Full Review

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow begins with a killer story about a solar eclipse. You are sucked into the eclipse and wake up inside Dracula's castle. From there, you must fight your way out and save your childhood friend, named Mina, who was also pulled into the eclipse with you. If you are not familiar with the Castlevania series of games, they have been around since the early days of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. I honestly don't know how many sequels there have been, but this series has been quite popular for many years now. I have played a 3D Castlevania game on the PS2, but this GBA version goes back to the 8 and 16-bit roots of the series with another great sidescrolling adventure.

Aria of Sorrow is played like your basic sidescrolling action game, but this game is much different than the standard gaming fare. You fight hordes of undead in very well designed and intricate levels as you pick up various items which will help you on your quest. It has been a while since I played a Castlevania game and I don't remember this feature from before, but this one lets you do inventory management with all the items you acquire, so you can play with what works best for you.

The levels in this game are made like a series of passageways and small chambers, so you don't have a lot of long, drawn-out areas to go through. This does somewhat increase the difficulty because creatures respawn after you leave a room and come back. Luckily, though, there is a map feature that will help you monitor your progress. Besides the relentless enemies, the levels are filled with items to pick up and multiple passageways so that you can freely explore without having to go in one certain direction. The maps move up, down, left, and right, depending on where you are, sort of like a big maze. It is, after all, Dracula's castle.

The graphics are very well done and I especially like the interior designs of the levels. I've always loved castles and the maps are laid out with a nice medieval feel to them. The setting is a sort of creepy, run-down castle, complete with flickering candles and large weird tapestries. The different creatures are designed very well, although on some smaller things the color scheme is a little odd. I think the designers made the small stuff more brightly colored so that you could see them flying at you.

I really loved the music in Aria of Sorrow. I really liked the whole gothic feel to it. The sound reminded me of the old school NES versions that had genuinely horror quality music and sound, just like this type of game should be. Don't expect and bright and happy Mario Brothers tunes in this one.

This game is by no means easy. It may start out a little simple, but as the enemies keep coming and the levels go on and on, you'll soon find yourself very challenged. The bosses are all difficult in their own regard and you must figure out the best strategy to beat them. One of biggest complaints about this game is that you can finish it pretty quickly. Since you don't get to choose from any range of characters when playing, this does limit the playability factor somewhat.

All in all, I really enjoyed playing this one and recommend it to any fan of the series.