Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Review posted August 2005 by Corbie Dillard

Publisher: Konami Entertainment
Developer: Konami
Release Date: October, 2005
ESRB Rating: "T" for Teen
Genre: Platform Action Adventure
Price: $34.99

With the several mediocre attempts at bringing the Castlevania series into a 3D world, it seems 2D fans have been relocated to sinking their teeth into the three Game Boy Advance Castlevania releases. While these three games have been enough to keep the series alive and kicking, they've never been able to reach the same level of originality or excitement of the last truly great 2D release, Symphony of the Night for the Playstation. With the release of Dawn of Sorrow, Konami has managed to not only return the Castlevania series to its rightful place atop the Platform genre, but they've also managed to include some truly original and useful new features using the DS touch screen capabilities. The end result is one of the most enjoyable Castlevania titles ever created, not to mention a rock-solid platforming experience with enough style and substance to place it among the best the Castlevania series has to offer.

The story in Dawn of Sorrow takes place one year after the events of Aria of Sorrow have unfolded. This time an eccentric cult, obsessed with reviving the evil Count Dracula, have built an exact replica of his castle and have kidnapped Soma's friends and taken them inside the mock castle. Now Soma must enter the castle, rescue his friends, and put a stop to the vile plans of this village cult before they can carry out their plans of reviving the evil prince of darkness.

Gameplay

As in the previous Game Boy Advance Castlevania games, the majority of your quests will involve exploring different rooms and corridors found throughout the castle. Thankfully the game automatically generates a map for you, located on the top DS screen, to keep track of where you've already explored in the castle. At certain points, you'll come face to face with a boss, which will have to be defeated in order to move on in the game. Like Aria of Sorrow, as you defeat enemies, occasionally you'll be able to capture the soul of that particular enemy and gain the use of its special ability in the process. This holds especially true with the bosses you'll fight throughout the game. You'll have to acquire and use these abilities in order to gain access to new parts of the castle.

In Dawn of Sorrow you have three different categories of souls at your disposal. Bullet Souls give you enhanced attack characteristics, Guardian Souls give you increased defensive powers, and Enchanted Souls allow you to use other unique special abilities. Different souls bestow different powers and abilities, some more useful than others. The game even allows you to forge a captured soul to your weapon, making it even more powerful, but you lose that particular soul once you've done so.

Also similar to Aria of Sorrow is the weapons, armor, and leveling up systems. You're allowed to select a weapon, a suit of armor, and one accessory which in turn increases your character's attributes. New to Dawn of Sorrow is the ability to have two distinct character sets. Once you've located this ability within the game, you can then configure two different setups complete with different weapons, armor, accessories, and souls. You can then switch between the two sets using one of the buttons on the DS. This will make it easier to use your lighter weapons for most ordinary circumstances, while switching to the heavier weapons and armor when facing stronger enemies. As you defeat enemies and bosses in the game, your experience points will build up causing your character to level up. All of these things combined together will determine how effective your character will be at defeating the stronger enemies and bosses in the game and play a key role in how you progress through the castle.

Two new features found in Dawn of Sorrow make use of the DS touch screen capabilities. The first one allows you to draw special seals, which involves drawing different line compositions on a pentagram shaped board. You will need this to open certain sealed doors as well as to seal the soul of a boss you have just defeated in order to gain that boss' special ability. You'll find these seal descriptions hidden throughout the castle that will quickly show you a specific line composition that you must remember for future reference. The other new feature allows you to break certain blocks throughout the castle, allowing you access to areas that were previously unreachable. Some of these blocks have to be broken in a specific pattern in order for you to climb them, or avoid them while riding on some of the game's moving platforms. While these may seem somewhat gimmicky in nature, they do play a key role in the way you gain access to newer regions of the castle.

Multiplayer Mode

Multiplayer mode is something new to the Castlevania series. In this mode you can compete against another player wirelessly in a race through a twisting maze of rooms in the castle, each filled with a wide array enemies, depending on how far along you are in the game. You can even choose to place these particular enemies yourself, although this doesn't particularly add much to the experience itself. It's certainly nothing terribly groundbreaking, and has little to do with the actual quests of the game, but it's a nice diversion from the main quest.

Graphics

Anyone who's played the previous Game Boy Advance Castlevania titles will immediately notice the higher quality visuals in Dawn of Sorrow. It's not until you've played the game a little, however, that you begin to notice many of the slight graphical nuances that slowly come together to create an even more impressive visual experience. Character and enemy sprites sport a crisp, detailed look, and move very fluidly, made possible by the additional frames of animation. Bosses in the game are among some of the best the series has ever seen, with some bosses spanning nearly the entire screen. Even something as minor as the way in which an enemy bursts into flames when defeated, further highlights the noticeable attention to detail that was put into the game. Another impressive graphical highlight would have to be the parallax scrolling in the game. There will be times when there are three or four depth levels of scrolling, adding even more realism to the already structured backdrops. It's fairly safe to say that Dawn of Sorrow really shines in a way no other portable Castlevania title ever has before, and further illustrates the fact that 2D gaming is still a very viable format for portable gaming.

Screen shots: