Which Soma Cruz adventure did you like more Aria Of Sorrow or Dawn Of Sorrow? And if you want to see all my other Igavania vids, go here :D th-cam.com/play/PLYwJcYYZUDNr8T4G2bT4SUbp3bT4Vww1H.html
Hmm, I think, hmm. Well, this is actually more difficult than I thought. But I have to choose dawn, if not just for the cv-3 mode, but aria is still a beast.
@@azurecorviknight4189 You could put it that way for sure, however it is far more limited. You're essentially creating a gauntlet of enemies to run through more so than actual levels.
And his "Ningen me!!" line was supposed to be used towards Hammer because at one point he was considered to be playable in Julius Mode, we were robbed.
I just find it impressive Konami made the handheld Castlevenia games back to back to back like this. Bringing out a new one roughly about every 1,5 years and having them all be consistently good. They all follow the template of Symphony of the Night and they all do it justice as well as each one standing out from the others in some way or another.
@@diegomedina9637 The GBA has a different architecture and a different resolution and aspect ratio. You can't just reuse assets from the PS1 on the GBA. You also can't use assets from the SNES on the GBA either, despite the high number of ports they were all made from the ground up. Though the GBA castlevenia games did reuse assets between each other.
I get Iga's logic with the art shift, I really do (Dawn was my first CV, after all), but I really wish he hired an anime character designer that fits Castlevania's gothic aesthetic instead of the generic dime-a-dozen look we got. Someone like Atsuko Nakajima or Hideyuki Morioka would've done wonders in translating Ayami Kojima's art into a traditional anime style. At least the opening movie was cool.
An Igavania with the artistic direction of Nakajima or Morioka would be interesting for sure! The way I understand it, they were going fast and cheap for Dawn Of Sorrow. It's fair to say once Curse Of Darkness released and failed to meet Konami's expectations, the later DS entries were treated with a bit more care in regards to the artistic direction.
@@gabrielmendes9927For real. DoS has a very bland art style for the portraits. OoE, on the other hand, while clesrly different from the style of Aria, has a very fancy and gorgeous art style that fits perfectly with the Game.
@@TheLoganLives makes it so the luck stat actually makes a noticeable difference to the RNG of enemies dropping their souls. The vanilla game is kind of broken in that it takes way too much unnecessary grinding to get some souls.
@@robertbektas1810 1) get clean copy of rom 2) get both patches 3) get patching tool or go to a website that can do it for you. Google will help you locate all of those things.
it was not actually, they said they wanted to experiment with the hardware and ended up there , its one thing to add in a couple gimmicks but very much another to create a complex seal system which changes with each boss
Honestly, with as little detail as Castlevania maps give you, it would have been nice to write notes on it, something akin to Etrian Odyssey. Would've been perfect for the DS, at that.
I mean, it IS practical and interesting though. People are justlazy to do something different other than just pressing buttons to play. It's not even annoying tbh
It's great, but Aria had a better story and characters. Graham is the better villain, turning into Dracula with the secret is really cool, I do like fighting Soma in Dawn though, that was like the coolest thing ever
@@orangeslash1667 I really love that game (I even have the credit music on my channel lol) but it’s nothing like the sorrow castlevanias. Btw, there’s a way to spam heavy attacks in 9YoS. Kinda hard to explain and I made a post on the steam page but basically you have to time your crouch the second you heavy attack goes out and it cancels the lag. I kinda see it like L-cancelling from smash melee
Just found your channel and just watched the whole Igavania playlist. Hope life is going well and can't wait for your Portrait of Ruin and Order Of Ecclesia video
The release of the Castlevania Advance Collection led me to look for relevant videos about the series, and that led me to you. I’ve been going through your videos, and I must say that they are informative, well-written, well-edited, clever, and even funny at times. You are doing incredible work on this channel, and you deserve a bigger following. I hope it finds you. I will certainly be talking you up. :)
As someone who ADORES magic seals, i didnt mind it at all. It was easy to remember and awesome to pull off correctly. As a child it felt like you have to do some actual precise magic.
I liked Dawn of Sorrow, being my intro to Castlevania. But i really liked playing Portrait of Ruin, i played Order of Ecclesia for one bit but that game felt a bit harder than i thought
One of my favorite Castlevania games. It's in my Top 3. GREAT VIDEO! Were you originally going to call it "Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow | Better Than Symphony?" as your narration suggests?
Dawn was my first Castlevania, so I had no idea about the artstyle change and thus didn't mind it. And personally, I love the magic circles xD I think they added a good bit of flavour to the game, having to not only weaken the boss, but having to seal it away too was awesome. And I got so in tune with them that I tried to go as fast as possible lmao Totally get that it's not for everyone, tho! All the other points I agree with fully 😄
and honestly the seals aren't that hard to do. Just connect the dots in the right order as quickly as possible. I don't think it had to be perfect straight slashes. and jsut have your stylus out between your index and middle finger. Isn't to hard to managed while still holding the DS normally
For the record, I never really was bothered by the magic seals that much. They are gimmicky, but they didn't ruin the experience for me. The one issue that I had with it was remembering which seal needed to used on what boss! Regarding the enemies not leveling up at the same level as Soma, out of all of the Iga Castlevania games, I believe that Order of Ecclesia corrects this issue.
Dawn of Sorrow is IMO the best Igavania, with a caveat, a no-touchscreen rom hack. Game is 100% better off without that gimmick. Also I didn't hate the cheaper aesthetic, but that's just me. In any case, DoS feels like a definitive refinement over Aria, and even SotN. Gone are the hardware restrictions and the less refined decisions of the first Igavania. DoS is the realest deal IMO. Also Julius mode is just... *chef kiss*
I've seen a few mentions of the romhack that removes the touchscreen nonsense, honestly it's removal would elevate it so much as it really was the thing that stuck with me most before revisiting the game. In some ways I actually think I misremembered Dawn Of Sorrows better elements as being from Aria Of Sorrow, so it was pleasant surprise to revisit Dawn and have the realisation that this game was way better than I remember. And yes, so far DOS Julius Mode is the best alt character mode I've played. We'll see if they manage to surpass it in Portrait or Ecclesia :D
most people ignore that the portraits in DoS are also far more expressive and varied than in AoS. Soma for one has like 10 portraits rather than 2, and most of them are actually made for game rather than AoS where pretty much all portraits are extremely compressed character artwork, which leads to some hilarious moments such as when Yoko was stabbed and both Soma and Yoko still used their usual portraits.
Dawn of Sorrow is probably my personal favorite and now that Aria of Sorrow got a rerelease on Switch I PRAY that Dawn gets a rerelease. I will die happy.
Just caught up with your whole retrospective and I loved it. Mad respect for getting this far with massive gaps in upload, I know life can get rough. While I've played most the classic games, the only Igarashi game I beat (and completed) was SotN. I was interested in trying his other ones and you've definitely made me more inclined for some of them, especially with Curse of Darkness which I previously wasn't too interested in. I'm a little less excited about Harmony of Dissonance now but given that it's Igarashi's first game after Symphony I don't wanna skip it.
