Reviews from

in the past


It's like they looked at everything I like about Metroidvanias and threw it all in.

Movement and controls are perfect, the castle and upgrades are satisfyingly paced, and the game looks and sounds amazing. The main gimmick of the soul cards is also awesome and makes killing the enemies rewarding; every enemy gives you a unique spell or ability.

I think, because this is a GBA game, the only thing holding it back is the sense of scale. The castle is fun to explore, but it distills the essence of SotN into a tight, extremely fun, handheld experience. While SotN excelled in atmosphere and spectacle, this game necessarily doesn't have the grandiose sense of scale in areas like the clock tower or catacombs; everything is a little smaller.

Overall though, this is a must-play Metroidvania, and one that beats a lot of Metroid games for me.

O sistema de almas é interessante. Eu não gosto que ele é baseado em sorte, seria melhor se fosse algo q se encontra no castelo, mas msm assim é inegável como essas almas ajudam pra diversificar a gameplay, essa que inclusive por si só já tá mt boa, com mta arma boa e diversificada. Esse jogo tb tem um dos melhores castelos e exploração da série. Ainda prefiro o Symphony mas entendo quem tem esse como favorito.

really fun and solid metroidvania game (even more for a castlevania) that doesn't have any major problems.

Albeit not initially clear, you do indeed explore the "Castlevania" in this game. I enjoyed this experience very much.

me and the gang Soma Cruising into Dracula’s Castle

I’ve heard very great things about Aria of Sorrow in particular so I’ve had high expectations going into this game, like let’s say at least 9/10 expectations. however seeing as you can see my rating right there, I won’t beat around the bush and instead go straight into the point.

the year is 2035, fur coats and bell-bottoms are back in style as Soma Cruz goes out to watch the solar eclipse with his definitelynotgirl-friend Mina Hakuba at her shrine. out of nowhere, the two are transported into Dracula’s Castle where they meet up with Genya Arikado (real clever name there buddy) who informs Soma that he has the ability to absorb the souls of monsters and orders him to go to the master chamber while intentionally leaving the situation vague. along the way Soma will meet many other wacky characters such as Graham Jones, a dude who’s 99% not evil or anything, Yoko Belnades, a member of the Church whose investigating the castle, Hammer, an army soldier who was sent to investigate as well but decided “nah I’m going to open up a shop in Dracula’s Castle instead”. lastly there’s J, some amnesiac dude who lost his memory back in 1999, the same exact year that Dracula was finally destroyed for good, hmmmmmmmm. If I had to describe what the vibe of this story’s like, I’d say it’s an in-between of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, more-so RoB outside of the art style, but it does start to hit SotN territory near the very end. I think some of it is due to how you’re not playing as a professional hardened vampire hunter like most of the games from before. Soma’s instead a pretty goofy guy. not only does he appeal to the male fantasy but he also believed that the story of Dracula was a fairytale (well he’s not wrong outside of his universe). for the most part he’s just some regular high school dude trapped in a castle until he isn’t but that’s a bit of spoiler territory so I won’t go into that whole plot twist here.

so yes you must once again traverse the Metroidvania and I have to say out of all the castles so far, this one was the least confusing to go through, and that’s good. on top of that it’s also the shortest one yet which surprised me as I was expecting another castle or just a longer one to get through, but hey that just means it doesn’t overstay its welcome. I think the reason why it’s not as long as the others is because they instead put their focus on the newly introduced Tactical Soul mechanic. Sometimes when you defeat an enemy, there’s a rare chance you can absorb the soul they have. there’s four types of Tactical Souls in the game: Bullet Souls which let you perform an enemy attack similar to how a sub-weapon would be used, Guardian Souls that let you use various abilities by pressing or holding the R button, Enchanted Souls that give you unique attributes or boost stats without draining your MP, and Ability Souls that give you active abilities to traverse areas of the castle. every regular enemy in the game has a soul you can absorb, that’s pretty impressive once you think about it. not only that, but you can also have one of each of the main types (red/blue/yellow) on at each time rather than being restricted to just one, so you can just mish-mash any combination you want and just go wild, which will net you a great amount of replayability.

that said, I do have one problem with them, and it’s that some of the souls in the game have ridiculously low drop rates, returning us back to Circle of the Moon enemy grinding. the one in particular that comes to mind is the Lightning Doll soul which I needed to stand a chance against Death. I could have sworn I took at least an hour leaving and coming back to the same room, defeating those dumb dolls, and not getting anything out of them. eventually I did get the soul and ended up becoming a bit overleveled for the Death fight and a brief portion of the game after that, but man did that take a while. eventually you get the option to buy the Soul Eater Ring from Hammer’s shop that increases the rate of soul drops, but good luck getting it without money strats since it costs a whopping 300,000G. so you either spend a bunch of time grinding money to purchase the ring, or spend a bunch of time defeating enemies over and over without it, there’s not really an easy way out. oh yeah equipable weapons are back, didn’t really have a good opportunity to bring it up back there. not much for me to really say except that the best weapon’s hiding around only halfway in the game inside a hidden wall, it’s literally just lying there, no grinding or purchasing acquired. to be honest I was hoping to see more futuristic weapons or even futuristic stuff in general in this since it takes place in 2035 but it’s not really a deal breaker, I’ll take my succubi disguising as shrine maidens as well as my handguns to shoot them with.

