Castlevania: Gyôgetsu no enbukyoku (2003) Online

(www.plasticpals.com) Castlevania Aria of Sorrow is the third and final installment on the Gameboy Advance, and the first Castlevania to take place in the future. It's also easily the best Castlevania since Koji Igarashi rocked the world with his 32-bit masterpiece, Symphony of the Night.

As per the usual, game play is lightning quick, responsive, and satisfying. The designers have added yet another twist to the core game play in the form of Soul collecting. The castle's dark energy has affected Soma in an unexpected way: he has the power to rule over the monsters populating the evil halls. By defeating a monster, there is a small random chance of capturing their soul!

Unlike previous game play gimmicks, the Player gains all sorts of cool tricks vis-a-vis enemy souls (similar to Final Fantasy 7's "materia" system), and is a welcome modification to the Castlevania sub-weapon staple. Some can be used as special attacks (like the ability to shoot lightning bolts from your fingertips), others as special abilities (such as walking on water, or bat transformation), and some support him by upping his stats (strength +20%, for example). Successful combination of souls is necessary to unlock the castle's many mysteries.

The only problem I have with the soul collecting is that it can sometimes be a pain to collect them. Some monsters are extremely rare (inhabiting only one screen of the entire map, for example) so tracking them down can be problematic. On top of that, you'll have to kill dozens of the same enemy type over and over just to get their soul. It's too time consuming. You can get an item which increases your chances of an enemy dropping its soul, but it's not as effective as it should be.

Sporting a nice variety of sprite-based characters and enemies, mostly good and sometimes unbelievable backgrounds brimming with Gothic goodness, and enchanting music, this is Castlevania as it was always meant to be! As in Harmony of Dissonance, you'll see mode 7-esque scaling and rotation to create pseudo-3D effects, which look great on the GBA's screen. Soma's sprite looks fantastic, and the boss monsters are sure to impress. This is one of the best looking GBA titles.

Whereas Harmony of Dissonance favoured better graphics at the expense of sound quality, Aria of Sorrow restores the balance and somehow manages to excel in both areas. There is even a fair number of voice samples, further blurring the notion that you are playing a portable game.

Taking a cue from Chrono Trigger is a New Game + option (start from the beginning with all souls and equipment from your first time through). There's the much appreciated Boss Rush mode. And adding further incentive to replay the game, the option to control the latest Belmont – Julius (no mean feat considering he can't level up or equip more powerful items). These extra features are great since a first game will probably take the average gamer about 8-10 hours.

The amazing graphics, awesome tunes and challenging boss monsters, coupled with monster-hunting soul-collecting goodness, the best main character since Alucard, and one of the coolest plot-twists since the original Metroid – and you've got an instant classic. Simply put, this is one of the best titles available for the Gameboy Advance (or any system for that matter) and a must-have if you own a GBA or DS.

As I read a past comment. A person inquired to the castle rising in Japan during the first eclipse. This person must be a terrible follower. If he were a good follower than he would know that the castle was within the eclipse itself, and there isn't one moon for every country.

So the game has a great quality to it. You play as Soma Cruz, a guy who knows hes been in the castle before, just can't think of how or when. You have the unique ability to absorb the souls of those who you defeat. You can use them as special powers, or transformations. These come in quite handy as the game progresses.

The Medusa heads, are Medusa heads...Death is Death... The bosses... We need some new ones. I am sick of killing the same Golems, and Death's all over again, in pretty much the same way. At least in 3D you can get creative. There is little you can innovate in a 2D environment.

Overall this game delivers the good IL' Castlevania experience we come to love, with a good little tweak from the souls. Oh, we need a new place to go. Dracula needs to do some home renovation. Next time he comes back he should stop worrying about taking the world, and worry about adding a new wing to the castle.

I give this game ***.5 out of ****

Another cool and successful title of the series on the GBA. This time it is set in the 2035, you play as a foreign student, Soma Cruz, studying in Japan, and all of a sudden during the first eclipse of the year, Dracula's castle arises, in Japan? How, isn't it supposed to be in East Europe? And all of a sudden, monsters appear and attack you. And a strange person who looks familiar, helps you out. And Soma starts to think there is a connection between him and the castle, and what will he find there? Overall, a very great game, and it has all the cool stuff and action from all the other games in the tradition of Symphony of the Night, and you also play as another character who is a Belmon, but has very cool moves and weapons, and power but at the same time, he looks like a woman. Not again. And you can level him up, and this time, you get weapons from other enemies. And the swords and magic are awesome. Recommended for fans of the series, those who have GBA, of course, and for those who find the 3D ones lousy.