Can't wait for portrait of ruin! Played it back when I was a kid, had no idea it was part of a trilogy or that there were gba games. I remember liking it a lot as a kid
Portrait is an interesting one in that it brings back characters from Bloodlines, as well as having a lot of the dev team from Circle Of The Moon. I remember really liking it back when it first released so I'm looking forward to this revisit :)
Dawn of Sorrow had cool soul combinations. Order of Ecclesia was really fast paced and had the dual weapon system. Portrait of Ruin was really fun having two characters to fight with throughout the game
Dawn of Sorrow was a great game but to be honest I didn't like its castle nearly as much as aria's, I also preferred how much meatier the sound was in aria. Even though the story is better executed than in aria I always felt that aria was a better overall epilogue to the series than dawn, idk aria feels like the ending to the eternal struggle between the world and Dracula while dawn felt like another day in the life of a teenager with superpowers.
i dont really understand what you mean by meatier sound the soundtrack certainly isnt and the animations are quite lacking in aria in comparison i cant recall much difference in sound effects , but i guess at least in premise aria has a very end of the story feel, although i think dawn has merits in Soma being more active in his decision making and it covers the resurrection narrative dracula is forever stuck in every 100 years
@@Stevem by meatier i mean the sound when you attack the enemies, I don't know how to explain it but the sound feels better to me in Aria than in Dawn. I agree with you with Dawn having a better portrayal of most characters and the game having an overall better narrative than Aria.
Dawn of Sorrow is my favorite Castlevania game, period. I have no issue with the art style as I like both beautiful gothic from Miss Ayami Kojima and the more simple Anime style, there is no better or worse it's just different style. And as an artist I also has zero problem with the Seal system for I can draw it easily (But I agree it is too gimmicky the game doesn't need it, and shouldn't have it as it only hinder players who don't have certain skill that out of needed to enjoy action games). Other aspects of the game are just great, no complain.
Dawn is a great game but something about it doesn't feel right. I think Soma moves to slow, what I think happened is they wanted to keep him the same speed as he was in Aria but the castle in Dawn is way bigger, not only that dawn is harder then Aria in the sense that the enemies take longer to kill which makes traversing the castle without the panther soul even more tedious. Also it seems there is a lot more dead ends and geometry to move around then in Aria but this is hard to quantify. If they ever do a re release I think an option to make Soma walk faster would make new players like it more without altering the game to much. Also the pacing and the flow of exploration doesn't feel as good as Aria but this is hard to substantiate. I love Dawn of Sorrow don't get me wrong but I honestly prefer Aria.
Same for me I much prefer the physics in aria and subsequently the charcter control Feels far more fluid and responsive And I can spam my bullet souls Which form my experience in dawn is a bit harder to spam making the combat pace feel slower to me I also Pefer the locations and and map layout in aria as well
i love dawn of sorrow but the horrendous seal system stops it from being my favorite, The final boss didnt have it and neither did Julius mode its almost as if they relaized at the last minute how bad it was
"Younger gamers tend not to like Miss Kojima's more aesthetic style so much" you were so wrong Iga, 14 yo me loved it and I still do. Evil Soma even appealed to teen angst dead on.
I dunno if the magic seals were more difficult on the DS, but I had no problem with them emulating on my phone. I only missed a seal once my entire playthrough.
Never was a fan of this one at release and vastly preferred Aria. But finding a rom patch that removed seals and switched character art to Aria's portraits and playing on a giant tablet made me really love this one. Those seals were a dealbreaker but such a good game hiding underneath
The problem with DoS art style is not that it looks anime, it's that it looks bad. No one criticises Rondo Of Bloods visual design because that game looks great, it's full of 90's Anime charm and it came out in 93 a time before Castlevania had a definitive style to call it's own. The environment was very different in 2005 since at that time Ayami Kojima's designs had become the undisputed look of Castlevania. So of course people were going to have more of an intense reaction once the style was changed, more importantly the quality of that art was not to the standards that had been set by Kojima.
You know , i would like if they tried another anime style once more , but with more refinement. Because i've seen some fan art which honestly , could make potrait work better.
For me Dawn was bit of a chore to play. When I finally played it through on emulator (no romhacks), I just brute forced it through. Something just bothered me with it. Maybe it was the flow?
There's alot to love in that game. Getting new souls and trying then to see what they do, refining new weapons with Yoko, trying to defeat bosses in a new game+ using weaker weapons, like the handgun. You probably have to play it with an open heart to be able to look past it's flaws.
as someone whose played on og hardware it does improve the seal process since mouse is pure hate but it's still not great playing with a hack with basically save the game its so much better without that seal stuff it's not even funny
Another excellent video, glad you are back! I think Dawn is certainly my least favorite of the DS Igavanias, but that is not to say it is bad. DoS certainly did better than AoS in my opinion by simply expanding on the core elements that Aria had, but I couldn't agree more with the touchscreen issue and the art style change. It's still an undoubtedly solid entry in the series with plenty of both main-game and new-game content (I really enjoyed all of the weapons you could get with soul-synthesis and that each weapon type sort of had its own late-game variant, and Julius mode in this is the coolest. I loved getting to play as Alucard! The special final boss and the interaction between the different characters was so cool as well.) Can't wait to hear what you have to say about Portrait of Ruin... probably my favorite Igavania!
Thank you I'm glad you liked it! I try my best to speed up the time I take to make videos, unfortunately life gets in the way a lot ^^; I do get a feeling that Portrait and Ecclesia are overall better games than Dawn, or at least that's how I remember it. I think had Dawn kept Ayami Kojima's style and held back on the Touch Screen gimmicks I'd honestly be saying it's on the same level if not better than Symphony Of The Night. I'm excited to get stuck into Portrait, I'll try my best to get it out as soon as possible :D
Feel like I'm one of very few that actually liked the seals. Made me feel like a wizard drawing magic circles. I definitely see why people don't like them though. Especially if an emulator was used along with a mouse. Mouses are precise, but difficult to go that fast with.
i would say in terms of level design, aria of sorrow do better, IMHO the area that its well worked its the lost village and part of the condenmed tower, but the rest of the maps feels like random platformers designs which made me wonder if dawn of sorrow was rushed. on the other side gameplay its more polished than aria of sorrow and many souls have new combinations (but still wonder what kind of soul attack would be that "werewolf projection" that i found in some sprites sheets of soma), plus the julius mode now have 3 characters to use. definitively improved many things from aria of sorrow, but in my view, the order of the DS metroidvanias in term of level design its: 1.- portrait of ruin 2.- order of ecclesia 3.- dawn of sorrow
You know what's cool for the sequel ? Alucard's thought of being the Dark Lord if necessary. In Julius mode , Alucard was one of the fighter who fought Dark Lord Soma. This time , reverse the role ; Soma fought the Dark Lord Alucard instead. Alucard from antagonistic pov sounds interesting to do.
