GENRE(S): Action / Adventure / Platform
RELEASED: August 25, 2005
AVAILABLE ON: DS
DEVELOPER(S): Konami
PUBLISHER(S): Konami
The last system on the list is none other than the best-selling handheld game console of all time - and one I've often criticized - the Nintendo DS, which was launched as a successor to the Game Boy Advance in November 2004. What I never liked about this thing was the touchscreen technology. I cursed at game developers for making so many good new games and remakes exclusively for the DS - I just couldn't imagine myself playing on a DS, let alone buying the thing. I thought having two screens, complete with the stylus, was distracting and too technical, and playing anything would feel as awesome like poking a Game & Watch with a toothpick. Well, as it happens, I became more receptive towards touchscreen technology late last year, upon getting myself a smartphone. I'm not kidding, that's exactly when I really started digging through the DS libraries (and probably stopped telling well-placed DS jokes) and eventually found some potentially fantastic games that could no longer be avoided - I think the DS will be a strong addition here. To prove it, I first dug up Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, the critically acclaimed sequel to the equally acclaimed Game Boy Advance title Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, which I have often named one of my favourite Castlevania games, perhaps second only to Super Castlevania IV. It pretty much sports the same short flaws as its predecessor, complete with a few more relating to the use of the stylus, but it also retains everything that was great about Aria of Sorrow. Though it doesn't really present itself as a credible next-gen game compared to its predecessor, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is another very good game.
Return of the not-so-Dark Lord
It's the year 2036. A year has passed since student Soma Cruz escaped Dracula's castle with the knowledge that he is the reincarnation of the prince of darkness, and is living peacefully, believing that his dark powers have been lost and he is no longer threatened to be taken over by them. A Dracula-worshipping cult led by a woman named Celia Fortner is not so content with Soma's decision to live out his days in peace and seeks him out to assassinate him, so his powers would be granted to another host. Agent Arikado advises Soma to not pursue Celia, due to the risk of his dark powers emerging. Stubborn as he is, Soma travels to the cult's base, which is non-surprisingly built to resemble Dracula's castle, and comes face to face with Celia, as well as a couple of hopeful candidates to inherit the dark lord's mantle.
 |
The "evil mastermind" from Frankenstein: The
Monster Returns... well, returns. |
OK, first of all "Soma" means "cute" in Finnish, which is probably a coincidence, but a fitting one. The character bios describe several men as "strikingly beautiful". How is that even relevant?! This game is even more Japanese than the last one - everyone's beautiful, especially men. I'm sorry for such an irrelevant start, but I grew up with a localized Castlevania. I just can't get used to the anime style... but I guess games like
Aria and
Dawn are not from the most horrendous end, what I have hated most is when they've re-stylized the old games, like when they remade the first game as
Castlevania Chronicles years back, before these games' time. To this day, I haven't been able to bring myself to play that game. Just looking at it, what they did to Simon, and listening to the remixed music tracks on 'Tube, are quite enough to nauseate me. However, the Japanese style of storytelling - optimistically called "endless imagination", realistically "anything as long as we can somehow make a game out of it" - does a further number on these couple of games. I hated the plot in
Aria of Sorrow, I sincerely loathed it. Especially since it was force fed, as if it truly mattered; I seriously found myself missing the first
Castlevania game's pure and simple setting of "Here's Dracula's castle. You're a vampire killer. Enter. Kick ass. Leave." whenever the never-ending stupid dialogue set in and kept scrolling and scrolling no matter how fast I kept tapping that OK button. The very same thing happened to me with
Dawn of Sorrow, countless times - especially in the beginning when just about one of the lead characters knows what's truly going on. The others keep reflecting on the very same fuckin' mysteries over and over again, as if to recap the stupid story every two minutes, AND make the solutions to those mysteries extremely clear to the player as early on as possible, so the characters can go on making fools of themselves for the next five in-game hours, totally oblivious to the obvious and unfamiliar with the big book of cliches.
Now that we got THAT out of the way, let us reminisce on how great
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow was from every other angle. Seriously no less than the second-best game in the franchise, if you ask me, and the best "Metroidvania" game of 'em all. Everything that was great about
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (the first, classic Metroidvania), and that game's Game Boy Advance successors
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (non-canon) and
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, was carefully noted when they made this game called
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. I don't remember what originally drove me to that game, in fact I can't even imagine what it was, 'cause I wasn't much of a
Castlevania fan back then - I'd had more bad experiences with the series than good ones. I had always loved the music in the early games, but that was pretty much the limit of my love towards
Castlevania. I hated the games that were coming out on major platforms back then, since they were such blatant copies of
Devil May Cry, and they didn't have even the slightest magic left. In other words, the music sucked. Whatever it was that prompted me to try this game,
Aria of Sorrow blew my mind in five minutes. I might as well give credit to that game for making me a
Castlevania fan, finally. The stupid plot didn't really matter, 'cause whenever the dialogue (finally) ended, the next tens of minutes were about bashing monsters, stealing their powers and using them against other monsters and/or to get ahead in the Metroidvania style, all to some great music and level design straight out of
Symphony of the Night. I'm glad to state that everything I said just now, could just as easily be said about
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. Glad, still a bit disappointed of course since all that I just said was not all good. And,
Dawn of Sorrow does bring a few more sorrows to sulk upon.
