Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (2003)

I'm probably gonna compare these extra modes more to each other than I will for their respective games. Julius mode was cool. This one is different in that you DO get stronger after every boss, which does a nice job making the game have a sense of progression. It did feel weird to not feel as free as Maxim did since there are some tough enemies if you don't beat enough bosses.

My favorite of the GBA games and my overall favorite of all of the games I've played recently. I really like the story, it takes place in the future and it takes a different approach than all of the other games. I really like the soul collecting system. The soul system + the variety of weapons makes Soma feel customizable. Map got a slight improvement, they made room borders more prominent. Movement and map design is pretty swell, they also give access to fast travel early on so backtracking isn't nearly as bad as the other GBA games. I can't think of any complaints I have with this game, I think it still holds up 20 years later.

Ok. So I'm playing this on my Switch via the Advance Collection. I usually put my Switch on sleep mode before I get back to playing, so I did not have a habit to save on this one. I beat the game and got the bad ending, but my save was far back. So you know what I did? I'm now playing it again because this game is so fun. This game is awesome.

Cool, quick little 8.5-9/10 type of game here. This was my second Castlevania after loving SotN as a teenager but quickly bouncing off some of the earlier ones. After enjoying a few hours of Bloodstained last year but not wanting to finish it, I thought I was just done with this kind of game, but this one I liked, especially some of the boss fights. The pacing was absolutely perfect in this game, in terms of entering new areas and acquiring new abilities and items. I never got bored and always generally knew where to go because like Super Metroid or something the scope is small enough that it’s easy to remember where you need to go revisit to use a new abilitiy. I wish the movement was faster, but not a huge deal. I only have one big complaint, which is that I wish I could have upgraded weapons that I liked using instead of having to switch to more powerful ones that I didn’t like—I ended up feeling obligated to stick to a slower playstyle and was sad to give up weapons like the long-ranged whip sword as they quickly lost viability. The setting and story are even pretty cool in this one, I actually enjoyed bumping into all the characters. Anybody into Metroidvanias should give this game a shot!

This game is so great and different from the other Castlevania games, that I could almost consider it standalone. The unique "Soul Stealing" abilities of a supposed human, make for not only an interesting and replayable story but makes for some pretty great gameplay as well. While the constant grinding for souls can feel quite monotonous at times, its one of those games that can get away with it without me caring too much. I would recommend this to ages 10 and up, as it's not scary in any way just has the Castlevania atmosphere adding a darkish feel to the game. There is some gore, and a little language, but not enough to make it unplayable by younger audiences.