Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (Nintendo DS, 2005)

Anyone who has played a recent Castlevania game has experienced the consisted excellence that is the Castlevania series. The games are huge in scale, spanning castles of hundreds of non-linear rooms, enemies, and items, and employing a unique RPG-element Platforming system. They provide a high degree of challenge without being so difficult as to cause you to rip out your hair. Dawn of Sorrow is no exception. It offers up some unique mechanics and twists on the genre. However, some of these cause frustration or otherwise detract from the game.

The Soul System - The Main Character, Soma, has the ability to take the souls of enemies he defeats and use them as weapons. Unlike other CV games, where you have a 6-8 slots for weapons, armor, and accessories, you have only 3 equipment slots. Instead, you have three slots for Souls. One of these slots works like the standard "Subweapon" system in most CV games. One adds an effect that can be toggled or made continuous by holding R. The final slot acts as a second accessory. Additionally, you are able to switch between two sets of equipment/souls. To cap things off, Souls can be melded with weapons to improve upon those weapons. This makes for a great, dynamic system. In theory. In practice, it can be rather frustrating, as the low drop rates on souls means that it's possible to spend an hour or more grinding the same enemy to get a single soul for a weapon upgrade. And if you want to use a Soul as a subweapon or accessory, 9 total are required to reach the maximum power. The weapon upgrade tree is sadly very linear and single-branched, offering very little in the way of options besides just "make this sword/axe do more damage". Additionally, several non-guaranteed Souls are required in order to reach certain points in the castle, including one that is necessary to complete the game with anything but the worst ending, meaning some degree of grinding is absolutely required.

Seals - Dawn of Sorrow makes use of the Stylus system intermittently with Seals that are used to "finish off" bosses by drawing a specific insignia on the screen. This sounds neat, but in reality it is rather obnoxious. Switching from using buttons to using the stylus is an awkward process, and if you fail to draw the seal precisely (and "precisely" is not exactly what they display to draw), the sealing process fails and you have to deal the boss about 20% of his HP again. The system ends up being clunky and frustrating.

Plot - The other weak point, in my opinion, is the plot. Unlike most Castlevania games, you are not in Dracula's Castle (the title namesake, Castlevania), you do not play as a Belmont (or Morris, or even Alucard), and the final boss is not Dracula. No, instead YOU are Dracula, or at least you are his reincarnation, and with the wrong sequence of events you could become him and inflict untold pain upon humanity. So you'd think you'd stay home, out of the way, and not get into trouble. Leave it to Victor Belmont and Alucard to take care of, right? Nope. Instead, you go chasing after a cult intent on bringing about Dracula, either by killing you and having one of the other possible heirs take up your mantle, or by enraging you to the point where you succumb to the darkness inside of you. The entire plot is contingent on you being at the castle this cult has set up, and you go and stay there of your own accord. The final boss you end up facing is created entirely because of your actions there.

Reviewed for Big Boss Games by: T.R.C.

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow for the Nintendo DS made by Konami. It is a direct sequel taking place 1 year after the events of Castlevania Aria of Sorrow.

The cast:
Soma Cruz – The reincarnation of Dracula, aka "Hero".
Mina Hakuba – Soma’s Love interest.
Yoko Belnades – Weapon synthesis specialist. Also, she is Julius Belmont’s confidant.
Julius Belmont – Rival vampire hunter and friend.
Hammer – Sells items, weapons and accessories. Buy healing stuff and forget about the rest of his goods. You can find better stuff in the castle and then have Yoko synthesis your weapon of choice. Save your gold for the soul eater ring, weighs in at 300,000 gold.
Genya Arikado – Is the overseer of Soma. Aka Soma’s babysitter.
Celia Fortner – Witch leader of a cult that is trying to bring back “The Dark Lord!”
Dario and Dimitrii – Celia’s top choices to be “The Dark Lord!”

Equipment:
You can equip one weapon, a piece of armor and one accessory. You may also equip three souls at one time. A bullet soul, I used Mandragora, a grenade type weapon. A Guardian soul, I liked the Flying Armor, Float like a butterfly, then Bat Company, Fly like a bat! An enchant soul. The ghoul is great; it allows you to eat anything. Rusty tin cans and rotten flesh, tasty!

