are really only in the Wizardly Lab so you don’t have to concern too much, no worries. then you got the Magic Seals. to enter a boss room, you need to collect a magic seal somewhere in the castle that’ll let you gain access to it. now boss doors, that’s ok. does it take up a couple of seconds to watch it open? yes it does, but, it’s mostly harmless. then they bring them into boss battles. right after you deplete all of a boss’s HP, you need to actually draw the magic seal in order to properly defeat it. why do you have to do this when you could have defeated the bosses in Aria without it just fine? idk. gotta find some use for that touch screen. is this bad? no, well not at first. the first few magic seals aren’t that difficult to draw, the first one is just a simple “V” pattern, easy to understand. then they get a bit more complicated and that when things change. now the actual patterns, they’re a bit annoying, but not too much. the problem here is getting those patterns down right after potentially finishing off a boss. did I mention there’s a time limit? fail to get the pattern correctly in time and all of a sudden, the boss gains more HP and you have to whittle them down again. usually getting them down again isn’t too hard, but for later bosses like Aguni and Death, a failed pattern is likely going to get you a Game Over in return. a clutch kill in any other Castlevania game is turned into a “no u” if you screw up the magic seal. the Definitive+ hack I’ve played actually removes the requirement for dealing with this at the end of a boss battle, so I can’t actually say that I gone through this experience myself outside of watching YouTube videos of other people failing, but I can guarantee I would have screwed up those later seals a lot if I had to do so. I will at least acknowledge that they give you the option to practice the seals via an option in the menu, so you can pretty much teach yourself to get better at them wherever you are in the game.

I’m assuming you’ve probably already played Aria of Sorrow before reading this review so I won’t go into detail about the Soul mechanic, but if you haven’t, why are you playing Dawn before Aria in this day and age? just like Aria, every enemy in the game has a soul you can obtain which is still really impressive. combine that with the new Doppleganger soul that lets you have two different sets of souls and equipment you can switch between anytime and you got yourself a lot of versatility. speaking of equipment, you have the option to make the weapons you obtain more powerful. Yoko’s here to help upgrade them with her weapon synthesis, free at cost unless you count souls as currency. yeah, you need to acquire specific souls to upgrade specific weapons, so you better go and save your cash for that Soul Eater Ring this time around! grinding for souls this time around wasn’t as time consuming as it was in Aria for me as the Definitive+ hack fixed how the Luck stat works so it can actually provide a significant boost to the soul drop rate. having the Soul Eater Ring, Three 7s, as well as the Ghost Dancer soul (provides a boost to your Luck stat) equipped meant that the longest it ever took for me to grind a soul was about 10 or so minutes, not too bad. as for the vanilla game, I’d imagine it’d take a bit longer to get those souls. how much longer? not sure, but if you want my advice: just try to be patient and maybe play some music in the background while you’re grinding for those souls. this does lead to a bit of a negative unfortunately and it’s that weapon synthesis is your only convenient way of getting good weapons in this game. “but can’t you find some good ones hidden in the castle?”, nope lmao. this ain’t like Aria where you can find the most broken weapon by breaking a hidden wall, the cultists at With Light are stingy when it comes to giving you good equipment as all you’ll be finding inside there are beginner and mid-tier weapons. Hammer’s shop doesn’t fair much better, ironic since he’s supposed to be an arms dealer, so if you don’t want to get your butt kicked during the endgame, you absolutely need to grind souls so Yoko can upgrade your weapons, at least you’ll get some new dialogue whenever you talk to her. if you’re really desperate though, just equip a Mandragora soul and stock up on High Mind Ups and you’ll probably destroy most of the bosses.

