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
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
2 Comments
I guess it could just be bad luck on my end, I usually get screwed over when it comes to drop rates in any game, as for the soul, I was attempting to defeat Darth early and he was kicking my ass before I got that soul, that and the Medusa soul to help avoid some of his attacks easier, really I wanted to defeat Death as early as possible because I could
also true
also true
eliasco
11 months ago
Also those 3 tracks really do sound like they're from PMD you're right wtf.