Aria of sorrow has mostly comfy boss battle while dawn of sorrow has annoying seals in every boss battle, In aria of sorrow soma feels quick, while in dawn of sorrow he feels slow(mostly while using the big swords). In aria of sorrow hammer theme sounds like soldier music(wich fits really well for him). While in dawn of sorrow hammer theme sounds like christmas music(very out of place because he is not santa claus). Dawn of sorrow is not bad, but i prefer aria of sorrow.
I'm a new subscriber on your channel, been wanting to fill the void with Castlevania content, and not a lot of channels cover these great beloved games, can't believe you even went through the PS2 games, which in my opinion is one of the greatest game I've ever played (mostly CoD), i mean the content in it was so generous i could have at least spent more hours in it than any other game that has come in previous years. Recently subscribed and hoping for more content to come! Great video editing and all around well put criticism, can't wait for your video on Portrait of Ruin, one of my favs to come out of DS. Cheers!
have just returned to the franchise as I wait for the 4th season of the Netflix series, while watching memes and I came across to this video. Haven't played the game myself, BUT I CAN TELL THE SEALS ARE PAINFUL, that little voice acting bit for the fiction at the end is cute! Please keep up the effort! P.S do you have the link to the fiction? Because it seems like I can't find it anywhere in the net
I did my best to make the voice acting sound like a scene from Symphony Of The Night, so I'm glad you enjoyed it :) Here is the full translation for Ricordanza castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,6118.0.html
Feel it’s worth mentioning that Dawn’s soundtrack was co-composed by Masahiko Kimura, who also worked on the N64 Castlevania soundtrack, and that all of the tracks mentioned in this video are by him. It is weird to me how available information is now for credits on video games, and yet how inaccurate the attribution of authorship continues to be, especially as it regards games’ music.
Dawn of Sorrow was the first Igavania I owned. After playing Aria of Sorrow all the way through soon after, I liked that one much more. But DoS felt important enough to me that I gave it to a dear friend before moving away. It has a charm Your videos encouraged me to revisit it. My feelings haven't changed. The map & level themes feel disjointed, the soul drop rate feels lower (either due to math or because of the enemy variety), and something about the enemy & encounter design feels wonky somehow. Like, in Aria, there are so many ways your movement is recontextualized, like fighting Barbarosas when moving horizontally vs. vertically. Or early on when you fight armors and skeletons cordoned off with Une-infested pits. DoS has more crazy options for your offense, but there are very few enemy arrangements which force interesting movement. One area that hasn't been topped since Dawn of Sorrow: NASTY GORE AND HORROR. Blood, chunks, too-tight skin, MEAT... I'm particularly fond of the Homonculi. When I first saw one swim off their tube and drown, I yelled "EWW!" It rules. And the variety of weapons is choice. This latest run, I got a Skelerang soul, and I went through most of the game with a scythe. It felt like my playthrough was unique! And I guess that's what's good about the low drop rate for souls; you're forced to improvise some during replays if you want to speed through.
Apparently Hammer was originally going to be the playable Grant equivalent for Julius mode, but they cut him out for whatever reason. Yet another case of Grant being forgotten.
It's an emulator thing bruv. It's a bit of a giant pain in the ass on emulator. Course there are patches for it, but then you get guys like me who are "well I'd emulate it, but I don't want to go that little bit extra to patch it, so I just won't play it." Good thing that Castlevania DS trilogy collection came out not too long ago.
I'd personally prefer Aria , but i like if Soma has another game , and make it a crossover timeline ; which also gave the other timeline characters ( Potrait of Ruin , Order of Ecclesia ) a spotlight too.
Or Dawn of Sorrow sequel in reverse. Remember when Alucard implying that he'll be the Dark Lord if necessary ? Have the story based on that. To make it better , probably do the reverse Julius Mode. Remember when in Julius mode Alucard had to fight Dark Lord Soma ? Reverse it , you play as Soma and you have to face Dark Lord Alucard.
The decision to shift to anime art specifically for a YOUNGER demographic was also fueled by some badly-interpreted analytics, to put it bluntly. They thought the 3DS's install base was predominantly younger and so chose a style they hoped would appeal to younger gamers. By the time Order of Ecclesia rolled around they had stopped leaning on that perception so hard. But at least the anime look improved somewhat for Portrait of Ruin (and didn't tonally clash with the story as much...).
Dawn of sorrow, as a game, is really good. The first one to use the DS revamped engine, which makes it very close to sotn. The story, i'll be honest, goes from serviceable to bad. I hope someone using dsvania editor remakes AoS using DoS engine. That would make it so much more perfect. One day... Ps: one thing i thought was pretty cool, is the fact that it is supposed to be a replica of Aria's castle. If you look at the placement of areas, they're located mostly at the same area of their equivalent, like the garden in the middle of the castle.
That's a great point I think it would be really interesting to see Aria with a Dawn Of Sorrow facelift, as the animations were honestly so distracting for me in Aria. I do think as silly as the story is, I found myself appreciating Soma and his friends a bit more. Felt like I got to know who them a bit better. I'd have to look at the maps back to back again but that's interesting.
konami should be re-releasing all the ds games in castlevania ds collection im sure its coming but when dont know and i will be more then happy to buy that collection all these castlevania ds games are a must have and i will pay to buy a collection for the ps4 and other consoles .!!
There was another video that elaborated on why Iga changed the art style for this game. While the GBA Castlevania titles were well received, they underperformed in sales and Iga couldn't understand at the time on why that was. So instead of using the gothic-style artwork for the box cover and cut scenes he opted to change to an anime-style to see if that would drive sales. Lo and behold the game became a hit, because more parents bought it for their children. Also, the game is very fun almost on par with SOTN imo.
I LOVE Aria and Dawn of Sorrow. I hate this "people hated it (the artwork)" crap. The anime artwork and portraits being ugly is WAY overdone. The artwork looks good and people just hate on it because its anime style. It annoys me so much to hear. Drawing the symbols was kind of annoying and universally hated so it was dropped from the other DS games.
Reasons i hate DOS compared to AOS: 2h are very slow compared to aria. Water boss. Bugged luck And..... TOUCH SCREEN MECHANICS. Need to collect 9 souls to power up Well romhack fixes most of them
I don't hate it cus it's an anime style, I fucking love anime, I hate it cus it looks ugly and flat as hell. If it had a clear style like Dragon Ball Z/Chrono Trigger/Dragons Quest or Hellsing it wouldn't be as bad. But it looks like a weird hybrid between anime and western animation without the strengths of either and has really off-looking coloring. Which sucks cus the rest of the game is gorgeous.
