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General Castlevania Discussion / Re: What do you think now of the DS games?
« Last post by PFG9000 on May 18, 2025, 03:40:43 AM »I've been playing all three DS games repeatedly since they launched, so I never felt like I needed the Dominus Collection to re-evaluate the games. Rather it was the means to play these games on the big screen at last, something I had been dying to do since the first time I tried Dawn of Sorrow on its launch day 20ish years ago. Yeah, I've tried emulating them with my laptop connected to my TV, but I could never get them to emulate well. When the collection came out, it was a dream come true. I played all four games for a few months straight, and it was a great time to be a CV fan.
My opinion on the DS games hasn't changed since they came out. Dawn of Sorrow is great. Not as good as Aria, but still a fantastic experience. Some castle areas like the garden and the demon guest house are lackluster. But the Condemned Tower and Subterranean Hell are pretty great. And the Gergoth boss fight is among my favorite Castlevania moments.
Portrait is my least favorite of the DS games. It feels bland and uninspired. Even the music is largely generic, which I feel like I should never say about a Michiru Yamane or Yuzo Koshiro tune. There is some great stuff still - I love the music from the dark Egyptian level, and from the daytime academy area, and the Nest of Evil. I love the little subtleties like how the Nest music gets faster and faster as you make your way down. And Portrait has a ton of content, with lots of replay modes and different varieties of the subweapons as you level them up. But the characters and their dialogue bring things down - it ultimately feels like a couple of kids going on a fun adventure while sewrching for self-affirmation, not nearly as serious as something like Simon taking on Drac and his minions in Super CV4.
Order of Ecclesia is fantastic. It's my favorite of the three, largely because of how fresh it feels. It seems to have more new sprites and fewer rehashed sprites compared to most Igavanias. The cross-country romp, culminating in the raising of the castle, makes for one of the best quests in the series. And there are some really cool ideas, like the Blackmore boss and biome, and the library with its heaps of books. The level design was some of the worst, especially in the castle, but I can overlook that because of how cool everything else was.
So the Dominus Collection didn't change how I feel about anything, but I enjoyed the hell out of it and I'll continue to play it until we get a better way to enjoy these stellar games.
My opinion on the DS games hasn't changed since they came out. Dawn of Sorrow is great. Not as good as Aria, but still a fantastic experience. Some castle areas like the garden and the demon guest house are lackluster. But the Condemned Tower and Subterranean Hell are pretty great. And the Gergoth boss fight is among my favorite Castlevania moments.
Portrait is my least favorite of the DS games. It feels bland and uninspired. Even the music is largely generic, which I feel like I should never say about a Michiru Yamane or Yuzo Koshiro tune. There is some great stuff still - I love the music from the dark Egyptian level, and from the daytime academy area, and the Nest of Evil. I love the little subtleties like how the Nest music gets faster and faster as you make your way down. And Portrait has a ton of content, with lots of replay modes and different varieties of the subweapons as you level them up. But the characters and their dialogue bring things down - it ultimately feels like a couple of kids going on a fun adventure while sewrching for self-affirmation, not nearly as serious as something like Simon taking on Drac and his minions in Super CV4.
Order of Ecclesia is fantastic. It's my favorite of the three, largely because of how fresh it feels. It seems to have more new sprites and fewer rehashed sprites compared to most Igavanias. The cross-country romp, culminating in the raising of the castle, makes for one of the best quests in the series. And there are some really cool ideas, like the Blackmore boss and biome, and the library with its heaps of books. The level design was some of the worst, especially in the castle, but I can overlook that because of how cool everything else was.
So the Dominus Collection didn't change how I feel about anything, but I enjoyed the hell out of it and I'll continue to play it until we get a better way to enjoy these stellar games.