"Its the best portable Castlevania can get!"

Remember the classic Castlevania: Circle of the Moon on GBA? Then Harmony of Dissonance came, and then Aria of Sorrow. Aria of Sorrow was most probably the best, but Harmony of Dissonance was quite good. Either way, Konami made a sequel for Aria, and proved to improve in many ways upon it. Dawn of Sorrow sees you playing as Soma Cruz, again, on an adventure through guess what? A castle! And also fighting many other enemies. Being on the DS, there are the obvious improvements, but the core gameplay stayed the same. So why is it still good?

Normal Castlevania games see you as a Belmont, fighting with a whip weapon, usually having a small sub weapon. Aria changed this, by making it full RPG style. Whilst Dissonance had an RPG system too, Aria of Sorrow perfected it. You could now equip many weapons and souls. This returns for Dawn of Sorrow, but its even better. You will gain a certain amount of EXP for defeating an enemy. Collect enough and you level up, making you stronger, blah blah blah. You can then equip many weapons and such, to make you stronger or different advantages. You can get a normal sword and a giant sword, but that doesn't mean they both attack the same. The weapons are different, so what ever your comfortable with is best for you. Giant swords are slower then fast swords, but are stronger and stuff. You can get guns too, and some axes and stuff. The usual weapons really. Also, you can equip armour, to protect yourself. What else would it do? And then you can equip other items, to help you. You can also collect money, and buy some items for a friends shop near the castle entrance. Although this may seem weird for a Castlevania game, it was the same in Aria, so nothing new here. You can also equip around 3 souls. You gain souls by killing certain enemies, and you get a different chance of getting it. So for example, one enemy you might have 60% chance of getting its soul for killing it, whilst other monsters its different. They are usually attacks, but some prove to be VERY useful. And then killing certain bosses will give you a new special soul, or in this case, an ability. Its good fun to try and get all the souls or level up to max. It takes ages too! Great fun in the RPG part, and well done. You could even call this game an action RPG!

So the core gameplay? Its still the same as usual. You have a giant castle to explore. The game gives a little hint as to where to go at the start, then it literally tells you to get lost. The game won't help you, you have to search, and search. Some areas you will find you can't get past, so its YOUR job to memorize the ability you need (you may have to guess though) and where it is, then return later on when you have the ability, so you can advance. Mainly your just finding certain doors, which are the boss doors. There are many parts to the castle, and each part usually has at least one boss in, so your mainly defeating a boss, and looking for the next one. The areas are varied, and all different, with unique monsters and environments to that area. Some areas have a earth feel to them, whilst some may be filled with water or something. There are also secret areas littered around the castle, some really hard to find, some its just a matter of having the right ability. It takes a very, VERY long time to explore 100% areas of the castle, and its good to explore it anyways. The castle is also littered with enemies like you expect, and they obviously respawn. So far, its classic Castlevania.

So what about the DS stuff? How does it put the DS to the max? It doesn't to be honest. The microphone ISN'T used so forget about that. So the touch screen. This is where all the action goes on, your character, health, enemies and stuff like that. When your fighting a boss, to finish it off, you must draw a seal on the touch screen. These are just lines, and it doesn't have to be perfect. Once its drawn fast enough, the boss dies, job done. Thats the touch screen done. Dual screen? Well, the top screen has a map, which is useful. You can change it to your characters stats too I think. Thats about it really. Its a shame too, imagine all the other crazy stuff that could of been put into this game. Oh well, good enough for me.

The graphics. Expect a very similar style to Dawn of Sorrow. The character sprites are 2D, and so are the levels. Don't worry though, its quality 2D so don't worry about that. Good animation, nice sized sprites, good detail, weapons look good, nice special effects. The backgrounds are 3D though, they look pretty cool, and I really like them. Fits well with the rest of the game. The music is good. I quite like it actually, it suits the game well, and its pretty cool. The sound effects are all good too. So yeah, great graphics, good music. There isn't anything wrong here.

PROS:

Fun gameplay.
The castle is massive.
RPG system is good.

CONS:

The story line isn't exactly the best.
The game may be addictive, but you will complete it fast.

THE RATINGS:
Graphics: 8.7/10
Audio: 8.5/10
Story: 7.5/10
Game play: 9.0
Life Span: 8.0/10
Difficulty: 8.5/10
Multiplayer: N/A
Overall: 9.0/10

My Two Pence

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow is a great start for the DS series of Castlevania games. With Portrait of Ruin in the works, there are bound to be more games on the DS. Hopefully they will improve as each one gets made too. I would class this as an RPG, so its one of the very few for the DS, so if you really like RPG games, get it. Whilst its not classic RPG, its action RPG which is good enough. So yeah, get it, we still have a while to wait for Final Fantasy III don't we?

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/08/06