on a bit of a side note, there’s a bonus mode you can unlock after completing the game at least once that lets you play as Julius Belmont, a member of (surprisingly) the Belmont clan. Julius is BUSTED for real; immense attack power, high health bar, insane movement options, he’s supposed to be a Belmont but instead he ends up feeling like Goku. bro can really turn a 5-hour long game into a 5-minute long game, that’s how powerful this dude is, the only way you’re going to get a game over with this guy is if you’re intentionally going out of your way to do so. he can’t access the shop or use other weapons and healing items like Soma can but he really doesn’t need them, all he needs is his trusty Vampire Killer and a couple of sub-weapons. not too difficult honestly but you’re playing as a Chad Belmont, maybe the Chaddest of all the Belmonts so can you really complain?

for the graphics this comes to no surprise, they’re great. the Metroidvania Castlevanias are almost guaranteed to have smooth and detailed spritework, so you can expect to see more of that in this one. on the GBA brightness spectrum, I’d say it’s an in-between between the previous two games color palettes. it's not too dark, but it's not too bright….it's just right. I don’t really have much to say here, I think most of the color choices are fine. the only two I feel like could have been a bit better are some of the areas in the Underground Reservoir and the first phase of the final boss. a lot of the areas in the reservoir have this odd turquoise color scheme that makes the area look like some sort of ice cave, nothing too major but maybe a muter color palette could have helped. as for that first phase, your vision is kinda impaired during it since everything is just….gray, neat callback to Harmony of Dissonance with that one. while we’re on the topic of the final boss, can I say how crazy it is? it feels like there’s at least four different attacks going at the same time with that thing and it’s just nuts, not to mention all the tiny bullets flying everywhere that are not only a pain to avoid but can juggle you into other attacks meaning you have to heal yourself ahead of time. man what a nightmare, I was starting to get PTSD flashbacks to Scarlet Symphony during that mess.

on the bright side let’s move onto the music, and yes I’d say it’s pretty good. the composition sounds more similar to Circle of the Moon, and on top of that the music is a lot more catchy and action-packed. a bit ironic since the game’s opening starts off with a slow and calm mysterious theme with the Prologue, great track by the way one of my favorites. then the Castle Corridor theme plays and now it’s good old Castlevania time, with an epic GBA guitar to boot! the Chapel has more of a menacing and foreboding tension going on, while Study gives the vibe of something Bach or Beethoven would have composed. Dance Hall unironically sounds like clown music I cannot take it seriously. it’s not a bad track by any means it just sounds so unintentionally goofy that I was taken back when I first heard it during my playthrough. Clock Tower sounds relatively normal when it first starts but then out of nowhere it starts bringing the DOOM guitar out of nowhere and all of a sudden it’s now a rock song. this might seem a little odd, but Floating Garden, Underground Reservoir and Forbidden Area all kinda sound like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon tracks to me. am I the only one who thinks that or does anyone else think so too? Premonition is the perfect cutscene music for Castlevania, and Dracula’s Fate is also perfect for what occurs when it plays. Confrontation is a pretty alright boss theme, but Formidable Enemy is where it really goes hard, especially when it brings out the trumpet and the song starts going DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT. of course how could I forget Heart of Fire, the theme of Julius Belmont who we’ve already established is a Gigachad that for some reason has not gotten any women in the 55 years he’s been alive, life really done my bro Julius dirty. honestly the only thing truly holding this game’s soundtrack back is that it’s stuck on the GBA. the tracks already sound good on their own but if they had CD quality then they’d for sure be even more amazing.

I was debating on whether this game is either four stars or four and a half stars worthy. in the end I decided to go with the latter as this is a great beginner-friendly game if you want to get into the Metroidvania styled Castlevanias. I’d still say Symphony is a little better in that regard since there’s so many ways to make the game easier for you, but you can’t go wrong starting with this one instead. as for overall, this is definitely one of the best Castlevanias, only being beaten by Rondo and Symphony. Rondo is just a hella neat platformer, and Symphony’s soundtrack and sound effects are unparalleled, at least when it comes to Castlevania. Aria definitely has a better designed castle though so they’re pretty neck-to-neck really. so yes I was not disappointed, Aria of Sorrow was pretty epic and now I shall become one of many to shill this game to you. check it out, you'll have yourself a fun time.

