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I heart Castlevania DS

You are LATE TO THE PARTY!

But yeah, it's still awesome. Enjoy. And be sure to play through the game again in the new mode when you finish.
 
Just picked this up and never played a Castlevania title. Fantastic stuff. Although it says I am 55% through...tell me there is replay value (without spoilers) GAF!
 
I MUST CONTINUE TO COME INTO TOPICS WHERE PEOPLE ARE EXPRESSING WHY THEY LIKE A GAME AND SAY WHY I DON'T BECAUSE I FEEL I HAVE TO CONTINUE GOING INTO THREADS AND TELLING PEOPLE WHY GAMES ARE BAD WHEN THEY ARE SAYING THEY'RE GOOD.
 
Soul4ger said:
I MUST CONTINUE TO COME INTO TOPICS WHERE PEOPLE ARE EXPRESSING WHY THEY LIKE A GAME AND SAY WHY I DON'T BECAUSE I FEEL I HAVE TO CONTINUE GOING INTO THREADS AND TELLING PEOPLE WHY GAMES ARE BAD WHEN THEY ARE SAYING THEY'RE GOOD.
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Funny I was thinking the same thing......*cough*Himuro*cough*
 
Himuro said:
I like the game but I was still disappointed.
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I do too, but to be honest Im having a hard time forcing myself to finish it ( and I beat Aria in three days)
 
I just finished it yesterday...

100% souls. 100% map. Around 20 hours the first run...

I'm playing Julius mode right now, then I'll complete the Hard mode with Soma again... :D
 
If you already played the previous "metroidvania" games, DoS should be incredibly predictable and boring. It hardly offers anything new.
 
Well I am enjoying the game a good deal.

Next up on the games I need to play that are sitting at the foot of my bed:

Mario and Luigi DS
MarioKart DS
Advance Wars DS
Final Fantasy IV advance
 
I just finished this game today.

Good fun. I liked the castle of Aria better, but this wasn't horrible. I think the Metroidvania style may have peaked with Aria of Sorrow. The castle in Dawn of Sorrow is a little boring. It goes in my top 3 Castlevania list at number 3:

1) Symphony of the Night
2) Aria of Sorrow
3) Dawn of Sorrow

The second screen being the map is actually useful. I'll replay it again soon, but I just received Phoenix Wright today! :D
 
2D Castlevanias reached perfection with Super Castlevania IV. The two GBA games were good, but I played Dawn of Sorrow for about 3 hours and haven't picked it up since. It's basically the same game for 20 years now, and I've grown weary. (and I'll probably pick up the next 2D Castlevania, idiot that I am)
 
I'm plowing through it at the moment and enjoying it.

Cool little things here and there; the 573 joke (what Konami game first used this?) and the bat boss forming the Gradius head.
 
sorrow to resurect the oldest thread in history..

BUT DAMN!!!!

this game is so damn good! the 2D visuals look much better than the GBA games to me.. and to be honest i understand the complaints that castlevania is the same game ever since symphony of the night but still.. i always love them and this game is no exception! FUN!
 
I just finished Aria of Sorrow today (and Harmony of Disonance on Friday).

Aria of Sorrow was so much fun. I got 100% in the game too and I was so impressed with myself that I figured out how to get past the crappy ending. I finished the game and knew that there had to be more to it than that so I quickly rebooted and checked through all my items and figured it out.
I had to tell someone. Thanks for listening GAF.

But I'm picking up Dawn of Sorrow tomorrow and I'm kinda torn. On one hand I totally want more of the same and on the other I hope it's a little different.

I feel like I'm on quite the Castlevania kick lately.


Do you play the game on the touch screen? I've seen picks and it looks like you use the top screen for your map.
 
yes you play on the touch screen. you have to use the pen sometimes to break blocks and stuff like that.

to be honest it is more of the same. i still love it though.
 
Truelize said:
I just finished Aria of Sorrow today (and Harmony of Disonance on Friday).

Aria of Sorrow was so much fun. I got 100% in the game too and I was so impressed with myself that I figured out how to get past the crappy ending. I finished the game and knew that there had to be more to it than that so I quickly rebooted and checked through all my items and figured it out.
I had to tell someone. Thanks for listening GAF.

But I'm picking up Dawn of Sorrow tomorrow and I'm kinda torn. On one hand I totally want more of the same and on the other I hope it's a little different.

I feel like I'm on quite the Castlevania kick lately.


Do you play the game on the touch screen? I've seen picks and it looks like you use the top screen for your map.
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yes the action occurs on the touch screen with the upper screen serving as map and status screen.
 
Kind of off-topic:

I just got the Double Pack today... I hate not being able to change the buttons used on GBA mode while playing the DS...

HoD -> how I hate this game -__- ... [the backgrounds are really nice and that's it]. Controls are bad on the DS (on SP they're OK, too bad I don't have the SP+).

AoS -> I love it :) ...
 
Some of you guys are crushing my enthusiasm in buying a DS Lite in March. I really am not looking to buy that many DS games over the lifespan of the machine,just a handful since console gaming is where most my time is at. Just a few such as Sonic Rush,Metroid Pinball,and ofcourse Castlevania are the real reasons why I'm looking into a DS right now. But bleh-it sounds like the same ole same ole with Castevania-dunno if that justifies $180 for this game. Ofcourse the other two are going to be pretty good but still.

