Topic: An Extremely Detailed Review of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

[Joachim]

duplicator has nothing to do with subweapons. you're talking about the single-use items you get, which aren't quite the same thing.

the sotn spell system is quite a bit better than portraits. there is nothing interesting, engaging or satisfying about simply holding up+ attack for a period of time. it, like everything else in the game, is incredibly shallow and superficial; any kind of satisfaction is ultimately weak and forgotten moments afterward. the entire game is designed towards an ADD "constant tiny miniscule rewards" mentality.

in sotn, successfully pulling off a spell was satisfying; it wasn't always easy, it was something that had to be earned and its effect was generally interesting (rather than falling under two primary categories: temporary stat boost, shoot something directly ahead of you). in addition, it was something that was always with you; there was an element of uncovering, of discovery, in the spell system. this adds another level of satisfaction and depth on repeat plays: you now likely have the whole arsenal of spells in your head, capable of being utilized at your whim rather than not figuring out it was there or not knowing how to do them until quite a bit later in the game.

further, it shouldn't matter what the intent of mechanics in portrait were; they were failures. trying to fix something doesn't mean its going to be better, its more than possible for these attempts to result in failure.

[Ridureyu]

We're going to have a fun difference in opinion!

[darkwzrd4]

Graham Jones is a religious leader (Billy Graham? Jim Jones?) of one of those "It's probably a cult, but maybe it's a denomination" groups.  There are lots of them, of which the Church of Christ is probably the best example.  CoC really looks like bog-standard Protestant Christianity, but they disagree on just enough that there are still public debates over "denomination or cult?"  Graham's specialty was end-times preaching on the apocalypse.  Now, as it turns out, he inherited part of Dracula's power.  More specifically, Graham could teleport, throw balls of fire, control demons, and change into a gigantic evil (extremely freudian) form.  Pretty much, he was Dracula-Lite, only to be beaten when it turned out that Soma inherited a lot more of Drac's power.  Graham Jones even had a complex personality - charismatic and nice as a general rule, but with an extremely brutal, cruel side that surfaced if somebody was in his way.  Without supernatural power, he would have just been a tyrant minister.  He's actually an interesting character, and maintains this even as he steadily goes crazier and crazier over the course of Aria.

Ridureyu, I think your mistaken about Graham.  I don't think that he had the teleport, fireball, transformation into demon form powers originally.  Remember, he got to the throne room before we see him teleport for the first time.  He likely gained those abilities from absorbing the castle's power in the throne room.  After all, Yoko says: " He has... absorbed this castle's power... and he's gotten much stronger." Then, Arikado comes in and says: I underestimated the amount of power he acquired..."  In truth, we don't know what his original abilities were.

Graham, Dario, and Demitri received their original powers because they were apparently born at the moment the Dracula died in 1999.  It's possible that the fallout of the battle released some of Dracula's power which gave these three their powers.  That being said, I don't think that any of those three had the potential to become Dracula's successor.  I believe that only Soma (and possibly Alucard) have that potential.  After all, they have direct connections to Dracula.  Soma is literally Dracula reincarnated and Alucard is Dracula's son.  The only reason that neither of them has become the Dark Lord is that they don't want to.  I believe that it would take a real tragedy to change that.  For example, Mina being murdered by humans would drive Soma to become the Dark Lord.  Who knows what it would take to turn Alucard down that road.

[Ridureyu]

You know, that is a pretty good point.  It does raise some questions about what power, if any, Graham had before reaching the throne room, though.

As an aside, Graham Form 2 is... disturbing.

[Puwexil]

Metroidvanias in general get a lot of flak for reusing Symphony of the Night's sprites, but it's not really the way people usually portrays it.  To begin with, SotN reused so much from Rondo of Blood that it's completely insane.

Enemies lifted from past games in Symphony's bestiary total at under forty, the vast majority of them from Rondo, with a select few from elsewhere. This is out of 146 enemies, which still leaves the number of original creations at over a hundred, nearly three quarters out of the whole cast. By comparison, Dawn has about the same amount of old foes in its ranks, but the complete number is a lessened 116, and thus not nearly as impressive even by raw numbers.