Underground Cemetery is the best track btw


sinto q joguei em um momento q eu não tava muito afim, mas ainda assim gostei

The best GBA Castlevania, the customs options via the soul's system are really great. The music in the GBA chip is really awesome. I really love the boss fight, the gameplay, the music and the characters. Soma was a great change of pace to the Belmont and the modern setting was great.

bah amo castlevania e esse é o milior de todos

The game is actually easier in hard mode

had a friend who got stuck for hours on the manticore and quit the game forever. same person hard stuck bronze in League of Legends for years. hope he's still truckin' along

Soma can equip the power of gun.

enchanting aesthetic, well-orchestrated combat and mechanics, and a solid pace to it. i wasn’t a fan of the backtracking when needing to access the shop or the lost progress when dying — it often disrupted the overall rhythm of the game for me, especially towards the end — but the challenge was satisfying nonetheless. strategising for the latter stage bosses was particularly gratifying

CASTLEVANIA MARATHON- 14/22

The Castlevania team go from a shitty game with Circle to a pretty good game with Harmony to an excellent game with Aria. The team showcase a total mastery of the GBA, producing a worthy successor to Symphony of the Night.

Aria's plot is a huge shift from everything else in the series. Dracula, who has been the main villain of the entire series thus far, is killed for good around 35 years before the game takes place. You play as Soma Cruz, a Japanese high-schooler sucked into Dracula's castle, which was sealed inside a solar eclipse. Throughout the course of the game you meet other people similarly trapped in the castle as you race to find out just what happened to Dracula's soul and powers. Spoiler: Cruz is the reincarnation of Dracula and possesses immense dark magic, with another character trying to lay claim to your power. Along the way is a scraggy amnesiac by the name of J, later revealed to be Julius Belmont- the man who killed Dracula for good. The evolution of the story from "Go kill Dracula" to Aria's larger scope is a testament to the growing ambition of the team and deserves to be commended.

Aria has a system where you take the souls of enemies who you kill to utilise as either an active attack, passive effect or summon. The grinding isn't even remotely as bad as Circle's card system and ultimately leads to a huge variety in the ways you can approach a fight.

The bosses in Aria are great- a huge step up from the bad ones in Circle and the middling ones in Harmony. Combat in general has seen an improvement now that the Metroidvanias have moved away from strutting men with whips- aside from the souls there are a ton of weapons to use and Soma feels so fluid to control.

A small mercy the game grants is no second castle. Symphony's second castle was a great twist and gave the player a lot of time to play about with all of Alucard's abilities, but Harmony's two castles felt like diminishing returns. Aria keeps it to one big castle with an excellent interconnected design and plenty of fast-travel points.

There's so much to love about Aria- it's clear at this point that Igarashi and his team get what makes a good Metroidvania, and the following efforts made by him in the same vein are all pretty solid at worst and similarly excellent at best. If it weren't for Rondo being so damn good I would have no problem calling this the second best game in the series- bronze is still a medal, I guess.

Finally, Julius Belmont is the coolest motherfucker ever. Julius Mode is just you shitstomping bosses until you feel powerful enough to go shitstomp the final boss, and fighting him as Soma is the best boss fight in the series. Watching as Julius' Grand Cross attack that opens the second phase of his fight rips apart the castle visible in the background is my single favourite moment in the entire series. It's so fucking cool, especially when paired with a badass cover of some classic music.

Next- Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
Previous- Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

Probably the coolest story of any Castlevania game, if you like Symphony of the Night I can't recommend this one enough

CASTELO DO DRACULA NO JAPÃO DENTRO DE UM ECLIPSE??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Ok jogo eu entendi, pra eu acessar essa área secreta que tem a arma boa pra matar o chefe eu preciso estar com a alma da sucubo enquanto seguro o anel do diabo enquanto to na clock tower ouvindo exaltasamba as 20:45 da noite numa quinta-feira em lua semi cheia enquanto faz malabarismo de testiculo de boi enquanto chupa 3 picas ao mesmo tempo.

89/100

It's real fun but really just feels like a Symphony of the Night remix. That's cool! But didn't keep me compelled for more than a few hours.

A fantastic video game that is sure to please fans of the franchise and newcomers alike.

The game’s challenging gameplay, intricate level design, and unique soul system make it a must-play for anyone who enjoys 2D action-adventure games. IT STILL HOLDS UP TO THIS DAY!

The game’s graphics and sound design are top-notch, and the game’s storyline is both intriguing and well-written. If you’re looking for an enjoyable, challenging, and memorable gaming experience, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is definitely worth checking out.


Obviamente, joguei esse jogo graças aos emuladores. E foi uma das melhores experiências de imersão que tive nos últimos anos. Engraçado falar isso de um jogo de GBA, mas é verdade, ele me cativou, me viciou e tirando SF4 esse é provavelmente o jogo que mais curti cada segundo da gameplay.

Aria of Sorrow is the last of the Advance titles, and it is great. They figured out at this point how to utilise the Game Boy Advance properly and make the game both look and sound great. Everything about the game feels very reminiscent of Symphony of the Night and I really enjoyed it. This game takes place in the then-distant future of 2035. At this point the year the game takes place is closer than the year the game released, which I find slightly amusing. Again, you do not play as a Belmont in this one. The music is, again, composed by Michiru Yamane and has an almost Super Nintendo RPG-style sound. Definitely the best of the Advance titles.