Screenshots :.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
DS
Matt
19-03-2008
"Interesting idea, but the seals frustrate a little."
"This thing's a right bugger."
"That axe is a little on the large size"
"The game's first boss is no stroll in the park."
I have to be completely honest here; my original plan to go on holiday console-free was scuppered by me falling to temptation at the last moment and packing my little DS for the endless car journey through the French countryside. Staring at endless muddy brown fields dotted with ramshackle tumbledown barns wasn’t really a terribly enticing prospect after all, and I’d just managed to lever a second-hand copy of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow from the depths of my local videogame purveyor’s recycle bin having been after the little bugger for the best part of a year.
As you probably don’t remember, it’s been about 12 months since I cast my stylus-wielding hand over Dawn of Sorrow’s follow-up title Portrait of Ruin, with mostly positive results. Going back to Dawn of Sorrow was thus a rather curious experience, especially when I found it actually made more use of the native hardware and its quirky control system than the title that followed it some 15 months later.
Taking place in 2035, the game takes up where Game Boy Advance title Aria of Sorrow (cheerful bunch, eh?) left off, with lead character Soma Cruz having inherited Dracula’s rather fearsome abilities but not become a completely evil loon due to getting a helping hand from a number of buddies. Unluckily for him this event leads to a rather nasty cult forming in order to bump him off and resurrect the Dark Lord for their own purposes, so it’s up to you to take Soma through a twisting castle in order to stop this occurring.
At its heart, Dawn of Sorrow pretty much relies on the tried-and-tested mechanic of exploring certain sections of the map, fighting a number of boss battles and gaining new abilities that expand your exploration options. It’s a big ol’ flower that grows and unfurls as you play, with tons of secrets dotted around for the more exhaustive players to discover and plenty of different themes and enemies to battle through and against.
The game’s method of doing this carries over from Aria, with Soma absorbing enemies’ souls as he defeats them and thereafter being able to equip them to carry out some sort of attack or ability. Pretty much every enemy you come across on your travels will drop a soul at some point or other, ranging from the relatively minor combat-enhancing assets such as being able to throw knives through to crucial progress-allowing moves such as being able to smash blocks of ice using the touch screen, and the power to walk around underwater unbothered by the lack of oxygen. All the while you’ll find yourself levelling up your character, giving you a bit of help along the way as the enemies increase in toughness.
As you’d come to expect from a Castlevania title, this is all really rather finely judged. Plodding around the castle battling against rather angry turnips, furious fish and ubiquitous zombies takes just about the right amount of time before you are plunged into a boss battle or offered a save or warp point to keep your progress, and the sheer amount of abilities on offer means that there’s plenty of options for moulding your little adventure your own way. These souls also come in for different use when it comes to synthesising them with the weapons that you can buy or obtain throughout the game to make them stronger.
As with most Castlevania games, this becomes rather important due to things being rather tough going. Early happenings are easy enough with a few cannon fodder enemies spread about for you to slash your way through, but after a few boss battles take place you’ll notice that you’re having to do a whole lot more ducking and diving to continue your progress. A couple of the enemies – the golden Medusa Heads being a prime example – quickly become the bane of your life and it’s not unusual to have to reload a save game having perished whilst exploring a newly discovered portion of castle. It does get a little frustrating at times, but for the most part the difficulty remains on a constant upward trend and with a little practice you should scrape through reasonably well.
So, what of the DS-specific controls? Well, to be completely honest they don’t actually add much to the experience, and if anything are a bit of a distraction at the worst possible moments. The controls centre around magic seals which pop up when you are just about to defeat a boss, and require you to draw between points dotted around a circle in order to make a shape or sign. In theory this sounds okay, but to do this so quickly after having been using the DS in a traditional Game Boy control manner means that you often have to hash away with your finger rather than having time to use a stylus.
Thus, it’s rare that you get much in the way of precision when trying to finish some bosses off, and failing to complete the requisite seal will end with you having to fight the little bugger a little longer before getting another go. The first few seals the game gives you aren’t too bad in this respect and are more simple shapes, but latter efforts see you having to scribble many more lines and are rather tricky to carry off. You can certainly see what Konami were trying to do with the seal system, but equally it makes you realise that removing the DS-specific controls from Portrait of Ruin was no big loss.
Still, despite all this there’s plenty to get stuck into, with the game keeping a handy library of different enemies, souls and the like for people who want to make sure they get that happy 100% completion feeling. On completion of the game (it throws a good and a bad ending your way, depending on various actions at certain points) you are also offered a boss battle mode to see how quickly you can finish them all off in one big chain, as well as a new mode featuring whip-cracking Julius Belmont that allows you to go through the game as him instead of Soma, with a few moderate differences.
