Castlevania: Aria Of Sorrow Review

Would you look at that. A Castlevania game without a number in the title. I say that because, if you don’t know, I’m writing these in (mostly) alphabetical order.

Aria of Sorrow is the third and final Castlevania game for the GBA. It is also, in my opinion, the best. But that’s for later. I hope I didn’t spoil it for you.

The story for this game is insane. Let me start off with that. It’s just nutso.

See in this universe Dracula’s castle is trapped inside an eclipse. And there just so happened to be an eclipse in 1999. Soma Cruz, our non Belmont hero, is going to a shrine to see his friend Mina when – Oh no! – they’re both pulled inside the eclipse and the castle.

Open waking up in the castle Soma and Mina are attacked by some monsters. They’re saved by a dude in a suit and Soma ends up “inheriting” a soul from one of the monsters. Mina’s all sorts of messed up. So suit man, Arikado, is gonna keep an eye on Mina for a bit while Soma goes and explores the castle.

Soma meets a few other people along the way. A woman who may be a secret agent of some sort. An ex military officer who wants to own a store. A cultist. And a guy named J.

I won’t get too much into the story cause there’s spoilers to be seen and had here.

Gameplay here is in CV2 style. There are RPG elements, abilities to unlock, equipment and consumables to manage, and levels to gain. Soma has a neat little skill in “inheriting” abilities from monsters. These abilities come in the form of souls. Soul comes in three flavors. Cherry, Banana, and Blueberry. But to stick with what the game calls them they’re bullet, enchanted, and guardian.

Bullet souls are souls that are “fired”. So, throwing a bone is a bullet. Throwing an axe, a spear, calling an evil spirit, a bird, stuff like that.

Enchanted souls are usually passive. Thing like stat boosts, the ability to see invisible walls, immunity to certain things.

Guardian souls are kind of weird. Some of them, I think, could be bullet souls in how they act, but how you use them is holding a button or toggling the soul on and off. Sometimes they’re movement based, or defensive like a fire shield, or breathing a cloud of petrifying smoke. Kind of all over the place.

I really like the soul system because it’s so expansive. You can change your play style a hundred different ways based on both the weapons you like to use and the souls you like to use.

One thing I don’t like about the soul system is that if you want to get the best ending you need to collect EVERY SOUL in the game. Some of them are pretty easy to get. Enemies are plentiful and they drop their souls fairly regularly. Others… not so much. There are at least 3 enemies that only appear once in the whole game and their drop rates are very low. It’s kind of annoying.

While you’re wandering around looking for these souls you’ll come across multiple areas in the castle, each with its own vibe, design, enemies, music, all that. Keeps things interesting for sure.

Every area has a boss, which is typical, and they’re generally pretty varied and interesting as well.

Graphically this is the best of the three games on the GBA. Circle of the Moon may be a close second but this is better. The sprites are good, the enemy designs are good, the areas all look good. The last couple of bosses are all pretty danged good too.

Musically the game isn’t quite as good as some of the predecessors. But I honestly think that’s the hardware. I’ve never played a GBA game with REALLY good music. There’s a couple of good tracks but the restrictions of the hardware really aren’t doing the game (any GBA games) any favors.

So. I already said I like this game, and I do. It’s one of my more favorite Castlevania games and it is my favorite for the GBA. The graphics are good, the music is good. The story is actually pretty interesting but Konami still can’t write an ending no matter how hard they try. The gameplay is what makes the game really interesting. The large variety of weapons and the souls is just really nice. I think it works very well. There is a direct sequel to the game on the DS called Dawn Of Sorrow.