I think the anime style actually works for castlevania I really like the look of portrait of ruin i think it’s cause the character designs weren’t drawn for the anime art style making it look hideous
There is a fan translation online of the entire novel, I then read out that one specific part. Here's a link if you would like to read it yourself :) castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,6118.0.html
I've always been a huge retrovania fan, Castlevania III, IV, bloodlines and Rondo of blood were all time favorites. Recently I started playing the Igavania games, and boy I've been missing out. Luckily I heard about the seal issues with Dawn of Sorrow before a played it and a friend gave me a copy of the Definite + edition, which just removed the seals. I gotta say, it's an amazing game. It might be better than SOTN in my opinion.
I...honestly liked the art in this game and PoR, for the most part. I think Soma and Arikado look honestly...cooler in this style. (And if there's one thing we can remember from the ending of Aria, it's that Soma is a lot cooler now!) Ayami Kojima's work is gorgeous when looking at it on its own, but I think the GBA's bitcrunching really didn't do it any favors at all. You'd also never get to see a fully animated intro like Dawn had with the more complicated artwork, and I personally really adore the Dawn intro, especially when you see Soma drawing out the Magic Seal like that alone almost makes me not completely despise the mechanic. Only art from this game that struck me as "hilariously bad" were some of the *extremely* over-the-top yelling sprites that Julius and Arikado had, but I think they just add more to the charm than anything else. It's a very old-school anime aesthetic, and one I personally quite enjoy. I think you ragging on it for so long is just...mean-spirited in general, but whatever. The only art that deserves to be ragged on for this long is Dracula in Portrait of Ruin because god does he look wack. (Charlotte's pouty face redeems this and then some, though. Now *that* is something you'd never see in Kojima art.)
The story is better than Aria? Hardly. Nothing remotely interesting happens throughout the game. The characters are one dimensional except almost all of them have become caricatures of cliche anime tropes. There is no sense of tension, no drama, no interesting plot revelations. You are just traveling from point A to point B mindlessly mowing down everything in your path. Even when there is something even remotely interesting happening on screen, it is dismissed until much later and there is not payoff to the established mystery. Even the main antagonist comments on how leisurely Soma is taking the mission before she gets killed off by Dimitri. The side protagonists characters also have nothing to do. At least in Aria, they were given the illusion that they were doing something. All the side characters existence in Dawn was completely pointless when they could have been so much more involved in meaningful ways. In essence, this is just the same game packaged as a sequel. Same weapons, same abilities, same characters. The differences are all significantly negative in Dawn. The use of the stylus as you mentioned. The bosses are ok but the night creatures are just plain lame. The atmosphere is far too relaxing. The leveling up system might as well not even exist since it hardly makes a difference in your stats. The souls are MUCH less useful than is Aria. You generally feel MUCH weaker despite this being a Soma that is familiar with his abilities. Better than Aria of Sorrow? They way I see it, almost everything is WORSE THAN Aria of Sorrow.
Which Soma Cruz adventure did you like more Aria Of Sorrow or Dawn Of Sorrow?
And if you want to see all my other Igavania vids, go here :D
th-cam.com/play/PLYwJcYYZUDNr8T4G2bT4SUbp3bT4Vww1H.html
Hmm, I think, hmm. Well, this is actually more difficult than I thought. But I have to choose dawn, if not just for the cv-3 mode, but aria is still a beast.
@@Neobelmont1 Omg I love the Julius Mode in Dawn so bloody much :D
I have a small question about the multiplayer mode... Is it literally Mario maker before it even existed?
@@azurecorviknight4189 You could put it that way for sure, however it is far more limited. You're essentially creating a gauntlet of enemies to run through more so than actual levels.
For me, definitely Aria of Sorrow.
They gave Dark Lord Soma a unique voice line for each Julius mode character depending on who confronts him! Truly an epic boss battle.
And his "Ningen me!!" line was supposed to be used towards Hammer because at one point he was considered to be playable in Julius Mode, we were robbed.
his voice and aesthetic as dark lord was so cool to me as a kid, I wished there was a dark lord mode aswell
Julius even says that he is sorry if he kills soma, the others don't
ARUKADO
@@TheSmestn ベルモンドー! ヴェルナンデス! I would imagine Hammer is the descendant of Grant de Nasti.
I just find it impressive Konami made the handheld Castlevenia games back to back to back like this. Bringing out a new one roughly about every 1,5 years and having them all be consistently good. They all follow the template of Symphony of the Night and they all do it justice as well as each one standing out from the others in some way or another.
Well that's mostly because they just reused 99% of the assets from Symphony of the Night.
@@diegomedina9637 The GBA has a different architecture and a different resolution and aspect ratio.
You can't just reuse assets from the PS1 on the GBA. You also can't use assets from the SNES on the GBA either, despite the high number of ports they were all made from the ground up.
Though the GBA castlevenia games did reuse assets between each other.
Eh. Aria was the best of em by far.
I get Iga's logic with the art shift, I really do (Dawn was my first CV, after all), but I really wish he hired an anime character designer that fits Castlevania's gothic aesthetic instead of the generic dime-a-dozen look we got. Someone like Atsuko Nakajima or Hideyuki Morioka would've done wonders in translating Ayami Kojima's art into a traditional anime style. At least the opening movie was cool.
An Igavania with the artistic direction of Nakajima or Morioka would be interesting for sure!
The way I understand it, they were going fast and cheap for Dawn Of Sorrow. It's fair to say once Curse Of Darkness released and failed to meet Konami's expectations, the later DS entries were treated with a bit more care in regards to the artistic direction.
If only they hired order of ecclesia artist from the start
@@gabrielmendes9927For real. DoS has a very bland art style for the portraits. OoE, on the other hand, while clesrly different from the style of Aria, has a very fancy and gorgeous art style that fits perfectly with the Game.
Apply both the auto-seal patch and luck fix patch to the rom - boom - makes this game 100x more enjoyable!
What does the luck fix do?
@@TheLoganLives makes it so the luck stat actually makes a noticeable difference to the RNG of enemies dropping their souls. The vanilla game is kind of broken in that it takes way too much unnecessary grinding to get some souls.
@@SebKinsta Good to know. Thanks!
@@SebKinsta do you know how to patch the rom?
@@robertbektas1810 1) get clean copy of rom 2) get both patches 3) get patching tool or go to a website that can do it for you. Google will help you locate all of those things.
The magic seal system seems like something nintendo pressured konami to do to show off the new fancy touchscreen technology.
it was not actually, they said they wanted to experiment with the hardware and ended up there , its one thing to add in a couple gimmicks but very much another to create a complex seal system which changes with each boss
@@Stevem I didn't mind the seals
Honestly, with as little detail as Castlevania maps give you, it would have been nice to write notes on it, something akin to Etrian Odyssey. Would've been perfect for the DS, at that.