Hence, it more than kept me occupied as I travelled southward through France’s vast countryside. Spending hours with the colourful, gothic backgrounds and classic symphonic soundtrack whilst venturing across the sprawling castle was jolly good fun indeed, and although the DS-specific controls didn’t really add anything to the party it still felt like one of the best Castlevania games I’ve played over the years. Well worth finding on eBay, then!
As you probably don’t remember, it’s been about 12 months since I cast my stylus-wielding hand over Dawn of Sorrow’s follow-up title Portrait of Ruin, with mostly positive results. Going back to Dawn of Sorrow was thus a rather curious experience, especially when I found it actually made more use of the native hardware and its quirky control system than the title that followed it some 15 months later.
Taking place in 2035, the game takes up where Game Boy Advance title Aria of Sorrow (cheerful bunch, eh?) left off, with lead character Soma Cruz having inherited Dracula’s rather fearsome abilities but not become a completely evil loon due to getting a helping hand from a number of buddies. Unluckily for him this event leads to a rather nasty cult forming in order to bump him off and resurrect the Dark Lord for their own purposes, so it’s up to you to take Soma through a twisting castle in order to stop this occurring.
At its heart, Dawn of Sorrow pretty much relies on the tried-and-tested mechanic of exploring certain sections of the map, fighting a number of boss battles and gaining new abilities that expand your exploration options. It’s a big ol’ flower that grows and unfurls as you play, with tons of secrets dotted around for the more exhaustive players to discover and plenty of different themes and enemies to battle through and against.
The game’s method of doing this carries over from Aria, with Soma absorbing enemies’ souls as he defeats them and thereafter being able to equip them to carry out some sort of attack or ability. Pretty much every enemy you come across on your travels will drop a soul at some point or other, ranging from the relatively minor combat-enhancing assets such as being able to throw knives through to crucial progress-allowing moves such as being able to smash blocks of ice using the touch screen, and the power to walk around underwater unbothered by the lack of oxygen. All the while you’ll find yourself levelling up your character, giving you a bit of help along the way as the enemies increase in toughness.
As you’d come to expect from a Castlevania title, this is all really rather finely judged. Plodding around the castle battling against rather angry turnips, furious fish and ubiquitous zombies takes just about the right amount of time before you are plunged into a boss battle or offered a save or warp point to keep your progress, and the sheer amount of abilities on offer means that there’s plenty of options for moulding your little adventure your own way. These souls also come in for different use when it comes to synthesising them with the weapons that you can buy or obtain throughout the game to make them stronger.
As with most Castlevania games, this becomes rather important due to things being rather tough going. Early happenings are easy enough with a few cannon fodder enemies spread about for you to slash your way through, but after a few boss battles take place you’ll notice that you’re having to do a whole lot more ducking and diving to continue your progress. A couple of the enemies – the golden Medusa Heads being a prime example – quickly become the bane of your life and it’s not unusual to have to reload a save game having perished whilst exploring a newly discovered portion of castle. It does get a little frustrating at times, but for the most part the difficulty remains on a constant upward trend and with a little practice you should scrape through reasonably well.
So, what of the DS-specific controls? Well, to be completely honest they don’t actually add much to the experience, and if anything are a bit of a distraction at the worst possible moments. The controls centre around magic seals which pop up when you are just about to defeat a boss, and require you to draw between points dotted around a circle in order to make a shape or sign. In theory this sounds okay, but to do this so quickly after having been using the DS in a traditional Game Boy control manner means that you often have to hash away with your finger rather than having time to use a stylus.
Thus, it’s rare that you get much in the way of precision when trying to finish some bosses off, and failing to complete the requisite seal will end with you having to fight the little bugger a little longer before getting another go. The first few seals the game gives you aren’t too bad in this respect and are more simple shapes, but latter efforts see you having to scribble many more lines and are rather tricky to carry off. You can certainly see what Konami were trying to do with the seal system, but equally it makes you realise that removing the DS-specific controls from Portrait of Ruin was no big loss.
Still, despite all this there’s plenty to get stuck into, with the game keeping a handy library of different enemies, souls and the like for people who want to make sure they get that happy 100% completion feeling. On completion of the game (it throws a good and a bad ending your way, depending on various actions at certain points) you are also offered a boss battle mode to see how quickly you can finish them all off in one big chain, as well as a new mode featuring whip-cracking Julius Belmont that allows you to go through the game as him instead of Soma, with a few moderate differences.
Hence, it more than kept me occupied as I travelled southward through France’s vast countryside. Spending hours with the colourful, gothic backgrounds and classic symphonic soundtrack whilst venturing across the sprawling castle was jolly good fun indeed, and although the DS-specific controls didn’t really add anything to the party it still felt like one of the best Castlevania games I’ve played over the years. Well worth finding on eBay, then!
8/10
