Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Castlevania in the future!

Finished of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow last Friday in a last push to get it out of my way, especially since it's like 7 months since I finished of Harmony of Dissonance. Why did it took so long? Well, I never felt like it. And I distinctly recall that something similar happened when I originally played this. Gameplay wise its fine, instead of a Belmont you play as Soma Cruz and instead of a whip and sub-weapons you use a large array of weapons like swords, spears, axes and even guns. The most important though is the soul system. With luck (and intense grinding) you collect souls from defeated enemies and are given their abilities and stats (all varying depending on the monster of course). A fun time waster as when the soul swirls around after the final strike it feels so satisfying to collect it. And thank god for the bestiary so you can keep an eye on it. Otherwise the game plays just as the other two GBA Castlevania games. 

Still, sure miss playing as the Belmonts

The story then. Soma Cruz happens to walk near his girlfriends Mina Hakuba's temple on the day of an eclipse and both are transported to Dracula's castle that was sealed away there when the count was finally vanquished in 1999. There he discovered that he has the power of rule, to collect the monsters abilities and set out to get out of the castle. On the journey he meets Arikado, a shady governmental official that seems to know far more about Dracula and the castle that he lets on, Hammer, an army soldier that works as a supplier, Yoko Belnandes, a witch in the employment of the church (and dependent to the Belnandes family that has strong connections to the Belmonts). Graham Jones, a missionary who believes himself to be the reincarnation of Dracula and the castles true master and finally J, an amnesiac who turns out to be Julius Belmont, the last descendant of the vampire hunter clan, spoilers I guess. So how does Soma fits into all this? The twist of the story is that Soma is actually the true reincarnation of Dracula and after fulfilling certain requirements before defeating Graham the dark powers awakens and you must stop them from taking you over.

And he looked like a nice boy!

So a decent story and with gameplay elements that works and plays well, what is there not to like? Even the graphics are good enough so why don't this just evoke fun in me? Maybe its the randomness of the souls. It is a real grind to get them all and certain ones that are necessary to progress to the true ending is just a pain to get. You can get an item to increase the rate of Souls, but it cost a fortune and you need a lot of money acquiring items and souls (or just start over in New Game + over and over again until you get it). So the extras then? You get to play as Julius Belmont with his kick-ass team music and it feels like old school Castlevania... if you look past flying around the rooms and such and having all the sub-weapons all the time. That is the real improvement, all sub-weapons and you switch between them with a button. This makes a rather fun mode, sadly you need more skill than level grinding or using potions to finish of harder bosses. And maybe that is another problem with the main game, with all the improvements the game feels to easy. Of course you can choose your own handicaps if you like, but the easiest for me was to get max potions and use that when needed during boss fights. And they can all be bought in Hammer's shop. Maybe this is the reason I can't afford the soul ring, I spend the gold on potions.

Me at Hammers shop, lucky they put a cap on 9 items per stack