I mean, it IS practical and interesting though. People are justlazy to do something different other than just pressing buttons to play. It's not even annoying tbh
There is a Rom Hack wich removes the Seals and the Touch Screen features!
imagine aria of sorrow gets an anime adaptation. castlevania fans are going to be crazy
Netflix would do it. They gave castlevania so much justice
They would 100% do it bro. They gave that series some justice and love.
@@milawrine3657 Ik that and im so happy.
@@milawrine3657 About damn time this franchise gets some well earned love.
@@milawrine3657 Oh and the game Ritcher is from Is Castlevania Rondo of Blood/Dracula X.
It's great, but Aria had a better story and characters. Graham is the better villain, turning into Dracula with the secret is really cool, I do like fighting Soma in Dawn though, that was like the coolest thing ever
Great video! I love this game a lot. Very classic. Wish they made more like Dawn
Glad to see you're still around, Act Man! Thank you for all your content
Surprised to see you here Act Man, awesome to see you’re a Castlevania fan haha. Don’t give up! We’re all rooting for you.
Yo Act Man! Bloodstained Ritual of The Night Game is like the Sorrow games
@@EvilEliNLV1 I found something even better 9 Years of Shadow. It even has Michiru Yamane as the composer.
@@orangeslash1667 I really love that game (I even have the credit music on my channel lol) but it’s nothing like the sorrow castlevanias.
Btw, there’s a way to spam heavy attacks in 9YoS. Kinda hard to explain and I made a post on the steam page but basically you have to time your crouch the second you heavy attack goes out and it cancels the lag. I kinda see it like L-cancelling from smash melee
Just found your channel and just watched the whole Igavania playlist. Hope life is going well and can't wait for your Portrait of Ruin and Order Of Ecclesia video
The release of the Castlevania Advance Collection led me to look for relevant videos about the series, and that led me to you. I’ve been going through your videos, and I must say that they are informative, well-written, well-edited, clever, and even funny at times. You are doing incredible work on this channel, and you deserve a bigger following. I hope it finds you. I will certainly be talking you up. :)
Me still waiting on that portrait of ruin video
He uploaded it!
As someone who ADORES magic seals, i didnt mind it at all. It was easy to remember and awesome to pull off correctly. As a child it felt like you have to do some actual precise magic.
I liked Dawn of Sorrow, being my intro to Castlevania. But i really liked playing Portrait of Ruin, i played Order of Ecclesia for one bit but that game felt a bit harder than i thought
Thank you fot making these videos.
I miss these games, special CoD, and I'm surprised not many people talk about them
One of my favorite Castlevania games. It's in my Top 3. GREAT VIDEO! Were you originally going to call it "Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow | Better Than Symphony?" as your narration suggests?
You're reaction to the touch screen is hilarious 😂 I had forgotten but now I remember how I started to dread those parts 😅
Dawn was my first Castlevania, so I had no idea about the artstyle change and thus didn't mind it. And personally, I love the magic circles xD
I think they added a good bit of flavour to the game, having to not only weaken the boss, but having to seal it away too was awesome. And I got so in tune with them that I tried to go as fast as possible lmao
Totally get that it's not for everyone, tho!
All the other points I agree with fully 😄
and honestly the seals aren't that hard to do. Just connect the dots in the right order as quickly as possible. I don't think it had to be perfect straight slashes. and jsut have your stylus out between your index and middle finger. Isn't to hard to managed while still holding the DS normally
You my dude, get it. There was always something special with physically dealing the final blow by sealing it away.
Love your channel, hope to see more videos
One of the best Castlevania games imo. The art style and touch controls never bothered me.
For the record, I never really was bothered by the magic seals that much. They are gimmicky, but they didn't ruin the experience for me. The one issue that I had with it was remembering which seal needed to used on what boss!
Regarding the enemies not leveling up at the same level as Soma, out of all of the Iga Castlevania games, I believe that Order of Ecclesia corrects this issue.
Dawn of Sorrow is IMO the best Igavania, with a caveat, a no-touchscreen rom hack. Game is 100% better off without that gimmick. Also I didn't hate the cheaper aesthetic, but that's just me.
In any case, DoS feels like a definitive refinement over Aria, and even SotN. Gone are the hardware restrictions and the less refined decisions of the first Igavania. DoS is the realest deal IMO.
Also Julius mode is just... *chef kiss*
I've seen a few mentions of the romhack that removes the touchscreen nonsense, honestly it's removal would elevate it so much as it really was the thing that stuck with me most before revisiting the game. In some ways I actually think I misremembered Dawn Of Sorrows better elements as being from Aria Of Sorrow, so it was pleasant surprise to revisit Dawn and have the realisation that this game was way better than I remember.
And yes, so far DOS Julius Mode is the best alt character mode I've played. We'll see if they manage to surpass it in Portrait or Ecclesia :D
Just binged this whole series (and subscribed) very well done retrospective 👍 very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts on portrait and order
Thanks! :D
most people ignore that the portraits in DoS are also far more expressive and varied than in AoS. Soma for one has like 10 portraits rather than 2, and most of them are actually made for game rather than AoS where pretty much all portraits are extremely compressed character artwork, which leads to some hilarious moments such as when Yoko was stabbed and both Soma and Yoko still used their usual portraits.
I always saw the portraits as merely representative. I liked that they changed contextually in Dawn
I dont think its the issue abt expressiveness its more like it didn't fit the tone of the game
Dawn of Sorrow is probably my personal favorite and now that Aria of Sorrow got a rerelease on Switch I PRAY that Dawn gets a rerelease. I will die happy.
die happy now
Just caught up with your whole retrospective and I loved it. Mad respect for getting this far with massive gaps in upload, I know life can get rough. While I've played most the classic games, the only Igarashi game I beat (and completed) was SotN. I was interested in trying his other ones and you've definitely made me more inclined for some of them, especially with Curse of Darkness which I previously wasn't too interested in. I'm a little less excited about Harmony of Dissonance now but given that it's Igarashi's first game after Symphony I don't wanna skip it.
I think alot of effort went into making this, and I really hope you continue to grow your channel.
Great quality content! Just binged your entire series! Hope you haven’t given up and will make more!!
Can't wait for portrait of ruin! Played it back when I was a kid, had no idea it was part of a trilogy or that there were gba games. I remember liking it a lot as a kid
Portrait is an interesting one in that it brings back characters from Bloodlines, as well as having a lot of the dev team from Circle Of The Moon. I remember really liking it back when it first released so I'm looking forward to this revisit :)
@@schemingfox why not look into indie games like blasphemous?
Dawn of Sorrow had cool soul combinations. Order of Ecclesia was really fast paced and had the dual weapon system. Portrait of Ruin was really fun having two characters to fight with throughout the game
If you emulate Aria of Sorrow, I highly recommend entering in the cheat that does the seals for you. Makes the experience much smoother.
you mean dawn?