And so it begins…
Soma and Mina are out for a nice walk in town when Celia appears and threatens Soma. Soma’s friend, Arikado, gives him a knife to defend himself from Celia’s monster hoard. This sets the stage for a great game!

My only complaint is that it took me only 13 hours to get through the main story. When you beat the game you are given a chance to play the game with Julius Belmont and Yoko Belnades, who team up to take on Castlevania. The added 10 hours for this side quest extends the playtime to 23 hours. Which is a decent amount of time for an action platformer.

Story 6/10 – Good but not great. Some good plot twists.

Gameplay 8/10 – Fun and addictive. Soul collecting is not easy. But, don’t give up! You need those souls! The Seal System was unique and different. You need to use the touch screen to trace seals and destroy any bosses. I’ve never sworn so much at my poor DS than when I messed up a seal and had to continue fighting a boss with only 10hp left. I tried to us my stylus, but I was too slow. So, I just started to use my finger after awhile.

Music 9/10 – In true Castlevania style, it was great!

Overall 7/10 – A solid game with tough puzzles and many plot twists. Have fun!

Viva Dracula!

Where to begin? If you've played previous titles for the GBA, you already have some idea of what this will be like. Being the first actual sequel rather than a different story line, the game follows Aria of Sorrow a year later. The gameplay is as tight as ever, meaning that any mistakes are made by player error rather than sloppy controls. There is little use of the stylus other than drawing magic seals to banish bosses, but that is not a bad thing. The most useful feature is having your castle map visible on the top screen as you play on the bottom. No more pausing to check your map to see where you are and where you want to go!

The audio and music are the best of the handheld games yet, though not at the level of the console titles, especially the incredible Symphony of the Night on PS. This game however, surpasses even the great SotN in length and depth, the soul system from AoS is back and more extensive than ever. Having the ability to have two complete sets of equipment and souls you can switch between with the press of a button only adds strategy and ease depending on the situation you find yourself in. Add a difficulty that is much harder than previous games, but not unfair only finishes the list of good things you will find. If you claim to be any kind of fan of the series (whether console or portable) you owe it to yourself to get this game, even if you have to purchase a DS in order to do so.

Highly reccommended, even those with little interest will find more fun than they would guess once picking this one up.

How many times have you been playing Castlevania on your gameboy or other system and have to pause to look at your stats or map? No more with this great edition to the DS lineup!

Dawn of Sorrow takes place where Aria of Sorrow left off on the Gameboy (that is if you got the good ending), and we join our friend Soma and crew on their latest journey to stop the tides of evil. This time around though, the monsters have indefinite power, that is unless you seal them up though, using the DS's touchscreen capabilities. While this offers an exciting new element to the series and incorporates the DS touchscreen compatibility, it does get annoying sometimes when you were positive you drew that seal write, only to have that monster revive at partial health.

Fans of the series will reconize familiar creatures as well as familiar names of weapons, especially those who played Aria of Sorrow. And those of you that still have that cartridge, be sure to pop it in your DS when you start your game, and you'll get a special item in your inventory.

Dawn of Sorrow is another great edition to a great series of games. A must have for Castlevania fans, and anyone else who enjoy some classic side scrolling action!

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (Nintendo DS)

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (Nintendo DS) is the sequel to the GBA title Aria of Sorrow, which was also a very good Castlevania game. The first in a hopefully long line of Castlevania games for the DS, Dawn of Sorrow is exactly what a Castlevania game should be, whith a few interesting DS add ins. The stylus is used to draw a magic "Seal" to defeat each boss. It can also be used to direct your familiars, and break certain obstacles in the game. I felt this was a creative if minor use of the DS touch screen. The absolute best thing about playing Dawn of Sorrow on the DS is the dual screens...the bottom screen shows the main screen while the top one shows either your player stats or the castle map. No more pushing select to view the map every 10 seconds! The graphics and sound are also great, which has long been a Castlevania tradition. Game play is exactly what you would expect, and storyline is also very good.

The only negative I can think of regarding this title is that it no longer seems to be available at any major retailer. I could only find a copy on eBay, and was lucky to get one at a good price.

Bottom line: A must for any Castlevania fan!