The positives absolutely squish the negatives under a twenty-ton weight. It is, in sum, a must-own.
The Castlevania franchise has seen its ups and downs. It has seen masterpiece classics, 3D fumbles, and a dramatic and triumphant gameplay shift which led into "is it a rehash?" questions. Let's talk about that last one. Twenty-plus games in, with the last fifth of the series using the same Metroidvania mechanic, is Konami headed for Cap-milk-a-franchise-com status? Perhaps the Nintendo DS iteration, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, would present new and exciting possibilities for the franchise.
One can dream. But what Dawn of Sorrow does present is a beautiful looking, sounding and playing 2D near-masterpiece that begs to be picked up by any Nintendo DS owner with half a brain. While many a gamer - myself included - will at first have qualms about playing the "same" exploration-based game for a fifth time in a row, Konami makes it really difficult to not appreciate the admittedly stale idea by delivering great execution, a deeper extension of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow's Soul system, and extras that take us back to the linear, action-oriented Castlevania of old.
Soulful
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow puts us back in the shoes of Soma Cruz, the student protagonist from the previous game in the series, Aria of Sorrow. Taking place merely a year after that title, Dawn of Sorrow is as direct a sequel as you'll ever get in the Castlevania series. It seems that a cult isn't too pleased about the foiling of Dracula's resurrection, and its leader, Celia Fortner, has set out to find new candidates to receive the soul of the Dark Lord. Oh, and put Soma out of commission for messing sheite up the last time around.
In addition to the story being a direct follow-up, the gameplay follows suit. Not only is the same "Metroidvania" modus operandi at play here again, but at its core the "system" is the same as Aria - the tactical soul system. As Soma defeats his enemies, there's a good chance that their souls will be released for him to collect. These souls give him different powers - Bullet Souls act as throwable weapons, Guardian Souls give Soma different abilities on demand, and Enchant souls give Soma inherent abilities like increased strength, better movement in water, or more robust defense. Ability souls are effectively the ones that act as your navigation power-ups, the ones that make the Metroidvania gameplay mechanic sing - double jumps and the like.
If it all sounds the same, and you're chomping at the bit to shout "Rehash!", it kind of is. But before shouting, do know that Konami has added a level of depth and Pokemonitis (Gotta catch 'em all!) to Soul collecting. For starters, Soma is able "level up" each type of soul to a max of 9. The more instances of a soul you have, the stronger the effect of that soul (and each soul upgrades differently - one level up per soul collected or three levels up per soul collected, et cetera). Those same souls are also used to upgrade your weaponry, by letting you transform a simple spear into a powerful trident, et cetera. In addition to the fact that there are over 100 souls to collect, the ability to upgrade souls and use them for weaponry adds more incentive to fight and collect... and it makes it more addictive too.
Souls don't always surrender so easily, however, and this can lead to a bit of soul "grinding". Though the game isn't difficult to the point where you need to consistently spend time leveling up, this is more or less made up for by the soul collecting. Grinding isn't a big problem when the game you're playing is well executed, but it did get on my nerves a bit at some points. It's of course not mandatory to grind for souls to complete the game, which makes the situation a bit better.
What a Wonderful Night to Have a Curse
Whether grinding or not, we can always take comfort in the fact that Konami has rarely slipped with Castlevania's 2D gameplay. Dawn of Sorrow continues on the right track. Soma handles as comfortably as Alucard did in the masterpiece Symphony of the Night, far removed from the slow-footed Nathan Graves from Circle of the Moon. The controls are responsive, and mapped out just fine, presenting no issues. Soma's attacks vary depending on what weapons he has equipped, with some appropriately less responsive than others (try swinging a two-thousand ton hammer as swiftly as you would a short sword).
