![]() ![]() As such, going into Aria of Sorrow is not just coming into touch with the non-linear progression one expects to find in the Castlevania efforts that followed Symphony of the Night, but also tackling an adventure that has no visibly frustrating elements standing in its way.Īria of Sorrow concentrates on the story of Soma Cruz, a transfer student living in Japan. Its music, a noteworthy leap forward in relation to the disappointing quality of the tunes presented in Harmony of Dissonance, strikes all the right haunting notes in terms of composition and also of clear reproduction via the Game Boy Advance’s speakers.įurthermore, and undoubtedly having a very significant influence over the enjoyment gamers are bound to get out of the quest, Aria of Sorrow gets the small details of its design right, as its save points are plentiful and always sitting right beside boss rooms and its warping zones are equally bountiful and well-placed. Its visuals, a gigantic evolution from the brown tones that dominated Circle of the Moon, display in colors, pixels, and art the very best of what the system had to offer, with great animations and plenty of scenarios that find a pleasant middle-ground between dark realism and foreboding surrealism. ![]() More importantly, though, Aria of Sorrow is ultimately a joy to play through. The outcome is a work that although certainly not quite as masterful as Symphony of the Night, ends up being a very respectful portable representation of that game’s excellence. Where Circle of the Moon translated – to a handheld console – the non-linear gameplay introduced in the Playstation classic Symphony of the Night and Harmony of Dissonance expanded upon those pillars by boldly betting on a pair of overlapping castles, Aria of Sorrow embraces the best of both worlds while leaving behind the traits that hampered, to different degrees, those efforts and executing improvements of its own.įrom the former, it borrows the simpler, yet still daunting, map structure at the same time, from the latter, it takes both the cosmetic enhancements that were implemented as well as its more sober approach to difficulty. As the third installment of the franchise released in as many years for the Game Boy Advance, the game emerges as the end of a process that saw Konami slowly fine-tuning the variables of their Gothic series until they reached a product that is devoid of considerable flaws and balanced in pretty much every single one of its facets. That is what Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow feels like. A haunting quest that is fun and engaging through the entirety of its run, and a culmination of a three-year cycle that produced a trio of appealing Castlevania gamesĪ culmination. ![]()
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