my insight on Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

[theONE]

So this is how it is: a year ago, you were some how abducted into a castle which dwells in an eclipse. After a while collecting souls, battling bosses, and exploring you find out that this is Dracula’s castle and you, Soma Cruz, must help to defeat the evil king and save the world. All along the way your friends help you and give you information and eventually you kill the man who is Dracula, but as it would turn out he is not Dracula, but you are turning in the king of darkness.... and now a vampire slayer is out to kill you, and you don’t want to become Dracula. You now find out that to stop the complete transformation you must stop the chaos which lay in the Chaotic Realm. You do this and all is returned to normal, and you and your friends are returned back to earth... now it is a year later....

This is where dawn of sorrow begins and this is when a cult starts to rise that wants to resurrect Dracula and to do this they must kill you... but you are not gonna let them, in fact you are going to try and stop them, somehow. In to the cult’s base and through its many dark and treacherous rooms you go exploring and battling for your life. You find out that there are 2 candidates for Dracula and that they are trying to kill you along with the cult leader. YOU MUST STOP THEM AND THE WHOLE PLAN TO RESURRECT THE KING OF DARKNESS.



The game is very fun and has a pretty long lifespan. The graphics are much more detailed than the previous GBA versions and so are the sounds, which is extraordinarily good. The game play is excellent according to me. It is a lot like Aria of Sorrow: go around the castle, amass your soul collection, defeat the bosses and eventually stop the cult. THe new innovations (boss sealing, directing fimilars w/ TS, breaking blocks, and creating your 'profile') are pretty good editions but dont seem like enough to make it gimicy. You can now also set two profiles of souls and weapons so that you may easily switch with the click of a botton(X). There is also the option to fuse acquired souls with weapons to make them stonger... but in doing this you lose use of that soul. I have been played about 5 1/2 hours and I have uncovered about 50% of the map... so the game is pretty long for a handheld game... pus there are hidden modes such as boss rush, where you sequentially battle the bosses faced during the game, and Julius mode , where you can play as a Belmont. This game impressed me very much and I recommend it to anyone with a DS. Although I have not played the multiplayer, I know it consists of setting monster which you have acquired their soul and placing them on a preset room with limits to the amt of creatures… then u trade your map w/ the other person and the faster one to complete the course wins. There is also a soul trading multiplayer where you (guess what???) trade souls. The game is overall great and the best DS game out so far in my opinion, but I still think that aria of sorrow is better… hehehe… but I would give this game a…. 9.25/10

My ratings:
•Presentation: 8.5 – they did a pretty good jog advertising and whatnot
•Game play: 9.25 – its good old platformer castlevania… but if you disliked AoS, stay away!
•Graphics: 8.5 – a good improvement from the GBA versions and from what I hear comparable to Symphony of the Night’s graphics
•Sound: 9.5 – one word: excellent
•Lasting time: 8.0 – the game is about 10 hours (I think) to finish the campaign fully.. but the extras and multiplayer give a boost
•Multi-player: 8.0 – I think that they could have made a better multiplayer or they could’ve made this single cart… but it is nice to see new things\
•Innovation: 8.5 - the additons were good but not great

Overall: 9.25

-theONE

[Euan]

I liked how you described what went on in Aria of Sorrow before Dawn of Sorrow, that was neat.

I quite liked your scoring system though - "I will give this game... 9.25/10", then you do the averages which would make it about an 8.5 or an 8, and then give it a 9.5! ;)

[theONE]

thanks for the complenment... thats how critisims shoul be.... they list the good then the bad... yeah i messed up with the scoring but ill fix that now

[ShadowMarth]

Short, but pretty good. Great... Two member reviews of it get up before chuddy can post mine. Well, good work.

[theONE]

so like no one at all cares... well srew writin these then