Soma Cruz, Soma Cruz, que um dia...

I'm evidently hellbent on burning any good will I've built on this site, so now's as good a time as any to talk about Aria of Sorrow, a game I don't like very much... Sorry!

I've actually been dreading reviewing this, because I think my issues with Aria are too nebulous to really put into words. You ever sit down with a game, open a book, or watch a movie that you know you don't like but you cannot define what it is in any certain terms that puts you off of it? That's Aria for me. I can say things like "well the castle design isn't great, I don't like how it's laid out," or "I think the Tactical Soul system is too grindy and I'd prefer normal subweapons," but like... ok, why?

I've talked before about how I think Aria is the worst of the GBA trilogy, I've given it a mediocre score, but I'm not sure I can provide a deep dive into how exactly this game lost me. I just see it and I think "nope, I don't want any more of that thank you." Or more accurately I think "why can't I like you?" Perhaps this is just a consequence of trying to review games I played two years ago, sometimes my memories of them get a bit scattered but my feelings remain mostly unchanged. I like to think that when I give a review that runs contrary to popular opinion I at least back them up well enough with specific points that explain why I feel differently, but there's some weird crap going on with May through June 2020 where some games fell flat and I can't explain why. Maybe I was just forcing myself to play stuff, maybe these games were never going to get a fair shake.

Anyway, I do know that I just don't find Aria's castle layout to be fun to navigate. The Tactical Soul system did feel too grindy to me, but I also liked collecting cards in Circle of the Moon so... go figure. There's a larger emphasis on story and character growth in Aria and I just think most of it isn't good, I don't find any of the characters particularly likeable and I never found myself able to get invested in the narrative. Once again I am going to complain as well about the god awful sounds the Game Boy Advance makes whenever you try to enjoy a game, and the graphics in Aria are even more washed out and garish than Harmony. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make a stronger case for not enjoying these elements other than to tell you I didn't enjoy them.

I got a Retropie a few years ago and decided to throw together a list of 250 retro games I wanted to play, mostly ones that passed me by or that I played before and never finished. I've been retroactively reviewing each game in order of completion, and you can track those reviews here if you'd like. In the case of the GBA Castlevanias, this was my first time playing each of them. While I think that, for the most part, these are decent Castlevanias to have on the go, they also represent a part of the franchise that I simply don't have a strong affinity for. I probably won't play any of them again, I just don't feel strongly enough to put them in the same annual rotation as Super Castlevania IV, Rondo of Blood, or Symphony of the Night.