This is something like tenth or eleventh playthrough of this game, maybe more, and I still completely adore it. Poking my head in on the other games in the recently released Castlevania Advance Collection I played this on (really great thing, btw. you can switch region versions if you want to play Dracula X with terrible slowdown!! that unironically rules!!) demonstrates that IGA's team were struggling to make this form fully click but here they nail it harder than anyone has ever done since.
Aria is the best example I can think of for how crucial the macro level design is in a Metroidvania. When Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night came out a couple of years ago, it was most directly following on from this game and its immediate sequel in gameplay design, and in that sense made a number of cool improvements and tweaks to the soul system, but failed to electrify in the same way because the design of the castle just wasn't there. Too big, too many long, winding, flat corridors that you run through achingly slowly. Here, the castle feels massive but clever placement of shortcuts, multiple paths, and teleporters makes it easy to navigate without ever robbing it of that size, thanks primarily to teleporters that are convenient but not too convenient.
Every time you get a new pickup that expands your scope of navigation in the castle, there's something right nearby to let you test it out, which in turn fires your neurons and gets you to remember all the things you passed by earlier that you can get to now. Far too many times in games like this, I get a new item or power and just think to myself "ok...how does this help me progress?" Aria never gives you a pickup without understanding how good and cool the thing you just got was.
There are great little touches like that all over the game. The way there's just a little friction involved in going to the shop, allowing you to interact with the first enemies again and be reminded of just how far you've come, the way it will let you get a glimpse of certain areas that you won't come back to for hours so that they remain in your mind, Aria makes exploration and discovery a constant delight, and remains, for me, unquestionably the level design high point of the Igavanias.
It's probably the narrative high point too, except maybe Ecclesia, which isn't saying much but it's still an effective story! The dialogue is silly and it's pretty slim but the twist at the end was both a genuine surprise at the time (though unlocking that twist being very cryptic is maybe my one real complaint about the game) and resonates very well with the gameplay arc of the game being about the mastery of this space and the demons inside it. And the final boss is the castle itself??? I love it when a dumb game literalizes it's themes into a big thing for you to beat up right at the end and Aria is one of the best examples of that, it rules.
Also, sue me, I'm just a sucker for stories about people asserting their selves over outside forces that wish to make them someone else! And i'm sure taking Castlevania into the future was a decision that was mocked at the time, but it means that Soma can find a fucking GUN and it RULES.
This is a pretty rambly review, but I just love this game so much it's hard to talk about it without just listing all the things about it that rule. I love Soma's sprites, I love that Claimh Solais makes the game cake once you find it but the second-last boss is super resistant to it, making it still a super tense fight, I love all the goofy and evocative enemy designs, I love the soundtrack straining against the limits of the game boy advance, I love it all.
Sometimes a game presses all your buttons just right, and Aria of Sorrow is that for me.
Soma Cruz is my boyfriend.
Aria is the best example I can think of for how crucial the macro level design is in a Metroidvania. When Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night came out a couple of years ago, it was most directly following on from this game and its immediate sequel in gameplay design, and in that sense made a number of cool improvements and tweaks to the soul system, but failed to electrify in the same way because the design of the castle just wasn't there. Too big, too many long, winding, flat corridors that you run through achingly slowly. Here, the castle feels massive but clever placement of shortcuts, multiple paths, and teleporters makes it easy to navigate without ever robbing it of that size, thanks primarily to teleporters that are convenient but not too convenient.
Every time you get a new pickup that expands your scope of navigation in the castle, there's something right nearby to let you test it out, which in turn fires your neurons and gets you to remember all the things you passed by earlier that you can get to now. Far too many times in games like this, I get a new item or power and just think to myself "ok...how does this help me progress?" Aria never gives you a pickup without understanding how good and cool the thing you just got was.
There are great little touches like that all over the game. The way there's just a little friction involved in going to the shop, allowing you to interact with the first enemies again and be reminded of just how far you've come, the way it will let you get a glimpse of certain areas that you won't come back to for hours so that they remain in your mind, Aria makes exploration and discovery a constant delight, and remains, for me, unquestionably the level design high point of the Igavanias.
It's probably the narrative high point too, except maybe Ecclesia, which isn't saying much but it's still an effective story! The dialogue is silly and it's pretty slim but the twist at the end was both a genuine surprise at the time (though unlocking that twist being very cryptic is maybe my one real complaint about the game) and resonates very well with the gameplay arc of the game being about the mastery of this space and the demons inside it. And the final boss is the castle itself??? I love it when a dumb game literalizes it's themes into a big thing for you to beat up right at the end and Aria is one of the best examples of that, it rules.
Also, sue me, I'm just a sucker for stories about people asserting their selves over outside forces that wish to make them someone else! And i'm sure taking Castlevania into the future was a decision that was mocked at the time, but it means that Soma can find a fucking GUN and it RULES.
This is a pretty rambly review, but I just love this game so much it's hard to talk about it without just listing all the things about it that rule. I love Soma's sprites, I love that Claimh Solais makes the game cake once you find it but the second-last boss is super resistant to it, making it still a super tense fight, I love all the goofy and evocative enemy designs, I love the soundtrack straining against the limits of the game boy advance, I love it all.
Sometimes a game presses all your buttons just right, and Aria of Sorrow is that for me.
Soma Cruz is my boyfriend.
Dittoid
2 years ago