The graphics and sound are where
Dawn of Sorrow hits the first snag. This has nothing to do with how even more Japanese it looks like than the previous game... although it does, and it's distracting 'cause it's based on the original continuity of the series, and I once again grew up with caucasian
Castlevania, in illustrations of which at least the American and European characters didn't look Japanese. Whew - I think that's it. The problem with the graphics is that I constantly find myself searching for any visual reasons this game could not have been accomplished on the Game Boy Advance. I mean, there's a certain gameplay element that requires a DS base, but in the beginning, there's really no concrete visual proof that you're playing a next-gen sequel to
Aria of Sorrow. Well, then come the huge bosses with their flowing movement, but let's say that about 70% of the game looks like a bit more detailed
Aria of Sorrow. The level design is very good, and for the first time, I can comment on how they managed two screens. The upper display either shows Soma's stats developing in real time, or you can set it to show the map in real time with just one press of a button - which I always do, this is seriously my favourite development in this game since I've always hated menu toggling, particularly in Metroidvania games. It's a bit distracting and making out doors from that small display is extremely hard on the eyes, but it's a fantastic development that allows smooth progression through another copy of Dracula's castle (how every bad guy besides Dracula has the ambition and resources to quickly build one for each game is beyond me).
 |
That fist's coming down, and it's coming down
good. |
Sound's been very important to the
Castlevania series since the dawn of time, and once long-time producer Koji Igarashi has even admitted to have missed that part a few times during his tenure with the series, especially when it comes to
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance on the Game Boy Advance and
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence on the PlayStation 2. Even if a
Castlevania game wasn't that good - which
Harmony of Dissonance was, though - the music can save a lot. Look at
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest back in the day. I kept pushing forward with my feet stuck in a pile of crap 'cause it had such kick-ass tunes to defend its honour.
Dawn of Sorrow features some beautiful music by Masahiko Kimura and Michiru Yamane - somehow I can make out the difference between the compositions, my dislike for Yamane's signature once again rears head - but it lacks power and originality. When the best tunes hit and loop for just a couple of minutes, you might find yourself whistling along, and switching the tune at some point without realizing it, to some earlier
Castlevania tune. The best tunes here were basically invented ages ago. And they still wouldn't bluntly remake some true classics - I think I would've appreciated that more.
In case you missed
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, my first advice is to correct that outright mistake - but, if you insist on continuing to miss it, here are the deets. You play as Soma Cruz, a teenage student who runs around killing monsters just like the Belmont and Belnades families, Nathan Graves and Alucard before him, but unlike his fellow
Castlevania protagonists, he has the power of consuming the monsters' souls, which allows him to copy their abilities for combat or navigation. For example, killing a set amount of skeletons allows him to throw bones, and killing a flying boss might grant him the ability to glide - or as the game puts it, slow down his fall by having the spirit of the boss "carry" him. This feature was one of the main draws of
Aria of Sorrow, the one that set it apart from each
Castlevania game that preceded it, and it's gloriously duplicated here, even though some of the abilities are just as completely useless and even ridiculous as the enemies you stole them from. However, in
Dawn of Sorrow, you can trade any excess abilities for weapon upgrades. Some abilities which have no use to you per se, can turn out really powerful in the weapon upgrade department; this is one of the best new things about this sequel.
You can assign four different abilities at the same time thanks to the increased amount of buttons (and a little later, you can assign two different ability sets to be switched at the press of a button); Bullet, Guardian, Enchant and Ability, one for each category. "Bullet" essentially means "secondary weapon", powerful projectiles to compensate for the short range of Soma's light weaponry and the low speed of his heavy one. The passive, supportive "Guardian" abilities usually accommodate Bullets or work as tools for navigation - Flying Armor with the glide ability is one of these. "Enchant" usually offers you a real-time perk, such as an increase in basic strength. "Ability" - you gain these as you progress in the story; just like in
Aria, these sooner or later allow you to swim, do a double jump and even manipulate the environment with the DS stylus. Yeah, they had to throw that in somewhere... besides its main purpose.
