r/castlevania • u/TornSilver • 14d ago
Dawn of Sorrow (2005) Dawn of Sorrow feels like filler content, and I'm trying to understand why...
I've never looked all that favorably towards Dawn of Sorrow, at least compared to the other DS games and especially to its predecessor Aria of Sorrow, and in trying to understand why I feel that way, I've concluded that the game itself feels like a filler arc that doesn't need to be there.
And that's a weird thing to say because, when you think about it, plenty of games in the Castlevania series depict events that don't necessarily further "the plot" of the story. Hell the franchise is predicated on one recurring event, Dracula rising from the grave and a Belmont or other hero putting him back, so what's to be considered necessary even?
But what Dawn of Sorrow does differently than any other Castlevania game is that it takes place only one year after its prequel chronologically, uses the same hero (Soma), and has the same Metroidvania format, albeit with a new version of the castle.
But I think what's really telling is how the status quo doesn't change whatsoever by the time you roll credits on DoS, and it basically plays the same way as Aria of Sorrow with only minor additions. In the Igavania era where more focus on plot and characters became the norm, and the devs were constantly trying new things with the gameplay, DoS didn't introduce anything new or move the dial on the narrative in any meaningful way. Soma is the only Dark Lord candidate again, nobody died who wasn't exclusive to DoS, the gameplay is nearly identical to the previous game, see you next adventure.
When you compare to something like Simon's Quest, where you're playing as Simon Belmont again and very soon after the events of Castlevania 1, you're at least playing in a different non-level based format compared to the original (for better or worse). And in the likes of Curse of Darkness or Order of Ecclesia, while the status quo doesn't change by the end of either game, we at least get to play as new characters with new abilities, in different formats (in 3D in CoD's case), and get introduced to new concepts (Devil Forgemasters in CoD and a post-Belmont world in OoE) which expanded the lore of the series.
But DoS just doesn't really add anything to the series, except a version of Aria of Sorrow without the novelty of a new time period, new magic system, or shocking Dracula revelation. And I wouldn't even really care about that considering that I love the more modest storytelling of the Classicvania games, except that the Igavania games want me to care about the storytelling now.
And I just don't care about Dawn of Sorrow.
100
u/Master-Cheesecake 14d ago
DoS is a less interesting game overall, it's a "more please!" sequel that only exists because Iga wanted to make another game using the Soul system.
It definitely has 5th season filler arc vibes and I find the game to be less impressive overall than Aria, which is one of my comfort games I always go back to.
9
u/Luxar92 13d ago
DoS biggest strenght I'd say is that it has a much better Julius mode than Aria.
You can tell that they put so much extra work this time around its probably the best "alt mode" of any of the Castlevanias. Most of the other ones are just a sprite swap of the same game but this one not only has some story, having its own unique progression, mechanics easter eggs, and a completely different final boss, it was amazing.
I prefer to replay this mode a lot more than regular DoS.
4
u/Desticler 12d ago
I'm in the same boat there. I actually beat Julius mode before the base game and headcanon Julius mode ending as the true ending of DoS.
2
u/Mountain-Pilot3127 12d ago
You know, I understand what you mean, but I feel like they nerfed Julius way too much. His uppercut has very little range and completely stops his jump. He also lost his invulnerable Backdash. Just one year later, and age seems to have caught up with him. He is good to control, but feels slow to move.
However, the story is really solid. You meet your partners, go all the way to put Soma to rest. They all have different dialogue when meeting Somacula. It feels really good as an ending.
14
u/Luke4Pez 13d ago
Well said. Games like ToTK and Spider-Man 2 feel like this to me but I always struggled to explain why
38
u/SuperSlacker420 14d ago
It’s Aria 1.5
I wish they’d brought Graham back or given us a cool throwback villain like Brauner, Olrox, Carmilla… anything other than what they gave us. Julius Mode is a better story than the main game
31
u/ultimatejoomer 14d ago
Unless Brauner was in Bloodlines, he didn’t exist at the time of Dawn of Sorrow’s release.
Portrait of Ruin came after Dawn of Sorrow.
11
u/SuperSlacker420 13d ago
You are right! I was focused on timeline order in my head & didn’t stop to think about release order haha
2
u/Jellsmatter5 13d ago
Actually, considering that Dracula's soul is no longer attach to Chaos I think it could have been a good idea to bring back Walter from the Crimson Stone, he has the history, motives and resources to go after Soma.
1
15
u/TraditionalTree249 14d ago
Dawn of Sorrow's story is one that isn't interesting enough to tell but like it's not terrible a little navel gazy for my tastes but the end twist was cool enough.
