DS: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

I've lost count of the number of Castlevanias there are in this world. There seems to be at least three per console in existence. Three other things about Castlevania that you must know (that is, if you are to go by the general consensus among self-professed gamers on the interwebs): Firstly, the 2-D ones are good but the 3-D ones suck; secondly, the music is amazing; and thirdly, they sell inexplicably badly. Somehow despite the sales history, they keep getting churned out and I think I know why: they're incredibly cheap to make, says Peter of EL33TONLINE.

Déjà Vu

Every one features the same sprites they've been using for eons. Those little floating medusa heads, the zombies that pop out of the ground, the big armor guys who wave their swords around. And I couldn't say for certain, but the map may be the same every time too. I think the music changes between games, but I can't be sure about that either. It's ironic really, in the discourse we read and say "How We Hate Sequels," "New IP's Please" and berate certain publishers for rehashing the same game every year.

But the general and collective salivating over the next Castlevania game, which tends to be quite similar to the previous one, is on just about every venue you can find. That's fine with me, these Castlevania games are 2-D sprite-based breaths of fresh air in a 3-D landscape of over-complicated games, and the formula works so well as it is, that, really, why would you change anything?

Throwing it together

The picture in my mind is of the guys at Konami throwing a new castle together, adding a few wrinkles here and there, wrapping it in beautiful music and some cheesy dialogue and putting it out there for the ones who yearn for simple, fun, platforming and action gameplay. Innovation be damned, we gamers just want a new castle, maybe some new enemies, and most importantly some fantastic music.

So there's a castle, obviously, which is impossibly huge and in two dimensions so that you can see it from the side and don't have to be bothered with the pesky third dimension. You walk in with a little knife and there's some strange plot about Dracula being reincarnated. You are Soma Cruz, and you have this ability to harness the power of souls, meaning as you kill enemies you can take on their abilities. So you walk around the various levels of the castle, jumping, falling, flailing your sword or axe or rapier or whatever weapon you felt like equipping.

Some parts are off limits to you until you find the soul or item that will enable you to reach them, so quite a bit of backtracking takes place. Fortunately there's a convenient set of warp-rooms which take you to another area of the castle. There's also save points scattered around which replenish your health as well as save your progress. Also convenient for those inevitable backtracks is the way Soma becomes more powerful all the time as he gains experience - those difficult areas become easier and easier every time. Every now and then there is a boss battle which will often give you a new ability to add to your repertoire, allowing you to further progress in to places that were unreachable before. This formula works well as you're always exploring new areas of the castle, finding new rooms and their related music themes, new weapons to equip, new enemies to beat on, and new souls to imbibe.

There are a vast number of souls to collect, as every enemy in the game has one and some of them take an act of god before they give up their soul. The soul system is brilliant because of the large variety in abilities you acquire from them. Figuring out which souls to equip as you go through the castle is a lot of fun, although some are certainly far more powerful than others and can make the boss battles easier than they should be. There's only a small chance each time you kill a minion that you will be able to "eat" their soul, so if you're a completist and require 100 percent you're going to be a while. The weapon system also relies on the souls for upgrades, which means for the best weapons you have to kill millions of enemies. They're not necessary for finishing the game, but again, if you're a 100 percent kind of guy, I feel for you. There's also more than one ending, and a whole new mode to unlock, so this game has an amazing amount of play lockup in the little cartridge.

New wrinkles

One of the wrinkles Konami decided to add in this time is some ill-advised touch screen use in the form of seals that you have to draw when you kill a boss to seal his soul away. I didn't mind it really, but it doesn't really serve to be fun or anything. It does add to the theme in a way I suppose. But the true blessing of the DS is the two screens.

Since the castle is so impossibly huge, you're forever looking at your map to find out where in Dracula's name you are. And there it is, just sitting on the top screen, all the time; a quick glance and you know where you're going. Gone are the days of pressing select a million times in the game to switch back and forth between the map and main views.

All in all, I say "Konami, please don't change too much in the next Castlevania." Here's hoping Castlevania will always be Castlevania and not try to be existential, or art, or cinematic or whatever else is the next big thing.