I forgot to bring this up in my Aria review, but that game had some pretty great bosses, and Dawn continues to throw some more cool ones at you. it starts off with the Flying Armor that flies around and flings his two swords about, then Balore the giant returns albeit much more easier to face off against since he’s the only second boss this time. there’s this weird looking Puppet Master that’s a giant head and four arms that puts marionettes into iron maidens which switch places with you if you don’t destroy them quickly. there’s also some fish monster called Rehab that’s admittedly a little annoying to fight since Soma doesn’t get the ability to sink underwater until after you defeat it. I also have to bring up Zephyr, probably the most memorable fight for some people due to all the DIO nods (stops time, throws knives, fought near a clock tower), which somehow flew past my head when I fought him myself, do not ask me how I have no clue why I didn’t get the hint either. if I have to pick a personal favorite though, it’s probably Gergoth. not only does he look like Shin Godzilla (I know Gergoth came first but you get what I’m saying) but before you face him you have to climb up this tall tower to even reach the guy. right before his second phase, he destroys the floor you’re standing on and crashes down every room you climbed earlier before the two of you reach the bottom floor where the rest of the fight continues, with the destroyed rooms remaining like that for the rest of the game, pure kino. special shoutouts go to Dario and Dmitrii, especially Dmitrii since he has the ability to copy whatever soul you throw at him. normally he’ll defeat you easily if you throw all your good stuff at him, but if you were to use something such as the Student Witch soul on Dmitrii, he’ll be reduced to flinging cats at you for most of the fight, what a jobber. I appreciate how the handheld Castlevanias have been slowly improving their bosses over time, and I’m looking forward to seeing how cool they’ll be in the next two games.

Julius Mode is back, now in the flavor of Castlevania III! you got a Belmont, a Belnades, and an Alucard, all to your own luxure! unfortunately it’s not a true Castlevania III experience because there’s no playable DaNasty so I have to give this mode a 0/10. that time in Dracula’s Castle last year must have done a number to him because he’s not nearly as broken as was in Aria. he moves slightly slower, he lost the Omnia Vantias, and his uppercut barely reaches that much distance. thankfully Yoko and Alucard are here to aid old boomer Julius’s apparent weaknesses as Yoko has a backdash that covers a lot of ground while Alucard can fly around as a bat like he could in Castlevania III, all three characters have their uses so you’ll for sure be using all of them during your playthrough. overall it’s pretty similar to the one in Aria, even down to having little to no cutscenes, which admittedly is a bit disappointing since this game’s Julius Mode is supposed to take place right after the bad ending so it’s kind of a missed opportunity to have some dialogue here. that said it’s not really a major problem and the mode is still fun to go through so I’d recommend it if you want more Julius as well as Yoko and Alucard.

the game looks great, it’s pretty much a continuation of how Aria looked except with bigger character sprites, nothing to really say much here it’s just really nice. of course I have to address that elephant in the room, and that’s the new artstyle for all the characters. Ayami Kojima who did the artwork for most of the Castlevanias since Symphony of the Night is noticeably absent in this game. as far as I can gather, IGA had a new artist with a much more anime-inspired artstyle to take over for this game as he wanted to start marketing the handheld Castlevanias towards a younger playerbase. as for the new artstyle, it looks….fine. I’m not going to go into a rant about how the new artwork is bad because it’s not Kojima or how it looks way too anime, on its own it works and in one case it’s actually better as the new portraits are a lot more expressive than the ones in the previous game. if anything, the biggest problem with the art is that they’re directly following off of Aria, which can be a big whiplash if you’re playing the two games back-to-back. I really think IGA should have at least let Kojima stick around for Dawn so the jump wouldn’t be so jarring; you wouldn’t make a sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles and have a completely new person make all the character artwork, right? the Definitive+ hack implements the Kojima portraits from Aria in as well as giving the new characters their own styled portraits as well so if want to have them in Dawn then the hack has you covered. on the flip side for the people that actually prefer the vanilla art (I know you’re out there and that’s okay I’m not judging you) there’s an optional patch to keep the original portraits alongside all the improvements that come from Definitive+.

