Gaming Target - Game Boy: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Written by Adam Woolcott on June 17, 2003

Review: Konami crafts yet another Symphony

For many Castlevania fans, the finest moment in the series is the incredible Symphony of the Night on the PlayStation - personally, it's my pick for best PlayStation game of all time and one of the top 5 greatest games ever. It is a classic video game in every sense of the word. Ever since then, Konami has tried to repeat the magic of Symphony on the Game Boy Advance, to no avail - while Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance are great games, they just didn't have that magic that made Symphony of the Night such a classic.

Finally, Konami has pulled through with the latest Castlevania adventure, Aria of Sorrow. With Symphony-esque gameplay and a great story that's a Castlevania fans' dream come true, Aria of Sorrow is a mind-bogglingly entertaining GBA game that won't ever get the SOTN recognition simply because it's on the Game Boy, instead of the big 3 home systems. It's a shame too, because like Symphony was on the PlayStation, AoS is the best GBA title yet released for the portable system.

Aria of Sorrow is a departure in many ways for Castlevania - instead of taking place in the past (like way in the past, 1500's and up to the 1800's), Aria takes place in the future - 2035 to be exact. However, there are no flying cars and weird fake technology - it's still Castlevania goodness as you'd remember. You play as Soma Cruz, a foreign exchange student who's viewing a solar eclipse in Japan. All of a sudden though, Soma has a blackout, and reappears in a strange castle - Dracula's castle to be specific - Castlevania. Soma runs into a man named Arikado (who will look extremely familiar to Castlevania fans), who tells him that he must defeat whatever is in control of the castle to save himself (apparently not Dracula - there won't be any spoilers here, you need to play this game yourself) and his friends, who also got trapped in the castle. Soma, unaware of the amount of powers he wields, heads into Castlevania and the adventure through the castle begins.

Like every 2D Castlevania game since Symphony (we shall ignore the mediocre 3D N64 Castlevania games), the castle is laid out in a semi-non-linear structure a la Metroid, with numerous paths that might lead to different areas, or just loop around somehow. While Soma does have a map of the castle, not all of the areas of the castle are shown - exploration is the name of the game. The reason why this game structure never changes is because it works perfectly; throughout the journey, Soma gains new powers that are essential for advancing. There might be a little backtracking, but it's only to forward the game along as you can reach different areas with the new skills.

Given that this is a true spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night, it's not surprising that the main attack methods are the same. Like Alucard before him, Soma gets to equip many different swords and melee weapons to attack the large array of enemies, instead of the traditional Belmont family whip. Also, Soma acquires different defense items and special items that increase different attributes, such as increased luck for better items or increased strength for taking on challenging bosses.

However, not all is same old same old in Aria of Sorrow - instead, Konami has mixed in a very cool soul-based gameplay element, that possibly comes out of Pokemon. Throughout the game, Soma acquires different souls - some are received after killing an enemy, giving him their power, others are given to you after beating bosses. However, it's not easy to collect a majority of them, which is why Konami put a Soul Trade option in the game for trading with a friend through the GBA link cable. Each soul is different - red souls are enemy souls, and work in the same fashion that traditional weapons like Holy Water or the Boomerang would work. You can only equip one at a time and it takes away from your magic meter (refilled with hearts). A blue soul works the same way, only its triggered with the R button. Brown/Cream colored souls are special abilities that are necessary for advancing, such as being able to walk on water and walk underwater. This adds a completely new, cool twist to the series, as you might want to spend more time with the game gathering souls to earn 100% of them. Being able to trade with friends makes it easier - but it's still a fun, enjoyable turn on this venerable series.

All this adds up to an incredibly fun gaming experience. While this is the 4th incarnation of the "Metroidvania" style of play, it still hasn't gotten old because Konami knows how to make the castle seem so different and all the special gameplay twists that keep the series fresh - especially since this is the 3rd Castlevania game in 2 years - we're just 6 months past the release of Harmony of Dissonance! The now-famous tight control returns, as Soma and all his abilities are easy to execute and it creates a lot of variety in the attacks.

Admittedly, Castlevania is a bit confusing sometimes, as the huge castle can result in getting lost - thankfully Konami put in the warps from SOTN to hop from place to place - though once you find a warp, you can go to any of the ones you have found previously; SOTN had specific warps to specific places. Trust me, these will come in handy, especially when you're low on health and items.

Aria of Sorrow is a bit of an improvement in the difficulty department - while Circle of the Moon was very tough, Harmony of Dissonance was quite easy. Aria rests somewhere in the middle, with some tough enemies that can be a pain in the butt if you try to ignore them or can't get a handle on the faster ones (the Valkyrie makes me really irritated, it strikes so quickly). Unfortunately, the boss battles are disappointing. With the exception of one single boss battle later in the game, I beat each boss without dying. It's as if Konami made the actual progression through the game tough, and the bosses easy to knock off. Somehow though, it doesn't matter, as everything clicks once you fall into the world of Aria of Sorrow.

Aria of Sorrow is on the short side, if this is a big deal for you - I beat it in about 6 hours or so. Of course, this is before unlocking a secret character to play as, and of course all the soul collecting and an attempt to get 100%, which increases replay value. It really doesn't mean jack to me though - too many people focus on what should have been done instead of what HAD been done as it is. Plus, 5 hours isn't bad given that we're talking about a small game cartridge that can only hold so much data. And really, who gives a crap when the game is as good as this?

Visually, Aria of Sorrow is 2D goodness personified. With beautiful hand-drawn 2D sprites and backgrounds, it maintains a gothic theme that looks incredible in action, thanks to solid animations for Soma and the enemies. Some of the enemies are gigantic (check out the Big Golem that takes up the entire GBA screen - imagine how big that bastard would look on a TV!). Thankfully, the GBA SP allows for the ability to actually see what's going on (something that forced me to wait until the SP game out to beat Circle of the Moon, which was as dark as the Circle of Hell), and the great 2D graphics shine. It might not be that 3D wow that you'd expect from home consoles, but for old-schoolers who remember the days of orally servicing NES cartridges to make them work properly, this is 2D graphics at their very best.

In Harmony of Dissonance, Konami made a strange blunder - in an attempt to brighten up the graphics, it took processing power for music - and as a result the music was as bad as you'd hear on the NES. With Aria of Sorrow, the music has been brought back to great levels, probably because of the backlight of the GBA SP letting them focus on it, not making sure the game is easy to see without lighting. While they didn't sneak in any classic Castlevania themes or remixes, they did create a chilling, gothic musical score that is pure Castlevania at its haunting best. Though, not all is haunting - it's almost impossible to not want to hum (or play air guitar!) Hammer's theme once you've heard it.