By Anthony Swinnich on October 11th, 2005

Even with these minor complaints, Dawn of Sorrow is currently the reason to own a DS, and proves to be a worthy follow up to one of the greatest Castlevania titles of all time. It might not be quite as unique as previous installments, but when you have a formula this successful it’s difficult to justify too much change.

Someone Needs to Put Dracula on a Milk Carton
As Dawn of Sorrow starts out, the main character Soma is talking with "is-she-his-girlfriend-or-isn’t-she" character Mina about the events that happened a year earlier in Aria of Sorrow. Suddenly, an evil sorceress appears and half-heartedly attacks them. Of course this small scuffle is quickly taken care of, but it lures Soma to the lair of the sorceress; a lair that happens to be a replica of Castle Dracula. The sorceress’ plan is to resurrect Dracula because her religion believes that a being of absolute good can’t exist with out a being of pure malevolence.

As you can imagine, this sets the stage for Soma’s new adventure. Right away you’ll notice the sorceress’ castle is a decidedly prettier one than the one in Aria of Sorrow. The foreground is sharp, and the usual three to four part backgrounds are just as clear, but in certain areas the background is done in 3D, and it looks awesome. Rather than seeing stationary images in the background, the perspective of the background shifts with where you move on the stage, adding an unprecedented amount of depth. The character models also have a greater degree of detail, with more frames of animation and an overall smoother look.

Even with a shinier coat of paint, the basics of exploring the castle remain the same. You explore room after room while killing the random monsters that stand in your way. You’ll progress from the highest towers to the lowest dungeons and everywhere in-between, gaining new powers as you progress that will open up previously inaccessible areas. Can’t get that suit of armor that’s an arm’s length out of reach? When you get the double-jump it’s all yours. But to get the double-jump, you’ll have to defeat the boss that holds that ability.

Soul Stealing 102
Aria of Sorrow pioneered the soul stealing system, so it’s no surprise that Dawn of Sorrow uses it as well. As I mentioned, to get the double-jump you’ll have to defeat the boss that has the soul that provides that ability. However, it’s not just bosses that have abilities for you to steal because every enemy has a soul except a few main character bosses. With over one hundred enemies in the game, you have access to an incredible amount of abilities if you sink the time into getting them all.

Unless it’s an enemy that you only encounter once and it’s providing you a necessary ability like the double-jump, getting a soul is a random occurrence. Chances are you’ll have to kill enemies over and over to get their souls, but a good amount appears through regular exploration.

There are three basic types of souls. The first is known as a "bullet" soul. Pressing up and attack will provide some kind of special "bullet" type attack. The skeleton soul will throw bones, and the Axe Armor soul will throw axes. The second type of soul equips to the R-button. Sometimes you can hold R and fire something, like a laser beam, but sometimes you can use abilities that are continuous and drain your magic points. My personal favorite gives you the ability to move left and right at super high speeds. The third type of soul is passive, and affects your stats, such as raising your luck, or the ability to gain more experience points.

That New Feature Smell
How you use these souls will decide how you progress through the game. Given so many abilities, it’s pretty much a given that some will be more useful than others, but it’s up to the player to devise the best souls to equip. You’re only able to equip one from each of the three categories, but in a move that seems to have been inspired by the Castlevania-esque Shaman King: Master of Spirits games for the GBA, you’re given access to a secondary profile to switch to. If it isn’t convenient for you to use the three souls you currently have equipped, you can simply press X and switch to three different souls. While Shaman King offers four profiles in the original, and eight in the sequel, Dawn of Sorrow seems to do a much better job with only two.

Some of the new abilities are very useful, and will hopefully become mainstays of the series. I’m personally a big fan of the "puppet master" soul. You throw a small doll a short distance, and switch places with it. It opens up a lot of possibilities in terms of exploration, and it’s one I think can offer more in later installments. I also like how some enemies have to be tricked into coming out of hiding, making their souls harder to get.

I’m not, however, a big fan of how little the touch-screen is used. I like the ideas explored, but they were insanely under-utilized. The ability to break special bricks with the stylus provides an interesting gameplay opportunity, but it’s sadly only used in two areas. The magic seal system is also one that could have been better expanded. There are only five in the entire game, and aren’t very hard to use. If every boss had their own unique symbol, it might have provided more challenge, but as it stands drawing the symbols is simply an inconvenience.

New Weapons Available Upon Request
The one new feature that I feel could have been better developed is the weapon fusing system. You’re able to increase the strength of your weapons by fusing souls to them. While this is a decent idea in theory, I feel that a few things went wrong in execution. First of all, you find far less weapons in the castle because of this. One of my favorite parts of playing the games is finding all the weapons, and since you only have armor and potions to find now, one-third of the reason to explore one hundred percent of the castle is gone.

Secondly, it’s not a good idea that the souls used in the weapon synthesis are deleted when fused with the weapons. Sure, it makes perfect sense, but some of the souls are one of a kind; requiring players who strive for total completion to use their precious souls might irritate them. It’s also pretty inconvenient for players to have to go back to a specific location on the map in order to get a stronger weapon when they’re pretty far away from that point. There are plenty of teleporters in the massive castle making cross-castle-transportation for a breeze for the most part, but it’s a lot to ask when you could easily just hide the weapons in the stages.

A Sizeable Adventure Awaits
Dawn of Sorrow offers up one of the longest experiences in the Castlevania series since Symphony of the Night, clocking in at around eight hours just for the main quest. Completion could take anywhere from ten to fifteen hours. Also, there’s a second play-through unlocked when you beat the game with different characters. In homage to the NES classic Castlevania III, Konami has included the ability to play through the game with Julius Belmont, and two other characters. I won’t spoil them here, but I will tell you that the character Grant from Castlevania III is the only one who doesn’t get representation in this mode.

This mode also serves up remixed versions of the music in Castlevania III. These songs bring back all kinds of memories. It’s not just the old songs that sound great, however - keeping with series tradition, the music in the entire game is good. I personally like the songs better in Aria of Sorrow, but the sound quality of the music in Dawn of Sorrow is definitely superior and a few of these tracks are destined to become classics.

No matter which way you slice it, this is one vampire you should slay, even with my minor complaints. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow proves that it isn’t just one of the best games in the Castlevania series; it also proves it’s maybe the best game yet on the DS. This is just the start of what fans have to look forward to on the dual-screened wonder, and is definitely a title no DS owner should be without.