Btw-how's the sprite effects in Castlevania? Are they over the top wow or just adequate enough? I'm sort of expecting the DS to have better sprites handling(character and enemy size and also effects) than Symphony of the Night-or am I expecting too much?
 
there's no bosses in DoS save the last one that compare to SoTN's best, that's for sure. Backgrounds are comparable with a little extra parallax in some spots. Overall, it's what you'd expect from hardware that's only but marginally better than the PSOne.
 
Drinky,ok sounds allright. Most importantly to me though-how are the size of character and enemy sprites in this game? Symphony of the Night was good but character and enemy sprites(not the bosses ofcourse) were abit small to me.
 
Angelus said:
Some of you guys are crushing my enthusiasm in buying a DS Lite in March. I really am not looking to buy that many DS games over the lifespan of the machine,just a handful since console gaming is where most my time is at. Just a few such as Sonic Rush,Metroid Pinball,and ofcourse Castlevania are the real reasons why I'm looking into a DS right now. But bleh-it sounds like the same ole same ole with Castevania-dunno if that justifies $180 for this game. Ofcourse the other two are going to be pretty good but still.

Btw-how's the sprite effects in Castlevania? Are they over the top wow or just adequate enough? I'm sort of expecting the DS to have better sprites handling(character and enemy size and also effects) than Symphony of the Night-or am I expecting too much?
Click to expand...

If you like the CV formula, you'll like DoS for sure... it's a great game... If you're planning on buying other game besides CV, then the "$180 for one game" line doesn't apply here...

BTW... Most of the enemies sprites are directly from SotN... [they should look a little bit bigger because of the DS screen resolution compared to the TV one... so, you wont find them small... in fact, I found [secret_playable_character]
Alucard's
[/secret_playable_character] sprite to be kind of big...
 
Hmmm...well sprites were abit small in Symphony of the Night but sounds good enough I guess. Like you said this time around theyre on a portable instead of a tv set so thinking about this well they should be pretty good then. And yeah I know $180 goes a long ways when you have other games to back up that one time splurge.

Im not really in the know about that many upcoming DS games but is there a real Mario platformer around the corner? It makes buying into a DS that much easier if I knew one was coming.

Thanks for the info you guys.
 
"Im not really in the know about that many upcoming DS games but is there a real Mario platformer around the corner?"

damn right there is! gonna be damn good i think..
 
DoS was an enjoyable experience, but not too challenging on normal mode. Julius mode was a bit tougher and very enjoyable, actually had to think of some strategies.

CotM was hard now that I think about it.
 
I´m about to complete it for the second time in a row, this time in dificult mode, with all the souls and items from the first game. The objective is to complete it 100% this time around.

Some random thoughts:

- The change from A to B configuration works fantastically. I never got to enjoy Aria of Sorrow because it felt so dull to go changing weapons and souls for each situation. Now I have a fast less powerful weapon and a much more damaging one in each configuration. Depending on the place of the castle, I go with one or the other. The same aplies to the souls, one for direct combat, the other for adventure purposes.
- The design of the castle is not the best I´ve seen, sure. It´s quite small and with not that much secrets.
- Puzzles all around are non-existant. I feel that they could´ve played a bit more with the capability to destroy ice bocks. There´s a quite clever puzzle that i didn´t discover how to get through until my second game.
- Many places you must go through aren´t explained in any place. You must liberaate souls to acquire paranoia, yet none tells you how to. The same applies to the carrying skulls, that are needed to access to a part of the castle. But none mentions on it. Some important things should be hinted or noted.
- I liked better CotM. And I liked it better because the controls were much more dinamic. I mean, you could run through the scenarios quite fast. Why must I just go walking?
- The ring to catch souls is a big fake. 300.000 gone down the drain.
- Graphics look great. Anyone saying this is Aria 1.5 haven´t played either Aria or this game. You can enter a room filled with effects, big enemies or multiple things going on, use Death and Abaddon and suffer no slowdown. Great stuff. The last enemy is impressive to say the least. Kudos to Konami for coming up with such amazing creature. When you think some enemies are big, then you are exposed to it... hell, even that bastard from Super Metroid is small in comparision!
- Music is good, but not memorable.
-Touch elements don´t add anything. Well, the seal is somewhat thrilling, I like that feeling, but the destructable blocks are totally missused. Just at the point earlier commented I felt it was worth the addition.
- Castlevania games need to find a new way and leave behind the Metroidvania structure. I dig it, but it´s clear they´ve run out of good ideas to design the scenarios.
- I really like the souls thing. I mean, it´s like you can try and try diferent settings everytime you play. That´s great, adds a bit of costumization.
 
Thanks! You've all convinced me not to buy it. I had yet to because I was slightly convinced it was Aria of Sorrow 1.5. And now I know I was right! Not that AoS was a bad game at all...in fact, it was the only Vania I had beat since Symphony, which is saying a lot. It's just that I like my new 2d Castlevanias to be something slightly new, not just re-used character sprites.
 
Seriously, i skipped Circle of The Moon and Harmony Of Dissonance because they were too sucky for my tastes so i was very pleased to play a third Metroidvania.
 
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