Combat is straight-up 2D hack-and-slash, as usual content to leave the multi-hit combos to the 3D iterations. For the main game, the combat is certainly fun and well executed but in general manages to be only a bit more challenging than the last two Gameboy Advance iterations. Playing through Symphony of the Night recently had me struggling to keep Alucard alive early on, whereas Dawn of Sorrow is a relative breeze with its more predictable, easier to hit enemies. The boss battles, however, are thankfully not at all reminiscent of the "target practice" battles from Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow. There are patterns to learn and avoid, and quirks figure out - such as the boss who seems to control your character via puppetry. In a nice addition to the gameplay in general, you can also collect an ability soul that lets you swap between two sets of equipment to adapt to different situations - nothing groundbreaking but incredibly convenient, just like the ever-present map (or ever-present status and enemy info screen) on the top screen of the DS.
But as the past four 2D Castlevanias are any indication, the real meat is in exploring the castle and figuring out how to open every nook and cranny. Here, Dawn of Sorrow succeeds greatly, as it manages to avoid many of the long, monotonous corridors and nearly identical-looking vertical zig-zagging segments that one might fear from a game of this type. Each of the sections are distinctly different, from the large, intimidating open areas of The Pinnacle, to the classic gears and clockwork of the Cursed Clocktower, to the sometimes claustrophobic Wizardry Lab. In some cases it's almost enough to make you want to approach each section with a different mentality of gameplay.
The level design does bring back a lot of Symphony's "roundabout" exploring provided by barriers that are opened by stepping on plates in the floor. This pretty much succeeds in only granting you a shortcut through the halls of the castle, but there are some clever navigation tricks such as throwing a puppet of yourself (which you swap places with upon its landing) through small openings or at just-out-of-reach ledges. There's also a great sliding-tile puzzle that has you sliding around the location of each room arranged in a four-by-four grid in order to pick up goodies and access a different part of the castle. There're also rare sections of the castle where you'll need the Balore soul to pick away at icy blockades to advance, and for those you'll use the touch screen.
Castlevania: Screens of Touchment
Admittedly, the touch screen elements of this game are "meh" at best. The aforementioned Balore soul seems way too much like a throw-in gimmick, and it certainly didn't enhance the gameplay experience for me because it's used just too rarely. It would have been nice to have more sections where you had to create staircases for yourself, or even rooms that have two exits each hidden on opposite ends by the blockades. It just doesn't feel fleshed out enough to feel like more than a wasted experiment.
The much talked-about "Magical Seals" are also unnecessary, and while a main part of the boss-battle experience, also feel like a semi-cheap throw-in. Granted, at times it did make for more exciting conclusions - oftentimes I found myself trying to calm myself down in order to draw a perfect seal without rushing myself - but again I think that with more thought Konami could have found other uses for drawing the seals, or at the very least give us harder seals to draw. I've read in places that the seals eventually do get really hard, but I personally never had a problem with it - and, this is important, I've never once had to use the stylus to draw my seals. The fingertip works fine as long as you take your time (but no lolligagging!) and draw it right. Which makes me feel - again - like it's a throw-in, because I rarely felt challenged as opposed to superficially panicked. Complaints abound that it's annoying to futz up a seal and have to beat the tar out of the last 1/4th of the boss's hit-points again, and I think Konami could have taken a different route by - for example - having the seals pop up mid-battle and giving you the bonus of some extra damage inflicted upon a successfully drawn seal, et cetera.
At the very least, as mentioned prior, the dual screens come in very handy. No, not revolutionary, but the omnipresent map or status screen (your choice) provides for much more utility. It's become the butt of many jokes - the DS being the system that lets you see maps - but you try it in this type of game and tell me that it's not useful.
The Sights and Sounds of Sorrow
Continuing in Castlevania's fine aesthetic tradition, Dawn of Sorrow is an absolute beauty to look at. It takes Aria's smooth animation, detail and coloring, and pumps it up to Symphony of the Night levels. Sprite rotations, subtle 3D background effects and a fully utilized color palette are used to great effect here. Similar to Aria, the game is predominantly gray-bluish where Symphony, Circle and Harmony were more balanced, but it's still great looking. Soma is practically the spitting image - animation-wise, at least - of Alucard, complete with his little forward lunge at the beginning of his walk animation and delayed turn when he changes direction. He now even has a trail of shadows behind him that look great. Large enemies like the Great Armor and Treant are awesome to behold. The misty haze that permeates through the opening section - The Lost Village - comes complete with settled snow fluttering down from the tops of parked cars and puffs of Soma's breath escaping his mouth. The level of detail is simply stunning in some places.
