I always edged towards the Metroid side of the Metroidvania titles. When I tried visiting Symphony of the Night, it never really did much for me. When testing out my Wii U emulation, I figured I could give Aria of Sorrow a try, just for fun. Then I got sucked into the eclipse and struggled to find my way out.

Not sure what it was about Aria that did it for me relative to SotN. I know a lot of people cite the story, but really that was not an important factor for me. The core gameplay loop, tied to the constant sense of progression, really sold me on wanting to power my way through in one sitting. Being on the WiiU emulator, I did use save states as a quality of live improvement! It may have been that cutting down on the grinding and repetition really is what sold the game for me. Maybe I'm becoming a casual gamer.

Godly game, the only Castlevania better is Symphony, but this was basically the GBA equivalent of Symphony. Soma is an amazing character, the story is good with some unexpected twists, the level design is just beyond words, the variety of weapons and powers is insane and the OST is just as amazing as you'd expect. Seriously what more else is there to say aside from play this game if you still haven't done so in the current year of 2021 because you're missing out on one of the greatest metroidvanias ever made and just one of the greatest video games ever made.