probably going to be a hot take, but I’m not feeling the music in this one as much as I’d like to. Obviously the soundtrack isn’t bad, quite good actually, but interestingly I found the tracks in Aria to be more memorable and catchy tracks despite Dawn having better audio capabilities. that said, I still enjoyed what I got to hear so I’ll go through the tracks I’d like to mention. A Fleeting Respite is the prologue for this game and as well as the theme that plays whenever you meet up with Yoko and it’s a fine soothing track to hear when you want to rest and get those weapons upgraded. Pitch Black Intrusion is a great piece to suit your infiltration of the hideout you’re heading towards, elevated by taking place in the cool Lost Village. Dracula’s Tears is a very groovy track for a spooky magic lab, I’ll be disappointed if I don’t find any jazz remixes of it online. Scarlet Battle Soul might be my second favorite track in the game, it really gives Dario and Dmitrii more of a threatening vibe unless we’re taking the cat ammo into consideration. Condemned Tower continues the trend of the tower areas having great music and has a similar thing going like Aria’s Clock Tower with it starting sinister at the beginning but becoming bombastic later on. Cursed Clock Tower is pretty alright at first but that second half gets pretty intense and foreboding, I enjoy. Into the Dark Night is definitely my favorite track, this is without a doubt the “time to kick ass” theme, and to no surprise one of the bosses that gets this theme is my main man Gergoth, another epic win. did you know there’s an unused track called Amber Scenery? it’s pretty much a remixed arrangement of Subterranean Hell and hoo boy what an arrangement. the track already starts off excellently but it just keeps better the longer it continues, and god man they even went and brought in that PIANO near the end. me when the best track doesn’t even get used in the actual game

what’s there left to say? great sequel, great game, great Soma. I will surely miss seeing these goofballs but it’s not everyday you get a second game to appear in so they definitely ate good. Dawn is a bit flawed in some areas but I’d still say it’s an excellent Metroidvania, even if I’ve pretty much enjoyed every single one I’ve played so far. if you’ve played Aria of Sorrow yet somehow haven’t played this one yet, go and fix that because this should be high on your to-do-list. apparently though the next two Castlevania games are peak. maybe. well I hope they are so yeah, I’m just gonna stop typing and move on to those ones now. bye

in the end, Hammer never scored….

Esse jogo não é ruim, longe disso. Mas é um downgrade absurdo em relação ao seu antecessor, que é indiscutivelmente um dos melhores jogos da saga.
Todas as mudanças que esse jogo fez, foram pra pior, enquanto nada além da tecnologia e o tamanho do castelo parecem ter progredido.

O traço gótico perfeito da Ayami Kojima foi trocado por um traço de anime genérico que mais parece um isekai ruim de temporada.
Os vilões não tem sal nenhum, e nem os 3 juntos tem a presença do Grahan. que já não era muita.
O sistema de selos foi a pior adição que poderiam ter feito. É insuportável e responde super mal, te fazendo perder tempo e paciência.

O novo sistema de armas também não gostei. No jogo anterior você achava todo tipo de arma única e poderosa explorando o castelo, o que recompensava o jogador por explorar e progredir. Aqui só existem versões genéricas de armas, que você precisa upar em formas novas usando almas, gerando um grind super repetitivo toda vez que você quiser upar sua bendita arma. É um saco.

Eu fiz parecer que o jogo é uma bosta, coisa que ele não é. Ele mantém a maioria das qualidades do Aria, como alto conteúdo, variedade de estilos de combate e almas, etc.
O ponto é que ele é uma sequência que ao mesmo tempo é um passo pra trás gigante, com nenhuma mudança realmente boa, o que me impede de dar uma nota melhor.
No geral, é um jogo competente e bom, porém fica MUITO atrás do jogo maravilhoso que foi Aria of Sorrow

This series has the most fun Metroidvania gameplay in my opinion and Dawn is simply more of that. The movement and combat are still sick, and so is the feeling of progression absorbing abilities from every enemy and becoming a total killing machine. Being able to switch between 2 sets of fused weapons and stats with a button press made those mechanics even more interesting. Sadly it's an early DS title which means there's some very forced gimmicks in there. Getting a boss to 0 health, messing up drawing the symbol and then dying after is the most frustrating thing. Also one of the worst art style choices I've ever seen... the character portraits are ugly and a massive downgrade from Ayami Kojima's distinctive look. At least the spritework is still really smooth and there are some cool 3D backgrounds. Aria is the better game but this is really worth playing.

a primeira impressão do público geral desse jogo é sempre bem dividida, alguns fazem cara feia, outros amam, e eu me encontrava naqueles que fazia careta, por quê? Porque desconfio das sequências dos jogos que não "precisam" de uma.

generalizar é perigoso, existe mil motivos pra algo ter uma sequência e outros mil pra aquilo ser bom, mas assim como o cinema, videogame é uma arte com base em dinheiro, pessoas trabalham na criação de jogos e pessoas precisam comer. Sobretudo então um jogo precisa vender, e é isso que dawn parece ser essencialmente, o primeiro castle do recente portátil da nintendo, que apela bastante pra um público infantil tornando acessível para crianças, ou seja, um lançamento seguro.

