Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
| Format | DS |
|---|---|
| Year Released | 2005 |
| Publisher | Konami |
| Genre | Action, Role Playing Game (RPG) |
| ESRB Age Rating |
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TVG Rating: 9.4
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Amazon.co.uk Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 4.5
Thoroughly enjoyable
Dawn of Sorrow is the first Castlevania game I've played since the Xbox live release of the Saturn/PS1 classic Symphony of the Night. It plays in a similar way with 2D platform exploration tied together with a similar hack and slash approach. It isn't breaking down genre barriers and doesn't provide any large innovations or features that haven't been seen before. It does however provide a very competent, balanced and enjoyable game-play experience and is certainly an essential purchase for any fans of this Castlevania/Metroid sub-genre of the platformer.
Dawn of Sorrow adds a few new elements to the traditional platform/exploration bowl by providing you with a fair few ways of customising your character and his stats. There are a selection of weapons, armour and stat boosting accessories to pick up, as you would find in your standard grass roots Role-playing game (and Symphony of the Night) but the most interesting feature is the use of souls. Each enemy in the game has a soul containing a unique ability which are acquired randomly should you kill them. These range from a series of stat boosts to a vast array of special attacks. Along with the weapon variety this adds a more tactical approach to combat as with so many different offensive and defensive abilities to acquire no two players would likely use the same powers and subsequently approach combat in different ways.
The downside to this is that souls are notoriously hard to come by and gaining them is completely random save for the luck stat has some small bearing on soul capture frequency. For completionists this will mean a lot of going back and forth between screens, killing the same enemy several times just to get their soul. However most people who just want to play the game and avoid this "grinding" should still be able to acquire a reasonable amount of souls just through the exploration of the castle so the chore is an avoidable one. This also eases the pain of backtracking through the game, which is likely to occur if you get stuck and can't work out where to go next as you'll still be levelling up your character and hopefully grabbing some extra souls along the way.
Dawn of Sorrow is not perfect but it is a very good example of the genre and I found my whole experience with it far more enjoyable than I had expected. It has certainly fired my interest in picking up the other DS games and possibly even hunting out the old Gameboy Advance ones. The graphics do the job, character animation is decent, the controls work well, the difficulty level is tough but not impossible or unfair. Symphony of the Night is still the benchmark for the series but Dawn of Sorrow does come close in many aspects and even exceeds in a few.
Rating: 4 Buy from amazon.co.uk
Obsessive But Fun
I'm not usually a big platform game fan, but Castlevania has always been an exception. Ever since 'Symphony of the Night', this darn series has hooked me. I do miss Alucard and his Emo Bishi wavy locks, but frowny pouty Soma makes a fine replacement. He's kinda like Mini-Alucard with different hair.
The plot's pretty much the same. As always, Dracula's Castle seems to be the top prime real estate for Big Bad wannabes who want to use it to gain ultimate power, become the next Lord of Darkness and destroy the world. Of course it's up to Soma to stop them by using his kickass soul sucking skills and rune drawings.
I loved exploring the Castle and seeing that all the old favorites were back, including those ruddy annoying Medusa heads. The bosses were fun and not too overly frustrating. The puzzles were pretty linear too. Not too taxing for my poor non-MENSA brain.
The most fun I had was gathering every soul and item from the various beasties inhabiting the place. And getting that Castle at 100% was a great obsessive way to pass the time. It's quite large and the two playable characters you unlock after the end let you explore the game all over again with the added much harder challenge of not being able to heal during battles.
The music was also well done and had quite a few catchy tunes going on.
The stylus use was interesting since you had to draw runes on your screen at the end of each boss fight to truly defeat it.
Overall, the formula is the same with a few tweaks now and then but despite the obvious repetition, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and look forward to playing the next one.
Rating: 5 Buy from amazon.co.uk
challengingly awesome!!
many friends thought i was crazy to buy this as a first ds game (to be fair, as the first game in my life full-stop). how wrong they were! i am having the time of my life.
admittedly, if you're not a seasoned gamer it might prove a bit challenging at first, but then again nothing in it is impossible and each time you play you're allowed to make enough progress not to feel utterly frustrated. the story's a bit emo but amusingly so, and the gameplay itself is so much fun that you'll never want to put it down. the menus are a tad confusing at first but once you've got the hang of them, and you will rather quickly, they prove really useful and functional.
overall, an awesome game. brilliant graphics, intuitive but never boring gameplay, and just really, really addictive.
Rating: 5 Buy from amazon.co.uk
A very addictive game that is hard to put down.
I bought this game for my 10 year old son, and this is his review:
This is the best game I've ever played. It is perfect for you if you like blood and gore, extreme difficulty, and BIG SCARY BOSSES!!! If you have a DS, you have, and I mean HAVE, to get this game. It also is very difficult to complete. It's not just about fighting you know. There are also lots of puzzels to complete. It is best if you are not really a castlevania fan and you get this game because I wasn't and it worked for me!!!
Rating: 5 Buy from amazon.co.uk
Excellent!
This game is really good! It is the best castlevania made so far! This game is about a guy named soma who is in a castle of dracular to defeat evil in there. There r a lot of bosses in this game and wen u defeat them, u hav 2 draw a shape that seals the monster inside. There r a lot of baddies in this game and a lot of them r difficult 2 beat. U get stronger wen u grow a level and to grow a level u must defeat monsters and bosses to do so. Overall this game is fantastic and a must buy and dont let it put u off that its 2d and not 3 because u will be surprised how good and exciting this game is!
Rating: 5 Buy from amazon.co.uk
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