Dawn of Sorrow was a great game but to be honest I didn't like its castle nearly as much as aria's, I also preferred how much meatier the sound was in aria. Even though the story is better executed than in aria I always felt that aria was a better overall epilogue to the series than dawn, idk aria feels like the ending to the eternal struggle between the world and Dracula while dawn felt like another day in the life of a teenager with superpowers.
i dont really understand what you mean by meatier sound the soundtrack certainly isnt and the animations are quite lacking in aria in comparison i cant recall much difference in sound effects , but i guess at least in premise aria has a very end of the story feel, although i think dawn has merits in Soma being more active in his decision making and it covers the resurrection narrative dracula is forever stuck in every 100 years
@@Stevem by meatier i mean the sound when you attack the enemies, I don't know how to explain it but the sound feels better to me in Aria than in Dawn. I agree with you with Dawn having a better portrayal of most characters and the game having an overall better narrative than Aria.
The only thing missing from Julius mode is Hammer playing like Grant.
Dawn of Sorrow is my favorite Castlevania game, period. I have no issue with the art style as I like both beautiful gothic from Miss Ayami Kojima and the more simple Anime style, there is no better or worse it's just different style. And as an artist I also has zero problem with the Seal system for I can draw it easily (But I agree it is too gimmicky the game doesn't need it, and shouldn't have it as it only hinder players who don't have certain skill that out of needed to enjoy action games). Other aspects of the game are just great, no complain.
lol no Ayami’s style is definitely better.
The seals legit made it impossible for me to pass. I was too slow as a kid which is funny. Glad im not the only one
The lord has returned
Dawn is a great game but something about it doesn't feel right. I think Soma moves to slow, what I think happened is they wanted to keep him the same speed as he was in Aria but the castle in Dawn is way bigger, not only that dawn is harder then Aria in the sense that the enemies take longer to kill which makes traversing the castle without the panther soul even more tedious. Also it seems there is a lot more dead ends and geometry to move around then in Aria but this is hard to quantify. If they ever do a re release I think an option to make Soma walk faster would make new players like it more without altering the game to much.
Also the pacing and the flow of exploration doesn't feel as good as Aria but this is hard to substantiate.
I love Dawn of Sorrow don't get me wrong but I honestly prefer Aria.
Same for me I much prefer the physics in aria and subsequently the charcter control
Feels far more fluid and responsive
And I can spam my bullet souls
Which form my experience in dawn is a bit harder to spam making the combat pace feel slower to me
I also Pefer the locations and and map layout in aria as well
At work now but you know I'll enjoy this I'm going to wait and enjoy this when I get home.
I look forward to hearing what you thought of it :D
Can't wait to watch your Portrait of Ruin video. Hopefully you'll consider an Order of Ecclesia video as well.
i love dawn of sorrow but the horrendous seal system stops it from being my favorite, The final boss didnt have it and neither did Julius mode its almost as if they relaized at the last minute how bad it was
I love both Aria and Dawn of Sorrow... but I really love the evil laugh of Dark Lord Soma...it´s charming and terrifing at the same time...
"Younger gamers tend not to like Miss Kojima's more aesthetic style so much" you were so wrong Iga, 14 yo me loved it and I still do. Evil Soma even appealed to teen angst dead on.
I dunno if the magic seals were more difficult on the DS, but I had no problem with them emulating on my phone. I only missed a seal once my entire playthrough.
My first castlevania. And i also got a feel of nigh omnipotence as every enemy i kill and capture.
Wow, thanks TH-cam algorithm. I really enjoyed this video
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! :D
Never was a fan of this one at release and vastly preferred Aria. But finding a rom patch that removed seals and switched character art to Aria's portraits and playing on a giant tablet made me really love this one. Those seals were a dealbreaker but such a good game hiding underneath
Played symphony before this and you can definitely see the evolution.
Found your video on Reddit and had to watch. Now I’ve been going back and watching your other content and it’s fantastic. Definitely subbing
Thanks! I'm glad you like my stuff :D
Everyone: the anime art style for DoS and PoR sucked!
Rondo of blood: ...
The problem with DoS art style is not that it looks anime, it's that it looks bad.
No one criticises Rondo Of Bloods visual design because that game looks great, it's full of 90's Anime charm and it came out in 93 a time before Castlevania had a definitive style to call it's own.
The environment was very different in 2005 since at that time Ayami Kojima's designs had become the undisputed look of Castlevania. So of course people were going to have more of an intense reaction once the style was changed, more importantly the quality of that art was not to the standards that had been set by Kojima.
You know , i would like if they tried another anime style once more , but with more refinement.
Because i've seen some fan art which honestly , could make potrait work better.
@@zapperilThey did well with Ecclesia. That always felt like a compromise between the two styles to me.
Great video!! This was my first Castlevania.
For me Dawn was bit of a chore to play. When I finally played it through on emulator (no romhacks), I just brute forced it through. Something just bothered me with it. Maybe it was the flow?
There's alot to love in that game. Getting new souls and trying then to see what they do, refining new weapons with Yoko, trying to defeat bosses in a new game+ using weaker weapons, like the handgun. You probably have to play it with an open heart to be able to look past it's flaws.
as someone whose played on og hardware it does improve the seal process since mouse is pure hate but it's still not great playing with a hack with basically save the game its so much better without that seal stuff it's not even funny
I remember playing more on the Julius/Trio mode than the Soma mode...all because of the seals...
Another excellent video, glad you are back!
I think Dawn is certainly my least favorite of the DS Igavanias, but that is not to say it is bad. DoS certainly did better than AoS in my opinion by simply expanding on the core elements that Aria had, but I couldn't agree more with the touchscreen issue and the art style change.
It's still an undoubtedly solid entry in the series with plenty of both main-game and new-game content (I really enjoyed all of the weapons you could get with soul-synthesis and that each weapon type sort of had its own late-game variant, and Julius mode in this is the coolest. I loved getting to play as Alucard! The special final boss and the interaction between the different characters was so cool as well.)
Can't wait to hear what you have to say about Portrait of Ruin... probably my favorite Igavania!
Thank you I'm glad you liked it! I try my best to speed up the time I take to make videos, unfortunately life gets in the way a lot ^^;
I do get a feeling that Portrait and Ecclesia are overall better games than Dawn, or at least that's how I remember it. I think had Dawn kept Ayami Kojima's style and held back on the Touch Screen gimmicks I'd honestly be saying it's on the same level if not better than Symphony Of The Night.
I'm excited to get stuck into Portrait, I'll try my best to get it out as soon as possible :D
@@schemingfox Awesome just don't push yourself too hard! Good luck with making the video :)
Feel like I'm one of very few that actually liked the seals. Made me feel like a wizard drawing magic circles. I definitely see why people don't like them though. Especially if an emulator was used along with a mouse.