vendo isso ficava meio pa, ainda mais que a continuação em questão era de aria of sorrow, mas contradizendo tudo oq pensava, dawn é muito bom, as almas são mais aproveitáveis, há sistemas novos, é graficamente mais bonito e tudo que um castle bom tem, tem aqui também (menos o castelo, e aquela bosta de canetinha pra matar o boss).

embora eu tenha dito que jogos precisam vender, penso que isso não é inteiramente ruim, a arte é viva o suficiente pra se adequar ao mundo de indústrias, e nesse caso ainda a cabeça pensante era o Koji, diretor mais que competente pra criar algo bom.

dawn parece não ser digno de seu antecessor, porém é sim incrível, com algumas ressalvas sobre a dificuldade chata e enredo bunda, e o fator apelativo dele ingressou muita gente a castlevania.

I dunno maybe there's a pretentious and cool reasons everyone loves Aria of Sorrow but Dawn of Sorrow takes the cake for me.

It feels so good to play. The souls are more fun than last time, areas are memorable, enemies are mostly fun. I actually even half-way gave a shit about the story this time around.

Dawn of Sorrow is a real stand out for me in terms of boss battles though. Each one looked sick and had a fun pattern to figure out. The final boss battle looks stunning but is not actually very fun or interesting to fight.

This is probably my favorite Castlevania game so far! I can't wait to check out the other DS entries.

The second "Metroidvania" Castlevania game I touched, and boy howdy was it a good one. The map design was good, exploration was fun, and the wide variety of souls you got to augment your combat experience always kept things interesting. The bonus modes with more traditional Castlevania characters were a nice treat on top.

The only real marks against the game was the obligatory touchscreen gimmick with scrawling enemy seals, and the fact that with a game like this there's always going to be a pre-requisite amount of grinding for souls, and good golly are the droprates in this game at times outright terrible.

Play Aria first before jumping into this. Both are fantastic though.

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.

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.

We're back to reusing Rondo/SotN sprites baby! Woohoo!

Dawn of Sorrow kicks off the DS trilogy with a bang, expanding on Aria's gameplay additions and brushing up the presentation across the board. In my Aria review, I commented on how the only thing holding that game back from being my favorite Castlevania is the hardware it was released on.

Dawn of Sorrow looks, feels and sounds EXACTLY like what I had in mind. I mean, in some ways the DS is basically a portable PS1 in terms of power, right? Perhaps this is a glimpse of what Aria would've looked like on that system. I especially love the 2D areas with 3D backgrounds, like the village houses and the iconic clock tower.

Now, not everything hits the mark. The art is a SEVERE downgrade from previous games. I realize that it made sense for the time, but Ayami Kojima's works can never be replaced, especially not by this.
The dual screen was also a huge missed opportunity. Instead of adding gimmicks like breaking blocks or drawing seals to finish off bosses, they could have added something like a marker system to the map, where you'd be able to add memos to certain areas so you remember what to do in them later. "Small gap here", "high jump here", etc. Sadly they didn't quite see it that way, so hope you played enough Trauma Center before this.

The dialogue is also pretty bad at points. Characters constantly say things like "It's too dangerous, you should step back" to each other, and Hammer creeping over Yoko/Yoko creeping over Soma's relationship with Mina over the course of their shop dialogues got real old, real fast. The alternate endings were pretty cool though.

Beyond that, there's... Something about the design here that feels less focused than Aria's. I can't quite put my finger on what, but after finishing the game earlier today, I didn't quite feel like going back to 100% it.

Still a great game, don't get me wrong, but better visuals and soundtrack aside, Aria still comes out on top for me.

I am Soma. 100% map completion. 100% souls. 100% enemy drops. I didn't get max level like in Aria, but that shit would've taken way too long.

I've been very slowly chipping away at the 100% for this game, so I've been waiting a while to make this review.

I would like to start this review by apologizing to my good friend, Jack. Jack, I promised you that the next metroidvania I would play was Super Metroid. I have Super Metroid, I told you I'd do it, I said I wouldn't play another Castlevania game. That was a lie. A few days after finishing Aria, I was lying in bed and I made the decision to start up Dawn of Sorrow on my DS. Since then, I've 100% the game. For that, I sincerely apologize and hope you forgive me.

