Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

This is not the usual Castlevania fare as it is set 2035 and follows a character by the name of Soma Cruz, not a direct descendent of the Belmont family, but simply a high-school student that has inexplicably become encaged within the domain of Dracula himself with his friend Mina Hakuba and a wealth of evil creatures as his only company. Soma soon realises that he holds a very useful, and dangerous, ability, the art to transfer fallen creatures' souls onto his person, thus granting him access to whatever special power the enemy previously held. Using this technique he endeavours to make his way through the eerie environments, trying to uncover why he was brought here, who he can trust out of those he meets on his travels and, ultimately, whether he will ever be able to escape the castle's clutches.

 

The original GBA Castlevania, Circle of the Moon, that accompanied the handheld at launch was chastised for being so dark in graphical tone that even under a direct light-source people struggled to see exactly what was going on due also in part to the dire GBA screen with its lack of any type of lighting. To remedy this, with Harmony of Dissonance things were lightened up as well as improving upon the animation and characters models' detail levels. But many bemoaned the fact that things were far too luminescent, thus detracting from the dark undertones that have been linked with Castlevania since its initial conception. So, for this final GBA adventure (for the time being, anyway

 

Ever since Symphony of the Night hit the PSOne and revolutionised the Castlevania series, there have been constant associations, from both fans and industry-folk alike, with Nintendo's own Metroid franchise, which is certainly no insult at all hence Konami is to be praised for borrowing from the RPG-style of adventuring for that, Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance on the GBA...and now Aria of Sorrow, the third handheld title. But do not let this lead you to believe the franchise is about to get stale any time soon, as Konami has added to the formula in this latest outing more than enough to make sure things remain as fresh as ever.

For instance, you will find the basics of AoS to be similar in nature to CotM and HoD, with the sprawling castle that is sectioned off in a way that you can find the odd warp room dotted in a different corner of the castle's map, save rooms are littered extremely generously around the playing field and certain areas are only accessible once the previous area's final boss has been defeated and a special ability power-up has been collected. But you do not start with a whip of any sort - all Soma holds is a little knife for warding off any oncoming enemies, which will seem very strange to start with. Thankfully you can quickly purchase, or preferably find mysteriously lying around, a greater range of weapons. In addition, the sub-weapons like the crucifix, axe and holy water from previous game have been replaced (temporarily, as they have now returned in the excellent PS2 adventure, Lament of Innocence) by the Soul collecting system, which now gives a wider scope and is far more critical to the game than the cards system in HoD

 

Other welcome changes come in the areas of the castle, as well as the general layout as well. The underwater sections add an intriguing element to the series and there is a portion of the northern castle that will certainly keep gamers slightly confused for a while as they try to figure out what is going on. These may sound like small changes, but they are far superior to what EA normally does with its updated titles! Anyway, with tight controls and a general design template that not only works but works exceedingly well, why would Konami need to take any drastic steps? Perfection cannot be made any more perfect now, can it?

AoS is nowhere near as long as hoped but still a fair bit lengthier than its predecessor, Harmony of Dissonance! At least, this time around, there have been changes that try to help elongate the adventure. Whilst HoD could be polished off in a matter of hours, AoS will take even a seasoned gamer around eight hours to reach the 100% completion mark. However, this is still rather short when compared against the average 20-30 hours that normal adventure games last