And yet, there are some brain farts here and there that sometimes just ruin the sense of wonder you get from other locales. The Wizardry Lab, for instance, is mostly just a dumpy looking place with barren walls and inimaginative gray coloring. The similarly plain, almost monotone-colored basement level that leads to the game's final section is too unmemorable to be something you find so close to conclusion. Especially in light of the rest of the areas, these brain farts stand out even more.
The rest of the game's visuals are too good to really whine about the nitpicks, though, and its similarly matched by the mostly great music composition. Again the opening scene is triumphant, pumping through that same level of power and determination given by each of the previous game's successful opening tunes. It's followed right after by the pleasantly quirky Wizardry Lab tune, which serves as redemption for that sections blase visuals. Dawn's score is mostly dominated by empowering, uptempo tunes that are hauntingly memorable, well composed and orchestrated with high quality samples - fully taking advantage of the DS's Gameboy-besting audio hardware.
But again, like the visuals, there are a few brain farts that stand out due to their relative incompetence. There's a garden section that has a pretty drab-sounding and even dinky tune that doesn't excite, inspire, frighten or cause any emotion whatsoever. The waltzy tune - also boring and uimaginative - is even worse than its dorky sounding Aria counterpart. It seems as if the good waltzes were left back on the Playstation.
It's time to stop getting so picky about the aesthetics and for me to get off my music-whore high-horse, because the sound effects are easily the best part of the DS presentation. Just like Symphony, screams, crackles, shatters, quips, laughs, moans, grunts and crashes all resonate cleanly through the DS's speakers, better through a set of headphones, and phenomenally through a set of stereo speakers. Try it - you'll love it, and you'll feel like you're listening to a horror flick.
Old is New
The capper to this already great experience, though, is the extra Julius mode thrown in after you complete the game. Let's forget about the obligatory but appreciated Boss Rush mode that Konami is so fond of for a second here. The Julius Mode, similar to other extra-character modes in previous iterations, has you running and gunning through the game as one of the supporting cast - Julius, to be specific. Fighting with the whip and the traditional cross, holy water, and axes, Julius brings back great memories of playing as Richter Belmont - albeit a much better-controlling, double-jumping Ricther.
I did say one of the supporting cast, but I should have said the entire supporting cast - Yoko Belnades and Alucard are accessible, too, in an incredibly awesome throwback homage to Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse for the NES. No, the wall-climbing pirate ain't back for more, but what's given is fantastic nonetheless. If you're an old-school 'Vania fan, which I am, you'd like to think - and I don't think, I know - that Konami should make an entire game out of this concept. The Julius mode is incredibly significant here, moreso than your typical "extra mode", because it represents what I want to see more of in future Castlevanias. Mix in the best of the old with the best of the new. And the next step would be to throw in something fresh and re-invigorating that, given future DS iterations, really uses more than just the dual-screen convenience of Nintendo's most recent portable machine.
Vampire Killer
While the touch screen mechanics don't do much for me, and it's of course similar to the previous games, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is easily recommendable. The positives absolutely squish the negatives under a twenty-ton weight. It is, in sum, a must-own for action-adventure fans and DS owners alike. Though it falls just short of the truly killer-app status of DS titles such as Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Nintendogs, and doesn't show off the touch screen for action games like Kirby: Canvas Curse does, there's no denying that the title simply oozes quality, "rehash" or not. Hopefully Konami makes this 'Vania its last hurrah for the pure Metroidvania style of play as producer Koji Igarashi tries something different with the series for once, because it'd be hard to go on a higher note than this - short of directly porting over Symphony of the Night, of course.