Topic: Which of the Sorrow games are better and why?

[Phoenix7786]

Hey there! Welcome to the Dungeon!!

[PyramidHead]

Aria! This game has a great plot. I really love the concept of chaos. The series needed something bigger and more powerful than Dracula. And Chaos was perfect as that. I thought that Dawn of Sorrow would be more focused on chaos, than something else. May be some opposing power would be introduced - like "order" or "harmony". But no... In this game we fight red-haired Italian, blond Russian and a girl who did absolutely nothing, except get herself killed. Everything else was superb IMO, but not the plot.   

[Abnormal Freak]

Dawn has really lazy level designs at spots, whereas Aria is much more well-constructed. For this reason I prefer Aria.

[Phoenix7786]

But no... In this game we fight red-haired Italian, blond Russian and a girl who did absolutely nothing, except get herself killed. Everything else was superb IMO, but not the plot.

Seriously I was so stoked for fighting Celia or whatever her name was. Then...DUN DUN DUN plot-twist and she dies. Had it been Dmitri (who was probably the lest impactfull villain) who died and she lived to become the final boss, I'd have been fine with it. That's not to say I don't like a good twist (Giant Bat fight in AoS, anyone?) but to completely have the cult leader die off in such an anti-climatic style made me want to pull a Calypso and shoot the nearest tied-up mob boss with a Mac-10.

[DoctaMario]

Definitely Aria. Dawn was a pretty game, had some great boss battles, and I even liked the Seal drawing thing, but it was a game I like less and less each time I played it. And the Sorrow games are among my least favorite CV games, but Aria is probably the best designed Castleroid game there is. It was the game that made me actually appreciate the exploration style games to be sure.

[Pfil]

Seriously I was so stoked for fighting Celia or whatever her name was. Then...DUN DUN DUN plot-twist and she dies. Had it been Dmitri (who was probably the lest impactfull villain) who died and she lived to become the final boss, I'd have been fine with it. That's not to say I don't like a good twist (Giant Bat fight in AoS, anyone?) but to completely have the cult leader die off in such an anti-climatic style made me want to pull a Calypso and shoot the nearest tied-up mob boss with a Mac-10.

Like in the movie Alexander, when you expect to see a final duel but the villain dies half way through the movie, and then it's all nonsense from that point until the end, with the only exception of some Colin Farrell nudes 

[DoctaMario]

Like in the movie Alexander, when you expect to see a final duel but the villain dies half way through the movie, and then it's all nonsense from that point until the end, with the only exception of some Colin Farrell nudes 

LOL you're such a girl! xD

[shelverton.]

My vote would've gone to Dawn, actually (but the voting is closed now). I don't remember much of the story and I agree that Aria was more memorable in that regard. However, I disagree a little on the level design aspect... Parts of Aria was really lazy. The floating garden, for example, was pretty terrible.

Dawn had some really great boss battles, better than those found in Aria (IMO).

All in all, Dawn took a great game and made it even better. It wins no points for originality though, and storywise it did nothing interesting. They should've made it a separate game instead of a sequel. It could've had someone else as the main character, taking place in some other time. Dunno... Maybe it could've been Soleiyu's game? Remove the modern elements, such as the cars, get rid of the soul system in favour of something else, and change some of the cast + the storyline. Done!

[Hiryu]

I really enjoyed Dawn's levels over Aria.  Still don't care much for Soma though.

[Pfil]

LOL you're such a girl! xD

Haha, I hadn't seen this comment until now! 

[Super Waffle]

Dawn because it had the Nega-Dracula battle with Soma using his Pokemon powers and his own version of Dance of Illusions.

But if you're just going off the artwork, Aria is awesome and Dawn is terrible.

[Mike Belmont]

Dawn because it had the Nega-Dracula battle with Soma using his Pokemon powers and his own version of Dance of Illusions.

But if you're just going off the artwork, Aria is awesome and Dawn is terrible.

This. Yes, in AoS the Julius´ mode "bad ending" implies a Julius battle against Dracula (Soma), but we never seen that battle. In the other hand, in DoS we have the Soma story, and the Julius story (if Soma became Dracula). Finally we have another Belmont vs Dracula battle (with Alucard and Sypha, eh I mean Yoko).

Agree with the art direction. There were totally opposite, and I prefer the AoS one. DoS is not bad at all, but I prefer the first one.

[Mike Belmont]

See, Aria's art style doesn't seem entirely different from Dawn for me personally. Maybe this is because I didn't play these games until years after release but I never thought the anime style clashed or was otherwise bad in any ways. First time I played "Rondo of Blood" and experienced those amazing anime cutscenes I loved it, so why not here?

Yeah, is true. The fact is that after play and see the art in AoS, the anime style was DoS was surprising to me. Now, taking the example of Rondo of Blood, we have first the anime art style, then in SoTN we saw a different style for Richter and Dracula. Personally, in RoB/SoTN I prefer the anime style for Richter and Dracula. The same is apply to the DXC, with Maria.

In shorth words, I prefer the art used in a game in the first edition of those games, because that´s the way I known them first.

[Dracula9]

I prefer Aria, just because Dawn's got a degree of...blandness to it. A lot of the areas have washed-out colors, and there's the annoying anime style (though not as bad as PoRk's). I dunno how to explain it. I think Dawn was trying to be like SotN, but by trying to emulate that while also using a brighter/kinda bland art style, they dropped the ball IMO. SotN worked so well because it had a very dark Gothic approach to most of its art direction, whereas Dawn just...again, washed-out colors that I don't think translate well for a supposed SotN-styled game.

And I liked Aria's everything better. I think Aria is actually closer to emulating SotN than Dawn, but that's just me; totally ignoring that Harmony WAS a direct SotN clone in more than once sense on this one, though.

And Aria did the crazy-priest-leader thing a hell of a lot better. Celia doesn't stand up to Graham even a smidgen.

[Mike Belmont]

I remember reading a videogame´s magazine in which IGA tells that the anime style used in DoS was for atract a younger audience to the game (or the entire franchise, I can´t remember).

And Aria did the crazy-priest-leader thing a hell of a lot better. Celia doesn't stand up to Graham even a smidgen.

Yes, indeed. Afterall Graham has a Dracul-esque fight (with two cool forms). Celia in the other hand gets sacrificed at the end (is this a spoiler???), without have a realy fight.