Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

System: DS
Release Date: 2005
Published By: Konami
Reviewed by: Darien
Rating:

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is a direct sequel to Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, marking only the third time in a series that now runs to about twenty games that there has been a direct sequel (Castlevania II and Symphony of the Night are the others). The gameplay is almost identical to that of Aria, so if you liked the first Sorrow game, you'll like this one too.

That said, if you didn't like Aria, there's nothing here to change your mind. The vaunted stylus mechanics seem more like tacked-on gimmicks than actual gameplay elements - like they're there because Konami didn't have the balls to treat the DS as a GBA with more power and a seperate map pane, and felt compelled to make you poke things. One could do fun things with the stylus in a Castlevania game, and especially this one; Soma has about a hundred thousand "shoot projectile X" spells that could be entertainingly mapped to the stylus; poke a target, Soma shoots at it. But all we get is "tap ice blocks to break them" and "draw the damn symbol or you have to fight the boss again."

There is one point of stylus-y goodness, though; the game allows for the creation of a user dungeon, which can be populated with any monsters you please. Once you've chosen your monster, you can place it into the map just by pointing where you want it to go. This is the exciting "revolution" caused by the DS in action; it's not good because you can make annoying drawing puzzles to interrupt the flow of your action platformer, it's good because some tasks are much more intuitive when you can just point where you want things to be.

DS oddities aside, the game is a pretty thoroughly standard modern Castlevania romp. The only annoyance is that - so help me - instead of finding new weapons, you have to fucking make them out of bits that you find. At least the bits themselves are interesting this time; weapons are made by combining old weapons you already have with the monster souls. So it's an interesting spin, sure, but it doesn't make this mechanic any more fun than it's ever been before. Please just let it die.

The game looks good, and it sounds good, and it mercifully does not feature any voice acting (aside from the occasional grunt or interjection). Plotwise, it's as thin as these things always are, though it does have the honour of being the first Castlevania game since Symphony actually to surprise me with a plot twist. The anime stylings are odd, and a marked departure from the usual visual style of the series (and that of Aria, for that matter), but they're mostly good.

There aren't really any major complaints to be made about this game, except maybe lack of originality. So if you like Castlevania games - or just action platformers in general - pick this one up. If the series is beginning to wear on you, though, this one won't revitalise it for you.

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