Mouses are precise, but difficult to go that fast with.
i would say in terms of level design, aria of sorrow do better, IMHO the area that its well worked its the lost village and part of the condenmed tower, but the rest of the maps feels like random platformers designs which made me wonder if dawn of sorrow was rushed. on the other side gameplay its more polished than aria of sorrow and many souls have new combinations (but still wonder what kind of soul attack would be that "werewolf projection" that i found in some sprites sheets of soma), plus the julius mode now have 3 characters to use.
definitively improved many things from aria of sorrow, but in my view, the order of the DS metroidvanias in term of level design its:
1.- portrait of ruin
2.- order of ecclesia
3.- dawn of sorrow
You know what's cool for the sequel ? Alucard's thought of being the Dark Lord if necessary.
In Julius mode , Alucard was one of the fighter who fought Dark Lord Soma. This time , reverse the role ; Soma fought the Dark Lord Alucard instead.
Alucard from antagonistic pov sounds interesting to do.
Aria of sorrow has mostly comfy boss battle while dawn of sorrow has annoying seals in every boss battle,
In aria of sorrow soma feels quick, while in dawn of sorrow he feels slow(mostly while using the big swords).
In aria of sorrow hammer theme sounds like soldier music(wich fits really well for him). While in dawn of sorrow hammer theme sounds like christmas music(very out of place because he is not santa claus).
Dawn of sorrow is not bad, but i prefer aria of sorrow.
Now that the dominus collection is out now all the touch screen stuff in this game got fixed now making its bad points gone.
It still has a generic anime art style
Julius Mode is hype
It's pretty fookin poggers m8!
Ugh, i really like the Portraits and the Anime Style.
I'm a new subscriber on your channel, been wanting to fill the void with Castlevania content, and not a lot of channels cover these great beloved games, can't believe you even went through the PS2 games, which in my opinion is one of the greatest game I've ever played (mostly CoD), i mean the content in it was so generous i could have at least spent more hours in it than any other game that has come in previous years. Recently subscribed and hoping for more content to come! Great video editing and all around well put criticism, can't wait for your video on Portrait of Ruin, one of my favs to come out of DS. Cheers!
After replaying them all recently, I must say that Dawn of Sorrow is probably my favorite Iga Castlevania!
I love Dawn of Sorrow despite what others may say.
have just returned to the franchise as I wait for the 4th season of the Netflix series, while watching memes and I came across to this video. Haven't played the game myself, BUT I CAN TELL THE SEALS ARE PAINFUL, that little voice acting bit for the fiction at the end is cute!
Please keep up the effort!
P.S do you have the link to the fiction? Because it seems like I can't find it anywhere in the net
bottom link in the description references
I did my best to make the voice acting sound like a scene from Symphony Of The Night, so I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Here is the full translation for Ricordanza castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,6118.0.html
Also there is rom hack with no seals and Ayame Kojima art
Feel it’s worth mentioning that Dawn’s soundtrack was co-composed by Masahiko Kimura, who also worked on the N64 Castlevania soundtrack, and that all of the tracks mentioned in this video are by him. It is weird to me how available information is now for credits on video games, and yet how inaccurate the attribution of authorship continues to be, especially as it regards games’ music.
Dawn of Sorrow was the first Igavania I owned. After playing Aria of Sorrow all the way through soon after, I liked that one much more. But DoS felt important enough to me that I gave it to a dear friend before moving away. It has a charm
Your videos encouraged me to revisit it. My feelings haven't changed. The map & level themes feel disjointed, the soul drop rate feels lower (either due to math or because of the enemy variety), and something about the enemy & encounter design feels wonky somehow. Like, in Aria, there are so many ways your movement is recontextualized, like fighting Barbarosas when moving horizontally vs. vertically. Or early on when you fight armors and skeletons cordoned off with Une-infested pits. DoS has more crazy options for your offense, but there are very few enemy arrangements which force interesting movement.
One area that hasn't been topped since Dawn of Sorrow: NASTY GORE AND HORROR. Blood, chunks, too-tight skin, MEAT... I'm particularly fond of the Homonculi. When I first saw one swim off their tube and drown, I yelled "EWW!" It rules.
And the variety of weapons is choice. This latest run, I got a Skelerang soul, and I went through most of the game with a scythe. It felt like my playthrough was unique! And I guess that's what's good about the low drop rate for souls; you're forced to improvise some during replays if you want to speed through.
Good news, there's a collection on steam that took all the touch screen stuff out.
Idk why people hated the Seals. it was a pretty cool system
Apparently Hammer was originally going to be the playable Grant equivalent for Julius mode, but they cut him out for whatever reason. Yet another case of Grant being forgotten.
That's really interesting, where did you hear that?
@@schemingfox Just looking at stuff about it online. There's unused dialogue that implies he was likely playable, but I guess it isn't 100% confirmed.
Hey , at least Grant has descendant. Remember Michelle ?
@@zapperil And Grant is playable in Judgment.
People still crying about drawing a simple sign in a touchscreen... Get over ir ,guys...it was never that bad to begin with.
Yea, i don’t get it, it’s very easy to do unless you breathe from your mouth.
Replaying dominus it's really obvious the worst issue is the grinding caused by luck being broken
It's an emulator thing bruv. It's a bit of a giant pain in the ass on emulator. Course there are patches for it, but then you get guys like me who are "well I'd emulate it, but I don't want to go that little bit extra to patch it, so I just won't play it." Good thing that Castlevania DS trilogy collection came out not too long ago.
Love both but symphony of the night is the best for nostalgia tho these have better controls and magic
I'd personally prefer Aria , but i like if Soma has another game , and make it a crossover timeline ; which also gave the other timeline characters ( Potrait of Ruin , Order of Ecclesia ) a spotlight too.
Or Dawn of Sorrow sequel in reverse.
Remember when Alucard implying that he'll be the Dark Lord if necessary ? Have the story based on that.
To make it better , probably do the reverse Julius Mode. Remember when in Julius mode Alucard had to fight Dark Lord Soma ? Reverse it , you play as Soma and you have to face Dark Lord Alucard.
Great video. Aria is my favorite, but this is a gem of a game. I absolutely HATE the seals though.
One thing I didn’t like about Soma’s sprite was the Go-Go boots
The decision to shift to anime art specifically for a YOUNGER demographic was also fueled by some badly-interpreted analytics, to put it bluntly. They thought the 3DS's install base was predominantly younger and so chose a style they hoped would appeal to younger gamers. By the time Order of Ecclesia rolled around they had stopped leaning on that perception so hard. But at least the anime look improved somewhat for Portrait of Ruin (and didn't tonally clash with the story as much...).
and here i thought thoseGODAMN SEALS only sucked for people with hand problems like myself.
Order of Ecclesia is better than both.
I agree, but Dawn and portrait are amazing too
Ecclesia might be my favourite post-16 bit Castlevania, great game and the challenge makes it pop.
Amazing game. Took me exactly 8 hours to beat, and I did it in one sitting, just because I couldn't put it down.
