Review: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA)

Set in the year 2035, Dracula has been completely destroyed and his castle imprisoned in a solar eclipse meaning he cannot reform to terrorise the world. The Belmont family have long stopped waiting for the return of the master of darkness and disappeared into history.

Enter Soma Cruz who, along with his girlfriend find themselves mystically transported inside the solar eclipse. Here a new threat is awakening, as DraculaÂ’s powers will soon begin to burn in the heart of an heir. The name of this terrifying heir? The man who will become the most feared and evil creation on the planet? His name is Graham. Aria of Sorrow marks a change in style for the Castlevania series; both in terms of look and play mechanics. Long gone is the medieval gothic feel that became associated with the Belmont family. Instead characters lean towards a much more Japanese cyber punk style, all androgynous men and long white hair, a long way from the headband wearing valiant knights of yester year.

The new Japanese style works brilliantly and keeps with the mood of the Castlevania series. Acting as a breath of fresh air to a series beginning to become stale. Along with the new style come some minor changes in the game mechanics. Most noticeably you no longer have to use the whip to dispatch enemies, now being able to choose from a huge range of weapons ranging from ordinary knives to the odd cavalry lance. As the adventure unravels Soma begins to find he can absorb powers from defeated enemies. This adds a lot more depth to your play and gives yet more weapons and magic spells to be played around with.

The absorbing skills system acts to make no two games alike as collecting all the monsters powers is almost impossible in any one game. With this in mind a link up option has been included allowing budding vampire hunters to trade skills much in the same way as trading Pokemon. Graphically the game is gorgeous, with ridiculous levels of detail apparent in the background art and the castles evil minions, most of which are different from previouse Castlevania games. Very cleverly the developers have finally realised that though big castles are meant to be dark, the Game Boy Advance dose not like it. Meaning that with the move to cyber punk comes a lot more light and subtle shades of blue and white, allowing the player to see what is going on much more clearly.

Gameplay wise everything is like a dream, though the set up is slightly better for a Game Boy Advance rather than an SP. Simply because of where the pause and select buttons are located, making accessing the map on an SP a touch tricky but this is just a tiny fault. Soma Cruz is just about the most playable character to be found in a GBA game. He jumps, dashes back, fights and flies with an ease and grace that shames most games, a good thing considering the hordes of monsters that confront you at every opportunity. Coupled with the excellent controls comes a vicious addictive streak meaning you keep pushing forward to find the next section, willing the plot to reveal its next gem of information.

Cleverly, the learning curve of the game has been set just right. Very rarely do you find yourself in a situation where you feel overwhelmed by what your facing. And when something truly nasty is about test you to your limits you can be sure there is a handy save room in just the right place. Meaning you never come across a boss monster with one hit point and no magic left. Everything just seems a whole lot more fair than in the last two GBA outings. Saying that however the game may be a touch to easy to provide a long lasting challenge for the more hardcore Castlevania fan.

Overall Aria of Sorrow improves and develops upon its predecessors. Better graphics, sound, story, gameplay and style all add up to a brilliant action adventure with a touch of RPG about it. It truly is a shame that the loyal fan base of the series will be more or less the only people who get the game as it is one of the best games available on the GBA, and the best in the Castlevania Advance series so far. My only hope is that the next adventure is set somewhere outside of a castle, there really is only so much exploring to be done in DraculaÂ’s house. Castlevania 2 on the NES provided the same type of adventure but allowed a much larger variety of locations and would make an excellent base from which to develop the next title.

Rating: 8 / 10

Words by Gareth Chappell