The stylus and touchscreen are most used to (re)create Magic Seals, and if may be frank, if this feature's the reason why this game was made for the DS instead of the Advance, my respect for the developers just got a little spike. You absolutely need Magic Seals for most bosses. You can bash them to your heart's content, but they just won't die, not until you've used a Magic Seal at a scripted moment to "seal and capture" their powers - probably, since I really didn't pay attention to the dialogue. A Magic Seal is any type of simple figure composed of straight lines, such as a pentagram, to come up with an advanced example. When you gain one, you need to pay attention to the direction and order of the lines as they are drawn on the screen. When you open a door to a boss room, it's shown again, but when you have the window to use it on a boss, you need to have it memorized and be extremely quick to draw it on the touchscreen. I would've said "with the stylus", but that's almost impossible, the time window's so small that you need to try your luck with your finger, which the touchscreen is really stingy to register. Fingernails work fine, but 1. I have really short ones, and 2. I really can't recommend prolonged use of fingernails on the screen. Yeah, these Seals are a nice enough idea to support the DS' cause, but once again, was it necessary to make this game for the DS if there's really nothing fundamental to break into the new generation with? Oh wait, there's the map on the second screen - now that WAS a good idea.
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That's what going to church every Sunday
will eventually do to you. |
I was just about to return to the smooth flow of the game when I realized I haven't mentioned Hammer yet, then I realized that these things really go hand in hand. In the previous games, shopping was always a little sloppy. Either you had to backtrack your way to the one shop in the game (and back again) even if you were in the whole other end of the castle, or seek out one of the few warp rooms in the game and still be forced to backtrack some to get to a shop to stock up on some very basic wares like Potions; won't survive without 'em. Well, in
Dawn of Sorrow shopping (among other things) is made much comfier. There are many warp rooms scattered around the church grounds, clearly marked on the map, and you can use any of these rooms to return to the Lost Village (the "front yard") at any time; the Hammer shop is located at just a few steps from the warp room there. The bad news is that you'll have to endure Hammer's endless bad dialogue every time you've done something to really make progress in the story, and it's usually related to his severe crush on Yoko who keeps her upgrade shop across the yard, but the good news is that he usually has new stuff in stock every time, which makes the trip back even less tedious.
As always, conquering the whole map is a huge journey to undertake, and it comes with the usual ups and downs. The ups are obvious - it's Metroidvania, as it's taken form since
Symphony of the Night. You don't need to make huge overhauls to make that work every single time. In fact, just designing a new set of levels and simply working on some bigger problems of the past is sometimes enough. The downside that still bothers me after all this time is how the game registers a small corner of the room fully explored once you take one step within its invisible borders; there might be a powerful item you aren't able to collect without some further upgrade, and when you finally gain that upgrade, you won't necessarily remember to travel back to get the item since the corner's marked explored on the map. Even back in 1994,
Super Metroid mostly fixed this problem by having HUGE rooms - you couldn't even reach the borders of those small corners without a serious jump/speed upgrade.
Just like its RPG-like predecessors,
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is pretty much as challenging as you want it to be. You have so many choices. With the aid of the real time stats, you can easily spot rooms that are good grinding grounds, and keep running back and forth between them to get to high levels quickly. You can easily stock up at Hammer's nearly any time you wish. Or, you can do it all the hard way and just keep pushing forward, looking back as rarely as it's possible with your current set of upgrades, and make do with the items and equipment found on the field. It's
Castlevania, so I usually play it safe; since the first games, I've found myself dealing with bosses as recklessly as the game allows me to. These Metroidvania games have health items to allow me to often wipe my ass with strategy. You can be strategic if you want, but in the case of this particular game, I find it kinda pointless since you aren't able to really kill the bosses dead without those damn Magic Seals.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is a very good game, and a good sequel to its frankly groundbreaking predecessor, but it's even less of a superficially satisfying
Castlevania experience, and secondly it isn't a very justified DS game. I think they could've just as easily removed those touchscreen features and toned down the bosses by just a little bit, and they would've ended up with another awesome Game Boy Advance game; of course, then they would've been accused of self-repetition and/or being stuck in the past. What can I say, being a developer is never easy or a straightforward deal.
UPS
+ It's classic Metroidvania, and retains most of the elements that made Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow the best game of its kind - the most notable of which is feasting on those souls
+ Comfortable, smooth navigation thanks to the option to use the whole map in real time, and the decreased need for backtracking
+ You can acquire powerful weapon upgrades with excess abilities, neat!
DOWNS
- The story's taken a turn for the slightly better, but the cast of characters is still a waste
- The music's a bit disappointing; this IS Castlevania, am I right?
- The stylus features feel planted in, and altogether the game doesn't really feel like it's that much advanced from its predecessor, technically or practically
< 8.4 >
