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Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Ah, Castlevania. One of the few words that when uttered will fill an old school gamer’s heart with glee. Or something like that. Anyway, few series of games can boast the history of consistent excellence that Konami’s vampire slaying romps enjoy. There may be a dud or two in the stable, but for nearly two decades now the trials and tribulations of the Belmont clan and those who oppose Dracula have kept many a fan entertained.

The latest in the cherished series, Aria of Sorrow, has arrived and is the third Castlevania title to reach the GBA in a span of less than two years. You’d think that by now we’d need to be concerned with the series getting stale. But relax vampire hunters, even though this one doesn’t stray far from the formula established by Symphony of the Night and the two previous GBA titles, Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance, it still manages to impress with its gameplay, graphics and sound.

On the visual front, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow easily surpasses both of its GBA predecessors. Soma Cruz, our latest androgynous hero, is animated nearly as well as Alucard was in SotN on the Playstation and Saturn. Most of the foes Soma encounters share this exceptional quality. Some of them move so smoothly and feature so many frames of animation you’ll wonder how they squeezed everything into a tiny little GBA cart.

Unlike last year’s Harmony of Dissonance, the backgrounds this time around don’t look too pastel and aren’t too brightly colored, yet remain clear and easy to see even if you’re stuck playing this on a ‘classic’ GBA. Aria also has a few ‘wow’ moments with impressive visual effects including a nice update to the whole rolling cloud thing the designers and developers seem so enamored with.

I wasn’t sure whether or not Konami would deliver on it’s promise of better music quality. Their excuse for Harmony last year was that the graphics and effects were too complicated to devote the system resources necessary for higher quality music. Since this game looks better than Harmony, there was cause for concern. Thankfully, the soundtrack is very good this time around. Michiru Yamane composed the music for Aria. [cue Troy McClure voiceover] You may remember her as the composer of such soundtracks as Castlevania: Bloodlines and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. [/voiceover] The clarity of the instruments is a notch below Circle of the Moon but the composition is absolutely first rate. Some may find the songs a bit heavy or a little too classical, but if you liked Ms. Yamane’s work in Bloodlines or Symphony, you should really dig the music in Aria. Personally, I think Aria has the finest original soundtrack to the grace the GBA.

For a real treat, head over to Konami of Japan’s download page to hear much higher quality renditions of a few of the songs from the game and imagine what could have been if the GBA had an adequate sound chip.

Don’t let all the hoopla about this game’s futuristic setting and gameplay alterations fool you, Aria of Sorrow is very traditional. The story is goofy, as you might expect and told through equally goofy cut scenes. The only trace of anything futuristic is a crappy little handgun that he-she hero Soma finds toward the end of the adventure.

The new soul system really fits right into the game and handily replaces the sub weapon and relic systems. Every foe has a chance of surrendering their soul when defeated, some have more of a chance than others. There are three different types of souls: Red souls, which give Soma the attack abilities like throwing skeleton bones or spinning axes, Blue Souls which give Soma abilities like transforming into a bat and Green souls which are sort of a grab bag and often bolster some of Soma’s stats. Soma can have one soul of each color equipped simultaneously. A few souls are necessary to complete the game, but you needn’t collect them all unless you want to. Be warned, collecting every soul will take many, many hours. For you gotta’ catch-em-all types, you can link up with a friend to trade souls.

The general gameplay itself is much more similar to SotN than the previous two GBA titles, yet unlike Harmony, it never feels like a cheapened rehash. Yes, many of Soma’s special moves like the rocket jump and dashing have become a staple of the series, but they’re a little less important now thanks to the inclusion of special soul abilties.

Unlike Harmony, the enemies in Aria are a much better balance of the old and the new rather than a bunch of rehashed foes. The bosses in Aria are mainly of the pattern based variety employed by Harmony but are sometimes a little more vicious like those found in Circle of the Moon. Despite early claims by the developers that this game was harder than Harmony, I found it much, much easier.

Backtracking was a pain in Harmony, flipping between the two nearly identical castles was a time consuming pain the ass. The backtracking required in Aria is completely painless by comparison. Once you enter a warp gate in Aria, you can select any other warp gate that you have visited at least one time as your destination instead of hopping though three or four warp rooms sequentially to reach your destination as in SotN or CotM or dealing with the atrocious two castle warp system of Harmony.

One particularly positive feature Harmony brought to the table has returned – you can save at any time and restart at the last save room you visited before quitting.

The only problems to be found in Aria of Sorrow are that it is relatively short and some souls are way too hard to collect. I completed it my first time through in just over four hours, but I didn’t get everything or fulfill the requirements to see the real ending. There are some locations with secrets that will require special techniques or soul powers to uncover and it’ll probably tak more than one playthrough for most gamers to figure them out. If you want to do everything (other than collecting every soul), you’re probably looking at about 8-10 hours depending on your skill. This is one game where you won’t just feel like you could play it again after finishing it your first time… you most likely WILL play it again, probably right away. I’ve finished it four times already and haven’t played a single game through so often in many years.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is an amazing GBA game and in terms of playability it rivals the mighty Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The graphics and sound are both top of the line and the music is some of the best yet to eminate from the GBA. The pristine control and play mechanics are nicely complimented by the soul collection system which adds even more depth to the series. I had a lot of problems with last year’s Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance even though I thought it was still a decent game. Thankfully, every complaint I had about that one has been completely rectified here. No one that owns a GBA should be without Aria of Sorrow, it’s as simple as that.

If Harmony of Dissonance left a somewhat sour taste in your mouth last year with its aggrivating warp system, some pastel backgrounds, the ugly animation of its main character Juste and its complete lack of originality, Aria will blisfully wash all of that away. The graphics are great, the classical style soundtrack is very well composed, the soul system adds a lot of depth to the game and traversing the castle is as simple as can be and it’s clear this game is the real successor to Symphony of the Night.

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Posted by Larry McCormick on Aug 22nd, 2003 and is filed under GBA Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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