User Rating: 8.8 | Castlevania: Akatsuki no Minuet GBA
The third Castlevania game for the GBA is sure to please fans of the series. The gameplay and visuals are some of the best experienced on Nintendo’s hand held. The gameplay in AOS is top notch. Like the other two Castlevania games on the GBA, AOS shares much in common with the 1997 classic Symphony of the night (which obviously drew inspiration from the SNES game Super Metroid). The game features expansive environments which aren’t divided into levels, but are sub-sections of the entire game world. While more often than not in a Castlevania game you play as a whip toting member of the Belmont clan, this time you assume control of a young man named Soma Cruz who is an exchange student studying abroad in Japan. While on his way to a shrine he gets warped into an eclipse which houses none other than Dracula’s castle. Upon arriving at the castle Soma meets Genya Arikado (won’t take Castlevania fans long to figure out who he really is) who informs him that he has a dark power inside him and that he has the ability to steal his enemy's souls. AOS’s difficulty is pretty even, it’s not too hard, and it’s not too easy, some enemies will be a pushover, while some may really hinder your progress, oh, how I hate those floating medusa heads. The soul system the game uses works rather well. There are three slots to equip souls in the menu: top, middle, and bottom. The top takes the place of the sub weapons of the previous games, and it really works a lot better because there’s more variety. These souls are used by pressing up and the B button and they are basically enemy skills. You can throw bones, toss spears, fling knives, shoot lasers, hurl a wave of fireballs, and much more. The middle slot is triggered by pressing the R button and also features a wide variety of soul types to equip. Some include wings which help you make farther jumps, another causes death sickles to fly around the screen and hit enemies, another summons a familiar to help you fight, and another causes your strength to increase by 120% (although it drains MP at a very high rate). The bottom slot is for souls that give you enhancements like higher attack, defense, or luck, and also allow for abilities such as walking on water’s surface, while another allows you to sink to the bottom to explore water filled areas. Soma also has a few abilities gained from souls that are, unless you turn them off, always activated. These include a back dash, a double jump, a slide, a bullet kick, a super high jump, and one that lets you recognize when time has been stopped (which grants you access to new areas in the game). Just like Alucard from Symphony, Soma does not use a whip, he has a wide variety of weapons from swords, hammers, spears, and lances. All these weapons have their ups and downs. One sword may be bigger and stronger than another but may be really slow to swing while the weaker smaller sword has a much quicker swing. This causes you to pick and choose wisely and not just use a particular weapon because it has a higher attack than the others. Soma is a pretty agile guy and it’s often easy to hit what you want, although it would have been nice if he could stab downwards at an angle like Alucard could. Graphically the game is very impressive and is one of the best looking GBA games I’ve seen. The backgrounds look very nice and detailed and each area has a distinctive look and style to it from underwater caverns, a dance hall, an arena, and others. The game also has a wide variety of enemies so you’ll see quite a few different types by the game’s end. Some look just flat out awesome like the giant flaming skulls and giant armored knights, a number of the bosses are also really huge too, one is a giant face in the background and it’s hands try to pulverize you from either side of the screen, while another boss is a giant orb of collected bodies (much like a boss in Symphony). It really is a great looking game. The game’s sound is also very impressive. The music is well composed and each area has it’s own theme, as do some of the characters. Mina Habuka’s theme reminds me very much of the opening tune heard in Final Fantasy VI, it‘s really nice. The characters themselves utter a few grunts and groans of their own, which you may or may not get tired of hearing. Mina utters the same phrase every time you talk to her, but for me personally I like the way it sounds, while I found that the grunts the secret character made got kind of stale quickly. More or less in every installment the Castlevania games have throw away stories: Dracula’s been resurrected, go stop him. While the story is nothing grand or epic (and it doesn’t need to be) in AOS it does have a few nice twists and turns and some interesting characters, specifically the main character Soma Cruz who doesn’t enter Dracula’s castle of his own free will, rather his mission is finding an escape from the castle with Mina and the friends he meets inside. Aside from arriving with Mina and meeting Arikado soon thereafter, he meets Graham Jones who seems nice at their first meeting, but it’s later found out that he has some plans of his own regarding the castle and Dracula’s powers. He also meets Yoko Belnades, who knows Arikado and warns Soma that Graham isn’t as nice as he appears to be. You also find a man named Hammer who later sets up shop at the castle’s gate and will sell you new items, as well as purchase those you have no use for. Lastly you’ll come across a man called J who seems to have a case of amnesia but believes he was somehow involved in the 1999 incident involving Dracula. It really is a pretty good story, and even has a few different endings for you to get. The game does have some good replay value as well. There’s a few different endings to get, a secret character who is pretty fun to play as, and there’s also a boss rush mode. The game itself is just fun to play through because it is a great game, full of variety, whether it be weapons, locations, enemies, or souls, the game is just really well done. If you’re a fan of Castlevania than this is easily a must buy game. And anyone looking for a fantasy adventure game would do well to check it out. Aria of Sorrow is just a blast to play and is even so good that those of you who don’t have a GBA, or don’t like hand held gaming (this would be me), should consider getting a GBA player for your GameCube. 