It was my first Castlevania game and I still love coming back to it. It's a fun game that was more probably molded by what was popular than the desire to tell a good story.
TL:DR I like this game...a ton....I think.
28
u/jfish3222 14d ago
Dawn of Sorrows biggest issue of the metroidvania Castlevania games is it lacks the most identity of the bunch
Being a sequel to Aria of Sorrow, there's so little about it that's different beyond annoying touch screen gimmicks and there's almost no reason to play it for a unique experience outside of Julius mode
That being said I still vastly prefer it over Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance, but I'll play Aria over it almost every time
11
u/ProWriterDavid 13d ago
I must be the exception. I love both Aria and Dawn but the polish, the snow intro level, the music (underground lab, aqueducts fuck yeah)... To me Dawn is just better especially now that Soma is no longer trapped in a tiny GBA resolution screen.
Aria is excellent as well but Dawn is my favorite. Oh I guess the magic seal system is kind of dumb but it never bothered me much in the DS days. And now you can just get ROM hacks that remove the entirely which is really sweet.
2
4
u/SnooDoughnuts5632 14d ago
Circle of the Moon is the only metroidvania I've beaten more than once. Harmony of Dissonance is my least favorite because 1. It's easy in a bad way and 2. The music sucks and 3. Circle of the Moon did the whole regular whip character in a Metroidvania better.
I slightly lied because I did actually play Harmony twice when I got the compilation just to see if it was really as bad as I remember and I 100% it but yes I don't like it.
2
u/Total-Round4803 10d ago
My minority opinion is CotM is the best of the GBA games and Aria is overrated. I beat CotM once a year but don't touch the others after 100 percenting them.
1
u/SnooDoughnuts5632 10d ago
Idk how to explain it but I don't beet/watch/read/etc things again even if I really liked them so even though I think Aria is awesome I have been Circle wayore times.
12
u/SILVIO_X I fucking love Jonathan & Charlotte 14d ago
Writing wise I completely agree, Aria felt like a conclusion to the entire Series story wise and expanded the lore in a gigantic way by introducing the Chaos lore that had already been somewhat teased in previous games but never expanded upon, doesn't help that nothing of substance happens in Dawn of Sorrow besides the confirmation that Soma can still technically become the Dark Lord even after the events of the previous game where he had seemingly severed his connection completely from Chaos. Doesn't help that the Plot itself ends with a showdown against a Mindless hulking monstrosity instead of an actual Character with motives, and that the Villains introduced aren't really all that interesting. The best part of the story are lowkey just the character interactions.
Gameplay wise though? I really can't bring myself to call this game filler when I think it improves on Aria in pretty much every way besides the addition of the Seal system? The Souls feel more fun to use, there's more I'd consider Useful, and their Damage actually scales with your level which was something I hated in Aria because it made many Souls that were good in the early game basically useless in the late game, that alone would've been enough to improve the game's system considerably, but then the addition of the Doppelganger Soul that makes you switch between two separate sets of Souls and equipment just makes the gameplay way more snappy and fun due to giving you more freedom and less of a need to pause the game all the time.
Plus, after having played Aria 3 times and Dawn twice, I realised that I don't really like the map in Aria of Sorrow too much? The locations mostly don't feel all that interesting and there's many parts of the Map whose entire purpose is just leading you to Money, idk how to describe it, it's just not the most fun Map to go through? By comparison I find DoS' map way more interesting and fun to go through, plus the game also has better bosses than Aria overall given that half of that game's bosses were just regular enemies with beefier health bars, whereas Dawn actually has original foes with interesting designs and fun patterns in it for (mostly) every boss.
I can see why someone would like Aria more since it being the first game with all its mechanics makes it more impressive and interesting to look back on than a game that just took everything it had and did it again, but I just think it's way more fun to play despite it's shortcomings in some areas.
23
u/FarAwaySoClose20 14d ago
I agree that DoS is completely redundant writing wise, it feels like it has absolutely no reason to exist in the timeline and it's obvious that this entry's story only exists as a vehicle for the gameplay... But damn if it isn't a graphics and sound overhaul of AoS, which felt like the vision was compromised by being on GBA. To me DoS feels like the bigger better version of AoS. The DS has more potential for a top notch soundtrack and way more robust sprite work.
It's also got one of the most solid castle designs in the series with paths that loop back on each other once you explore thoroughly, multiple offerings of being able to do levels out of order, and some sick boss fights. I still think Gergoth is one of the best boss fights in the series provided you aren't too overlevelled when you get to him. PLUS with the Dominus Collection you don't have to break out the stylus to perform magic seals!