With that out of the way, honestly, Dawn is pretty good, but Aria is just better in my opinion.

I'll start with all the things I don't like because they definitely thought that they had to change the game since this is a direct sequel and damn, some of these changes are mad ass.

-The magic seal system sucks ass and so does the Balore effect (but that's only important for maybe, 3 rooms so it's not a big deal). The amount of times I fucked up drawing a seal and having to keep fighting a boss is too many to count and I hate having to put the DS down so I can draw some stupid lines on the touch screen. I hate when I have to physically let go of my controls so I can play some dumb ass mini game they put in that adds nothing to the experience. I don't care that the DS has a touch screen.
-Weapon Synthesis is stupid and takes away from the exploration part of the game. The map is really big and (for the most part) well designed. Why bother forcing the player to farm souls to craft stronger weapons (which you can't find in the map now because they're tied to crafting) when you could just take advantage of the map and make them things you find as rewards. The amount of souls I farmed just to craft some weapons which I never used because I would farm the next version immediately is too many to count.
-Just like in Aria, you get Hippogryph (super jump) and Black Panther (run really fast) late in the game. The difference is that in Aria you still have some time to mess around with them and have some fun moving around the map with those abilities before beating the game. In Dawn, you literally get Hippogrph halfway into The Abyss (same as Aria's Chaos map section) and Black Panther within THE LAST 10 ROOMS OF THE GAME. You have basically no time to mess around with these abilities before you reach the final boss, which is just mad stupid in my opinion. To go on a little bit of a tangent, one of the best parts of SotN is that you get a bunch of great and relevant movement options which when used together and practiced, you get an amazing movement system which feels satisfying. Also, you have every ability before the final sections of the game, then you have the entire inverted castle to mess around with them. In Aria, you get super jump and super speed kind of late, but it still works. In Dawn, you literally get them at the end of the game and it stinks.
-The final two sections of the map in Dawn are straight dog water butt cheeks. The Mine of Judgement and The Abyss are both horribly designed and there's nothing anyone can say to change my mind on that.
-Final point and kind of unimportant especially on my end for a metroidvania, but the story in this game is pretty bad. Not important, but it was bad enough that I took note of it and the writing isn't very good either. When I say that, I mean that its even worse than some of the cheesy stuff in things like SotN, which definitely isn't well written, but at least it's not offensive and has some charm.

Okay, with all that out of the way, I still did really enjoy the game and think its good. The combat is fun and has a bit of a learning curve from Aria, but nothing that ruins the game. The game is overall more much more difficult than Aria, which isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, but was noticeable. The souls were still fun to mess around with, but weapon synthesis kind of fucked it since I'd have to use souls for weapons and I was too lazy to farm multiple of a bunch of souls. The weapons are satisfying to use and the bosses are still (for the most part, fuck Rahab) well designed like in Aria (nothing as good as Julius or Chaos though, but I also haven't done Julius mode yet so I haven't fought Somacula). Finally, the castle (not including The Mines and The Abyss) is well designed, but they put in a lot of the really tall and open rooms which just made me want super jump early and that sucks ass. Overall, good game, definitely has flaws, but still a solid time and I'm biased.

What an impressive transition into the Nintendo DS but I’m not that surprised. By Aria of Sorrow, IGA & his team were getting back into their groove of making consistent quality Castlevania games after their bit of rocky reintroduction with Harmony of Dissonance.

Dawn of Sorrow is just taking the formula that Aria of Sorrow has refined at this point and cranking it up with upgraded visuals & soundtrack whiles improving on the combat due to having 2 load-outs to customize your equipment or souls that you switch on the fly that makes the combat flow less intrusive and boss fights aren’t as piss easy as Aria of Sorrow at times. Due to the upgraded presentation and more out of the box themes, Dawn of Sorrow's Castle somehow surpasses Aria of Sorrow's Castle by a bit, which is impressive.

Once again, the story isn’t anything mind-blowing, nor are the villains that great, but they make the plot work & it is nice to see more of Soma, Julius, Genya, Yoko, and Hammer which who I have grown to appreciate by the end of Aria of Sorrow, but this game elevates them to my favorite cast of characters in the series so far.

