Afterthoughts: My First Castlevania

It is official, I have just completed my first Castlevania game. Prior to leaving for PAX, I promised Brad I would play through a Castlevania game and he suggested that I begin with Dawn of Sorrow for the Nintendo DS. The game took me approximately 11 hours to complete and I must say, it left me with a new found appreciation for the series and a drive to play the others. Having just seen the credits role, I am still trying to gather my thoughts but I can assure you, my complaints are miniscule and my praise is rampant.

Want to know what I think, read

Here are my thoughts separated into a simple list of Pros and Cons:

Pros:

1.) Fantastic Pacing - I found myself constantly yearning to move forward in the game thanks to the steady progression of the story and environments. I never found myself getting bored by exploring any one area too long and I never had to wait too long to get to another boss battle or story segment.

2.) Soul Farming - One thing I think I will find incredibly addicting about the Castlevania games is how their mechanics will change from game to game. Having the ability in "Dawn of Sorrow" to randomly absorb enemy souls and attain new abilities was refreshing and fun. I can't claim to know much about games with Loot systems, but I can only assume that the feeling I get when hunting for new abilities is the same feeling one would get from farming for loot in Diablo or Borderlands.

3.) Weapon Synthesis - This is a feature I really didn't take advantage of until the end of the game. I didn't fully grasp it's usefulness until I found myself dying over and over again while fighting the final boss. I finally realized that I could fuse weapons with souls to gain new weapons with higher ATK levels. I found myself scouring the entire map, hunting for specific souls to create a weapon that would give me the upper hand in the final battle. Luckily, this made grinding fun and unpredictable.

4.) All the f***ed up s*** - I love Silent Hill. I love Resident Evil. I pretty much love any game with grotesque enemy and level design and this series has it in spades. Aside from being disgusting, the bosses were all interesting visually and were brought to life in a way that made them beautiful even on a small DS screen.

Negatives

1.) Poor writing - I understand that Castlevania isn't a game that is known for its narrative but in all honesty, there is no reason for this. The actual concept behind the story is interesting and could make for a really interesting story. Unfortunately, the presentation of that story is below average and is holding this series back from being pure gold in my eyes.

2.) Unnecessary item limits - One thing I always despise about game design is the tendency to put limits on certain things for the sake of creating artificial difficulty. Being limited to only carrying 9 of any 1 item is ridiculous. If you can carry 40 pieces of weapons and armor, there is no realistic reason to be limited in the number of items you carry. Even after grinding all the way to level 47, I found myself down to the wire with no items left fighting the final boss. I barely conquered the final boss for this reason.

3.) Soul Sealing - I'll admit, I really liked this mechanic. I think it took advantage of the DS's touch screen in an interesting and unique way. Unfortunately, giving you only a few seconds to seal a boss away with your stylus ruined this mechanic for me. Not only that but messing up because you were rushed usually resulted in losing the boss fight and forcing you to retry.

There really wasn't a whole lot for me to complain about with this game. I got frustrated a few times but it was nothing that I couldn't overcome by using one of the games several genius mechanics. With that said, I have a long journey ahead of me if I intend to play all of the other games before the release of "Lords of Shadow".

I need a brief break from Castlevania so here is my intended handheld lineup in the coming weeks:

-Nick