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That’s Castlevania: DS for short. I’m not sure why but games for Nintendo consoles tend to adopt the console’s name in their titles. When the Super Nintendo was released, countless games added “Super” in their titles, same with the Nintendo 64 and “64,” and GBA with “Advance.” Showing some evolution, Nintendo DS titles incorporate the DS in their titles as is the case with Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. The game should be familiar to those that played any of the GBA Castlevania games. While it doesn’t revolutionize the series, it does provide solid gameplay.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow takes place one year after 2003’s Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. In the game, you play as Soma Cruz who was escaped being the next Dracula in Aria of Sorrow. He is attacked by a priestess named Celia who wants to resurrect Dracula and decides that getting rid of Soma would help her and her cult accomplish this much quicker. Soma defends himself against the attack but sets out to find and destroy Celia before she can resurrect Dracula.
The gameplay should be familiar to fans of the Gameboy Advance game. You’ll fight enemies in the cult’s base which resembles Dracula’s castle. The castle is divided into many themed areas. The different areas include a chapel, garden and clock tower among many others. The game is fairly linear with a map that tells you where to go, though you’ll want to explore. As you explore, you’ll gain experience, level up, increase your stats (you’re rated in attack, constitution, intelligence, luck and strength), and get better equipment (you originally begin with a knife and poor armor). Weapons include guns, swords and axes. You’ll also collect much better equipment and other accessories.
The game includes a soul system as well. There are three types of souls you can equip. They include guardian souls (so you can summon familiars), bullet souls (to gain special attacks), and enchant souls (that grant bonuses or stat boosts). The first two types cost magic to use, however. There are other souls that you don’t have to equip that grant Soma some special powers including underwater movement and the double jump. The weapons I mentioned above can be fused with a soul to create a more powerful weapon. You can set up different configurations allowing you to pick the best one for the situation.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow makes use of the unique capabilities of the Nintendo DS. You’ll use the touch screen to command familiars to attack monsters, break crystal blocks, and more importantly, to trace magic symbols. You’ll need to quickly trace these symbols to defeat the bosses who will otherwise gain some energy and keep fighting. The game is pretty lenient with the tracing since the developers realized that you’ll pretty often be using your finger to do the tracing.
The game includes support for local wireless multiplayer. The game lets you design custom levels and in multiplayer, you can send these levels to a friend. You can also trade souls you’ve collected in the game.
The game’s visuals have definitely benefited from the move to the Nintendo DS. The environments are very detailed. They usually have pretty fancy special effects for a 2D sidescroller and are quite extensive in size. The character models are equally detailed. They are excellently animated, as well. You’ll see Soma and the enemies animate very fluidly which is something that wasn’t really possible on the Gameboy Advance. The backgrounds benefited the most it seems since Konami has been able to make multilayered backgrounds, each with intricate detail and some 3D effects for good measure.
The game’s sound package has also benefited quite a bit. The sound effects are solid with each thing sounding just as you would expect it to. The background music is definitely the audios’ highlight though. Each area has unique music to fit the theme, but the game overall has a very cohesive soundtrack.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow doesn’t revolutionize the series but it is a very solid evolution from the Gameboy Advance games. The modernized graphics, outstanding sound package, solid gameplay, and cute use of the Nintendo DS makes for a very compelling game. One of the best the Nintendo DS has to offer. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Oct 26, 2005
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