Dawn of Sorrow is built on the same skeleton as Aria of Sorrow, utilizing the monster soul system on top of the standard igavania formula, and for the most part it’s a worthy inheritor of that bone structure. It mostly plays things safe but with some tweaks here and there for better and worse.
For the better, the weapon upgrade system is great and feels like a natural extension of the soul system, and is yet another thing that makes every play through feel unique if you just let the chips lay where they fall instead of grinding. I also adore the use of DS style 3D in the background of various screens, the town area you keep returning to with the clock tower in the background looms large in my mind as I think of my time with the game. I also adore the puppet master ability that allows you to swap positions with a dummy, that leads to some really interesting progression blockers.
On the negative side I think there are two big things that stick out to people - the touch screen gimmicks and generic anime portraits. These are both things that annoyed me, particularly the touch screen gimmicks like the symbol drawing you have to do to defeat every boss in the game. That being said, I don’t think either of them interrupt the core loop I’m there for so much so that it ruins the game for me. I know there’s a fan patch that remedies some of this that I may try out at some point as well. I think for me the biggest issue was just that the level design wasn’t all that great. There are some areas I’d absolutely dread returning to because they’re so tedious to navigate, and the warp rooms always seemed to be placed in such a way where I wasn’t able to avoid the worst bits. I think just playing through the game normally this wouldn’t have bothered me as much, but going for 100% and grinding for some particular souls really made the navigation grate on me by the end.
All in all though, it’s an igavania that really works on a systems level, just adding a little bit more on top of the sublime system of its predecessor, and that’s all I really need in one of these.
For the better, the weapon upgrade system is great and feels like a natural extension of the soul system, and is yet another thing that makes every play through feel unique if you just let the chips lay where they fall instead of grinding. I also adore the use of DS style 3D in the background of various screens, the town area you keep returning to with the clock tower in the background looms large in my mind as I think of my time with the game. I also adore the puppet master ability that allows you to swap positions with a dummy, that leads to some really interesting progression blockers.
On the negative side I think there are two big things that stick out to people - the touch screen gimmicks and generic anime portraits. These are both things that annoyed me, particularly the touch screen gimmicks like the symbol drawing you have to do to defeat every boss in the game. That being said, I don’t think either of them interrupt the core loop I’m there for so much so that it ruins the game for me. I know there’s a fan patch that remedies some of this that I may try out at some point as well. I think for me the biggest issue was just that the level design wasn’t all that great. There are some areas I’d absolutely dread returning to because they’re so tedious to navigate, and the warp rooms always seemed to be placed in such a way where I wasn’t able to avoid the worst bits. I think just playing through the game normally this wouldn’t have bothered me as much, but going for 100% and grinding for some particular souls really made the navigation grate on me by the end.
All in all though, it’s an igavania that really works on a systems level, just adding a little bit more on top of the sublime system of its predecessor, and that’s all I really need in one of these.