Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow Review (DS)

Soul Searching... Literally!

It's almost Halloween, what better games to review but those that are fitting to the creepy, horror, scary and fun theme of Halloween. Today I'm gonna review Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, the first of the three Castlevania titles for the Nintendo DS.

STORY

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DoS) is the sequel of Aria of Sorrow (AoS) for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance. DoS takes place one year after the events of AoS. Soma Cruz, the main protagonist of the two games who is a reincarnation of Dracula, is now living peacefully as a normal person. One day, Soma along with Mina, was attacked by a cult led by Celia Fortner which provokes Soma to go to their base even though his friends insisted that he shouldn't because it's a trap.

The story is quite good, the cult have a dastardly plot with some twists.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is on the bottom touchscreen. The top screen shows your character stats and enemy info. Press [Select] to change the display of the top screen to view the map.

DoS follows the same formula of SotN where you explore a very huge cult castle to find weapons, items and artifacts that lets you access previously inaccessible areas or the castle.

The game uses the Tactical Soul System, introduced in AoS. Soma can collect the souls of the monsters he defeated. There are three types of souls: Bullet, Guardian and Enchant souls. Those souls can be used as active and passive abilities. Some souls can make Soma fire projectiles, summon familiars, do double jumps and other tricks to traverse the castle. You can also use specific souls to perform a soul combo for example, use Bat Company soul and Flame Demon soul and see what happens.

As you collect some souls of the same type, the ability gets stronger. Using Bullet and Guardian souls requires MP, Soma slowly regains MP over time, you can collect hears or use items to recover your MP.

Soma can use lots of weapons and equipment from swords, guns (yes there's a gun and even an RPG), armor and accessories. DoS have a weapon synthesize/upgrade system where you fuse souls to a weapon you currently have, transforming it into a powerful weapon.

There are new types of monsters in the game, but I think 70% of them are recycled from Rondo of Blood and SotN. Some monsters have new sprite design and behaves differently, I can consider that new.

The bosses of this game are challenging, but once you figure out their attack pattern and behavior, they're pretty easy to beat. After dealing a killing blow to the bosses, you'll need to perform a Magic Seal technique to totally defeat them. You'll find different types of Magic Seals in the castle, as you encounter tougher bosses you'll need to perform a harder sealing technique. To perform the magic sealing, you must use the DS's touchscreen to trace the pattern of the Magic Seal correctly (connect the dots method) with enough speed. Do it slow or not failing to trace the pattern will grant the boss a few HP and you need to hit the boss a few times to make the sigil appear again. I suggest that you practice performing your sealing technique (tracing) by using the seal item on the Items menu.

You can also use the touchscreen to control some your familiars.

GRAPHICS

The graphics is similar to SotN so it also have the fluid sprite animations for the main character. I said earlier that some monsters are new and some are recycled. The game runs smoothly with few slowdowns when it gets very effects heavy.

DoS doesn't have the character artwork of Ayami Kojima. This game have anime character designs, even the opening intro looks like an anime intro.

The environment is detailed and some areas features cool 3D backgrounds. DoS have very gloomy color pattern. What I mean is almost every part of the castle looks pale in my opinion, even the garden area.

MUSIC/AUDIO

The soundtrack of this game is composed by Michiru Yamane. As always, her soundtrack for this game is amazing.

The sound effects sounded really good, some sound effects are off but it gives this game some creepy charm.

The character have voices but their dialogues are not voiced. You can tell the characters' voices is Japanese, not English.

REPLAY VALUE

The game have multiple endings. Completing the game by getting any of the endings will unlock Julius Mode. Julius Mode lets you play as Julius Belmont. Along the way you'll meet up with Yoko Belnades and Genya Arikado who'll use his vampire powers again as Alucard. You can freely switch between the three characters in this game, similar to Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse but more fast paced thanks to DS's superior power over the NES.

Completing the game also unlocks Hard Mode. There are other modes as well like Boss Rush mode and Sound Mode if you want to just sit and listen to the game's soundtracks.

CLOSING REMARKS

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is a great entry to Castlevania long history of games and using that still awesome Metroidvania style of exploration makes the game non-linear and will make you search every corner of the castle for items and stuff. The bonus modes will surely add more play time. The story is good and this is a fun game that's easy to get back into. This is a type of game that you can play many times until the game drains your fun then wait for few weeks, months or years to play and enjoy it again.