That the new sprites and designs in Symphony are perfectly in tune with the earlier Rondo material -- being the handiwork of mostly the same people -- is an unrivalled accomplishment, especially in light of what kind of stylistical discrepancies arose from Dawn forward when the recycling began to run rampant, without the initial care and expertise that Symphony so deftly demonstrated. It's even chronologically faultless in this respect: the game that it models itself after was its direct predecessor, both in series story and development history. It just makes a tremendous amount of sense, without feeling like cheap corner-cutting in neither quality nor quantity.

[Flame]

Im complaining about story/setting, not gameplay.

[Ridureyu]

No, I have to say, This... this is worse than the sweatdrop.  This is far worse than the sweatdrop.  The last few "escape" panels, specifically.  Charlotte's Sweatdrop has nothing on Maria's existence.

 But then, I hate the art designs for Rondo of Blood and Legends far, far worse than I could even bring myself to, concerning Dawn of Sorrow or Portrait of Ruin.

[X]

I actually saw a fully animated Maria escape scene using those exact images. When I first saw Maria's ending sequence I thought I had been ripped off. But after playing the original Rondo CD game on an emulator off the net I found to my surprise that it I wasn't jipped out of anything.

-X

[thernz]

I thought the anime in RoB complimented its mood. It was consistent with the colorful imaginative vistas, the off-the-wall (for Castlevania) soundtrack, and Maria is well, just a bonus. She's pretty much the best bonus character in a Castlevania. She's just as fleshed out as Richter despite being an unlockable. The character's cutscenes don't really degrade the game. It flows with the mood of her own mode with its juxtaposition of flowery elements even in HUD and subweapons to the dark castle perfectly.

Charlotte's sweat drop pout comes out of the blue to disrupt the dialogue as a sort of comedic retort but it ruins the mood established. And besides that it's just slapped on a face template with exaggerated features that never appear again in any of the other art.

[Ridureyu]

Fixed my link.

Something I really like about Dawn of Sorrow is its boss design.  Disregarding a few misses (like Malphas again), it's generally really good.  You have new character like Puppet Master or Gergoth (wasn't he originally supposed to chase you through the town at the beginning/ That would have been AWESOME), or Agni and Rahab, both of whom had been mentioned in previous CVs, but never made an appearance.  Too bad we never saw Indra to complete the "weapons" trio.

BTW, about Rahab - it';s not named after the prostitute/convert from Jericho.  Rather, SHE was named after a mythical water demon/dragon often associated with the nile,a nd thus egypt.  This explains why Psalm 89:10 talks about God "crushing" Rahab.  He's not murdering the woman, He's defeating Egypt (and, by extension, all of Israel's enemies).

[Joachim]

Enemies lifted from past games in Symphony's bestiary total at under forty, the vast majority of them from Rondo, with a select few from elsewhere.

talk about owned

[thernz]

Yeah, DoS was the beginning of the IGAvanias to have like,

decently designed bosses

Probably the best thing about it. Gergoth was especially memorable and probably the most daring thing in DoS. Even Malphas was a lot better than his appearance in SoTN. I never really liked Rahab though. I mean the concept of a water battle was interesting but the movement in water is just too plodding to garner actual interest for me beyond initial intrigue. Just tedious.
Though I think in terms of build up, atmosphere, and presentation, SoTN is still the better one by far. None of the DS titles really struck much on those chords.

[Ridureyu]

Well, Rahab was kind of like that eel boss from Metroid Fusion, only not as fun as the Fusion eel.  I like the fact that they put it in, and apparently did their homework on what it should look like.

[darkwzrd4]

Still Rahab could have been so much more.  Plus, the Rahab soul kind of sucked.  Why were there two water movement souls.  Sure, the Rahab soul allowed you to sink and walk underwater, but you still moving slow.  It's like Samus in the Metroid games walking in water without the gravity suit.  Why does Soma need a separate soul to move easier underwater?  Couldn't that be apart of the Rahab soul?  It makes no sense.

[Ridureyu]

Yeah, Rahab wasn't the greatest boss, gameplay-wise.  I didn't mind the Procel soul so much as I minded how much grinding it took to get it.  If anything, I'm just pleased that both are gray souls, unlike the horrible thing they did to us in Aria. 

"You must ditch your status-boosting souls when you go underwater.  Ha-ha!"