I do want to get my few complaints out of the way. The magic seal system is unsurprisingly not a fun gimmick that gets on your nerves, your luck stat doesn't work, and I really dislike the anime-style art.

However, this game is still an excellent Metroidvania that I enjoyed from start to finish and even beat Julius mode, which is by far the best unlockable mode in the series so far. A very strong start for Castlevania on the DS. I'm curious to see how Portrait of Ruin & Order of Ecclesia stack up since I have heard nothing but good things about these ones

The art direction transition is one of the biggest gaming crimes to ever be committed (it hurts my soul more than my eyes) but otherwise Dawn of Sorrow is a very solid experience and a suitable follow-up to Aria.

Aria of Sorrow was one of the most surprising experiences I’ve had this year, and after sitting on it more I’m starting to realize it may have cracked into the upper echelons of Metroidvanias for me. Aria is concise, rewarding, and (most importantly) very cohesive. All of Aria’s ideas flow very naturally into each other and that philosophy extends even into how the castle itself is designed. Unlocking a new power, for example, oftentimes also unlocks a route nearby that connects back somewhere very close to where you’ll need to go next for progression. Similarly, branching paths close to requires areas will usually reward the player for experimenting with these new powers by granting powerful new weapons and armor. In other words, Aria’s gameplay loop is very cohesive and it constantly sets fires to the neurons in my brain in the best way, and I think Dawn of Sorrow’s biggest flaw is that it lacks that same cohesive glue.

Dawn’s castle doesn’t really have that same masterful level of flowing into itself and it’s much easier to get lost wandering aimlessly as a result. It definitely doesn’t help that exploration feels a lot less satisfying, too, because the overwhelming majority of the good weapons are attained through sheer luck by getting a good enemy drop….or by sheer luck (with extra steps) since you also need these same enemies to drop souls to create weapons with at the shopkeep. Both methods to obtain new weapons are effectively the same thing, in other words, and it’s pretty antithetical to how Aria approached this in its design which was already pitch perfect. I always felt a lot weaker than I actually was because my weapons were constantly below the grade they should have been just because I didn’t feel too particularly keen on engaging with this aspect of the game (aka, grinding until I get the right drops).

Dawn of Sorrow also does have some “early DS syndrome”, which is as charming as it occasionally frustrating. Admittedly, I do love me some early DS era crustiness but the way it’s implemented here is a bit cumbersome. After defeating a boss in Dawn of Sorrow, you have to use the touch screen to draw these (memorized) sigil patterns to completely finish the fight. If you fail, the boss regains some health and you have to do everything again until you get it right. Now, I’m no stranger to forced touch screen implantation, and it’s honestly a pretty inoffensive mechanic in the grand scheme, but man is it frustrating when you get one of these wrong. The biggest problem here is that they’re timed, and you have to contort your fingers from resting comfortably on the buttons to suddenly reaching for your stylus to doodle some lines. It takes my brain a couple of seconds to shift modes which leads to the gimmick feeling a bit disconnected from everything else that’s happening. Again, nothing too egregious and it’s an issue that’s definitely overstated, but not a great inclusion either.

Despite my negativity on some things, there’s definitely a lot to be enjoyed here too. Outside of the drawing thing, the bosses themselves are a highlight and a lot of fun to master. The souls themselves are maybe even more distinctive here than in Aria and they’re legitimate use for most of them. My favorite addition is probably being able to switch between two combat kits at the press of a button without having to pause the game to fiddle around in menus. Sprite animations and the like are top notch, especially for an early DS era title, and weapons all have a proper feel to them depending on what you’re rocking with. The soundtrack is also pretty great, but that goes without saying with Castlevania.

Overall, Dawn of Sorrow is a fun time even with some ideas that don’t feel as meticulously baked as Aria’s. It’s a good follow-up to a game that expands on the story premise and gameplay concepts of its predecessor in many ways, and that’s all I could really ask for. Also, I guess I’m a big Castlevania fan now on a binge of the series? Wasn’t expecting that one.

More Junk Food. It's hard to say something about the Igavanias when they're all basically the same game and my opinions don't really change.

Good sprites, good music, too easy, fun anyways, blah blah blah.

The touchscreen thing is whatever, i guess it'a a pain in the ass for those in emulators, luckly i managed to find a really cheap used copy a few years ago.

The anime style for the characters was a big downgrade.