An atmospheric, fun adventure, and a vast improvement on its predecessor, but ultimately a little too short.
As has become typical in the Castlevania idiom, you assume the guise of Soma Cruz, a newbie to the Dracula-slaying line of work who is shockingly not somehow related to the infamous Belmont clan in any way, shape or form) Starting out in Dracula's castle, with minimal health and equipment, and a plotline that serves as a thinly-veiled excuse to go and wreak lots and lots of havoc, your job will be to go and... well, wreak lots and lots of havoc. But there's a point to all the havoc. See, with this being Dracula's castle, it goes without saying that there's a nasty evil person to slay at the end of it all. And thus begins your quest, as you mindlessly slaughter your way through all manner of bizarre creatures, hunting for new equipment that'll enable you to progress deeper into the mazelike castle and bring a swift end to said nasty evil person. Bring it.
As always, you progress through the game by beating up monsters and bosses, thus earning extra abilities which can be used to get to previously-unexplored areas. Then you beat up the monsters in those areas and earn some more abilities, which you use to... well, you get the idea. Aria leans more towards Symphony of the Night in the method by which you beat up the monsters, though. Being somewhat estranged from the Belmont clan by virtue of your surname not being Belmont, your using the Vampire Killer whip would doubtless land you with some rather hefty penalties (most likely involving being on the receiving end of a good whipping - my, aren't these vampire hunter types kinky?) so instead you'll make use of various sharp, heavy, pointy or otherwise lethal instruments to gouge, slice, pound and generally tenderise your foes into a quivering, bloody pulp. You can purchase some of these Tools Of Death from the obligatory travelling shopkeeper who inexplicably hangs out at the castle entrance (and you can just see the banners... buy one Sword of Awesome and one Talisman of God, and receive a Ring of Win absolutely FREE!) but the best ones (including a sword that's at least three times the size of your dude) are tucked away in dark corners throughout the castle, and often take some considerable effort to locate. You'll also be able to use various armours and miscellaneous items (pendants, rings, T-shirts, etc) to improve your otherwise puny stats.
You're furnished with a handy automap, toggleable using the Select button, which shows the basic outlines of the rooms in the castle but doesn't really tell you if you've fully explored an area, which can be annoying. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) Aria is somewhat more linear than Harmony, and doesn't require as much annoying backtracking. Picture the internal monologue: "Hmm, I need Ability X to progress to Room Y, but it seems Ability X can only be obtained by dispatching Boss Z which is probably on the other bloody side of the bloody castle, but I can't really tell because it's not on the map, and when I finally do obtain Ability X, well it turns out I can't remember where Room Y is because all the rooms on the map look the same, OH MY GOD I DON'T WANT TO PLAY ANYMORE". Any game that avoids this is to be commended in my book. Actually, part of the fun is working out where the bloody hell you're supposed to use this new ability that you've snarfed up from the still-twitching corpse of the poor dumb animal you just mindlessly slaughtered.
A major difference from HoD is found in the soul collecting system. Essentially, when you slaughter one of the aforementioned bizarre creatures, there's a chance that you will be able to capture its soul, thus imbuing you with a measure of its powers. By absorbing souls, you gain new abilities - most of which are offensive, but some can be used defensively. Some souls, referred to as "ability souls", grant you special abilities which are necessary to overcome certain obstacles found throughout the castle (such as, uh, water and, um, small gaps), and these souls are typically obtained only after defeating bosses. And so, the game cleverly regulates your progress, keeping you from areas which might be too difficult until you're at least somewhat ready for them. Wuss.
The graphics... well, in some ways they're better than HoD, and in some ways they're worse. Backgrounds are generally less detailed, there's generally less use of CPU-heavy special effects, and some enemies don't seem to animate quite so well. On the plus side, the artists didn't use as much grey this time around, everything's generally more colourful, and Soma's various animations are superbly fluid, enhancing his already drop-dead sexy pretty-boy looks. Oops, I've said too much...
Thankfully, the music has been given far more attention than it received in HoD, making for a soundtrack that's far easier on the ears than HoD's cleverly-composed-but-sometimes-grating-PSG-synthesised soundtrack. Michiru Yamane is back in the hotseat for the music, and as usual produces a varied, atmospheric and very hummable selection of tunes. The sound is also better overall, with a much more varied brace of "slash", "splat", "aargh", "hahaha" and "bizarre-grunt-indicating-major-physical-exertion" effects than we've previously seen. Or perhaps heard, unless you're among those of us who suffer from synaesthesia.
There's only one major problem with Aria of Sorrow - it's just too short. After finishing the game with 3 different endings, my total playing time clocked in at about seven-and-a-half hours, which isn't to be sniffed at; even so, I wish the game could have gone on longer, simply because I was having so much fun pounding monsters' heads and trying to work out where I was supposed to go next. (Just for comparison, finishing HoD with all the available endings ran me about eight-and-three-quarter hours.) As always, there's an unlockable Boss Rush more which is fairly self-explanatory, and a Sound Mode which I won't even attempt to describe because it's blindingly obvious what it does. Both of these would add slightly more incentive to replay if they were actually mentioned anywhere in the manual that comes with the game. As it is, though, they're nice little additions to the package.
In short, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is an excellent game, a worthy addition to the 'Vania roster, and a game that every GBA owner who likes his old-skool 2D platform RPGs should check out as soon as he's finished reading this. Seriously. Go to the store now. Please - take my car.