3:36 is that a...
The art-style of the game looked very 90's anime I'd say it was part of the charm.
Why didn't you show the difference between the Aria and Dawn animations in the video when you were talking about it?
Dawn of sorrow, as a game, is really good. The first one to use the DS revamped engine, which makes it very close to sotn. The story, i'll be honest, goes from serviceable to bad. I hope someone using dsvania editor remakes AoS using DoS engine. That would make it so much more perfect. One day...
Ps: one thing i thought was pretty cool, is the fact that it is supposed to be a replica of Aria's castle. If you look at the placement of areas, they're located mostly at the same area of their equivalent, like the garden in the middle of the castle.
That's a great point I think it would be really interesting to see Aria with a Dawn Of Sorrow facelift, as the animations were honestly so distracting for me in Aria. I do think as silly as the story is, I found myself appreciating Soma and his friends a bit more. Felt like I got to know who them a bit better.
I'd have to look at the maps back to back again but that's interesting.
The art style always reminded me of rondo of blood.
konami should be re-releasing all the ds games in castlevania ds collection im sure its coming but when dont know and i will be more then happy to buy that collection all these castlevania ds games are a must have and i will pay to buy a collection for the ps4 and other consoles .!!
There was another video that elaborated on why Iga changed the art style for this game. While the GBA Castlevania titles were well received, they underperformed in sales and Iga couldn't understand at the time on why that was. So instead of using the gothic-style artwork for the box cover and cut scenes he opted to change to an anime-style to see if that would drive sales. Lo and behold the game became a hit, because more parents bought it for their children. Also, the game is very fun almost on par with SOTN imo.
play the modded version no touch screen CV DoS DE+ (v1.3) (full, new portraits).nds fixes art too your welcome
I LOVE Aria and Dawn of Sorrow. I hate this "people hated it (the artwork)" crap. The anime artwork and portraits being ugly is WAY overdone. The artwork looks good and people just hate on it because its anime style. It annoys me so much to hear. Drawing the symbols was kind of annoying and universally hated so it was dropped from the other DS games.
Reasons i hate DOS compared to AOS:
2h are very slow compared to aria.
Water boss.
Bugged luck
And..... TOUCH SCREEN MECHANICS.
Need to collect 9 souls to power up
Well romhack fixes most of them
I don't hate it cus it's an anime style, I fucking love anime, I hate it cus it looks ugly and flat as hell. If it had a clear style like Dragon Ball Z/Chrono Trigger/Dragons Quest or Hellsing it wouldn't be as bad. But it looks like a weird hybrid between anime and western animation without the strengths of either and has really off-looking coloring.
Which sucks cus the rest of the game is gorgeous.
I think the anime style actually works for castlevania I really like the look of portrait of ruin i think it’s cause the character designs weren’t drawn for the anime art style making it look hideous
I hate dos because how much grinding is required.
I just hated the stupid magic stylus bullshit it ruined the game for me
I love the seals. If that’s the only thing wrong with this game I’ll def love it. I loved the seals on ghostwire Tokyo so I’m ready for it
Wait, where is that clip of Riccordanza of the God's Abyss from?
There is a fan translation online of the entire novel, I then read out that one specific part.
Here's a link if you would like to read it yourself :)
castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,6118.0.html
I've always been a huge retrovania fan, Castlevania III, IV, bloodlines and Rondo of blood were all time favorites. Recently I started playing the Igavania games, and boy I've been missing out. Luckily I heard about the seal issues with Dawn of Sorrow before a played it and a friend gave me a copy of the Definite + edition, which just removed the seals. I gotta say, it's an amazing game. It might be better than SOTN in my opinion.
I'm just hoping to finish POR before your review comes up
i remember beating game on m y DS Lite. Good times :D
So wait THIS is the Dark Souls of Castlevania games?
Considering the generic anime art style I'd say it's more the Code Vein of Castlevania games.
@@schemingfox You hate to see it.
@@StUrsonSeedlessGrape BETAAAAAAAAa
@@Stevem :(
@@StUrsonSeedlessGrape come here bb xxxxx
I...honestly liked the art in this game and PoR, for the most part. I think Soma and Arikado look honestly...cooler in this style. (And if there's one thing we can remember from the ending of Aria, it's that Soma is a lot cooler now!) Ayami Kojima's work is gorgeous when looking at it on its own, but I think the GBA's bitcrunching really didn't do it any favors at all. You'd also never get to see a fully animated intro like Dawn had with the more complicated artwork, and I personally really adore the Dawn intro, especially when you see Soma drawing out the Magic Seal like that alone almost makes me not completely despise the mechanic.
Only art from this game that struck me as "hilariously bad" were some of the *extremely* over-the-top yelling sprites that Julius and Arikado had, but I think they just add more to the charm than anything else. It's a very old-school anime aesthetic, and one I personally quite enjoy. I think you ragging on it for so long is just...mean-spirited in general, but whatever. The only art that deserves to be ragged on for this long is Dracula in Portrait of Ruin because god does he look wack. (Charlotte's pouty face redeems this and then some, though. Now *that* is something you'd never see in Kojima art.)
The story is better than Aria? Hardly.
Nothing remotely interesting happens throughout the game. The characters are one dimensional except almost all of them have become caricatures of cliche anime tropes. There is no sense of tension, no drama, no interesting plot revelations. You are just traveling from point A to point B mindlessly mowing down everything in your path. Even when there is something even remotely interesting happening on screen, it is dismissed until much later and there is not payoff to the established mystery. Even the main antagonist comments on how leisurely Soma is taking the mission before she gets killed off by Dimitri. The side protagonists characters also have nothing to do. At least in Aria, they were given the illusion that they were doing something. All the side characters existence in Dawn was completely pointless when they could have been so much more involved in meaningful ways.
In essence, this is just the same game packaged as a sequel. Same weapons, same abilities, same characters. The differences are all significantly negative in Dawn. The use of the stylus as you mentioned. The bosses are ok but the night creatures are just plain lame. The atmosphere is far too relaxing. The leveling up system might as well not even exist since it hardly makes a difference in your stats. The souls are MUCH less useful than is Aria. You generally feel MUCH weaker despite this being a Soma that is familiar with his abilities.
Better than Aria of Sorrow? They way I see it, almost everything is WORSE THAN Aria of Sorrow.
The magic seals were awesome to be honest, i dont understand the hate, felt like actually trying to seal the demons with magic
Soma: -.-
Death: So... Any chance you want to be my master?
recently played through the definitive edition+ romhack of this game and it blew me away, real good shit
I just was wanting to replay DoS again though I had no idea that the romhack was a thing. I thank you my friend, for showing me this gem of a romhack.
I liked the gameplay of DoS, though the graphics were a bit too cutesy for me. But the story and gothic concept of AoS was WAY EPIC
I feel your pain with the stylus man
Childhood Memories 😢