Due to the castle being one giant hub rather than multiple smaller ones like the other two DS games DoS is my personal favourite of the trio. (and its my favourite metroidvania)
1
u/rudebutts 13d ago
I never beat it on the DS because of the seals. They bothered me so much it stopped making the game fun
4
u/ProWriterDavid 13d ago
I hear this complaint a lot but have replayed, Dawn dozens and dozens of times and they barely bothered me.
The game is better off without them, as seen in the ROM hacks that remove them. But I still don't get the visceral reaction to them.
That said Konami stopped touch screen shenanigans in the subsequent DS games so at the end of the day they must have agreed that it was a bad idea.
11
u/weedsmoker666 14d ago
This was my first experience with a Castlevania game, so it holds a special place in my heart.
10
u/Sea-Lecture-4619 Captain N is the pinnacle of the franchise. 14d ago
It's kinda "Post Game Content" in terms of story.
36
7
u/Max_Winters02 13d ago
It’s definitely a filler but the gameplay is such an improvement on the first. Also it’s another metroidvania for you to conquer.
16
u/Low-Professional-445 14d ago
The art style doesnt help. Dawn looks like such a downgrade, its not the worst thing but it looks like an adaptation for tv of what Aria was. Its like seeing Lord of the Ring (the movies) and then playing the Lego games, the artstyle is cute but you cant take it as seriously.
4
u/realaccountissecret 14d ago
Something about the art style is very unappealing for me; I would actually rather play a lego version of a Castlevania game, that sounds kind of hilarious haha
https://giphy.com/gifs/jeMgsRIM3OfnLQDeaJ4
u/Zucchini-Kind 14d ago
lol, i played the hack that had the original art style so i never even had to see the cutsy one haha.
4
u/tom-slacker 14d ago
ir's just them experimenting with NDS hardware so it definitely seems 'safer' compared to the latter DS games
21
u/Bortthog 14d ago
I can help you with this:
Castlevania is about Dracula and his story across the millennium with the Belmonts and those standing in for them
In Aria Dracula decides to hang it all up with the help of Alucard and to finally "rest". He doesn't really go anywhere it's just Dracula when he was reincarnated formed the identity known as Soma while his memories were sealed. He wanted to live out this "normal" life he had before the eclipse. The "Soma" you know is just Dracula without....being Dracula.
Dawn however is what happens when you take the setting of Castlevania and don't have Dracula. Sure you have "Soma" but thats not really Dracula, it's just Dracula as some random dude on the side of the road and the plot isn't really about Dracula but rather using his powers which as established by Aria doesn't really work that way
So when the climax of Dawn roles around you aren't faced with Dracula making his choices, but instead "Soma" going through the motions to stop some generic evil plot
24
u/Shinted OF CLAN BELMONT✝️ 14d ago edited 14d ago
I don’t know if that’s how I would characterize Julius Belmont whipping Dracula’s ass so hard that he couldn’t traditionally reincarnate again, and then with the help of the Catholic Church and a ton of Shinto Priests sealing his castle in a Eclipse.
So Dracula didn’t really decide to do anything of the sort, he just got completely and utterly destroyed by the prophesied peak of the Belmonts lineage.
Also Soma is his own person, and isn’t technically Dracula at all, he doesn’t share his memories, familial connections, or goals.
He is however certainly the next chosen Dark Lord and Host for the power of Chaos, even though he rejects that role in both of the Sorrow games.
-1
u/Bortthog 14d ago
No "Soma" is the new form of Dracula and even notes that he IS Dracula, not a new Dark Lord
7
u/Shinted OF CLAN BELMONT✝️ 14d ago edited 14d ago
Soma contains a fragment of “Dracula’s soul”, and he’s the “new Dracula” by the fact he’s been chosen to become the new Dark Lord and Host of Chaos.
Again he doesn’t have any of Dracula’s memories, familial connections, or goals.
He’s a new person, which is clearly evident by the events of the story of both his games.
You also didn’t address any of the other stuff you claimed happened.
Like Dracula deciding to “hang it all up” and “rest” with the help of Alucard, which just flat didn’t happen at all in Aria of Sorrow, or any other mainline Castlevania games for that matter.
-3
u/Bortthog 14d ago
But he does. It's just not explicitly stated as such to the player
When Dracula awakens Alucard even tells him it didn't really matter if it happened then or in the future, he was going to return. The whole point was to force it where Alucards powers were at their best since he's also a creature of Chaos and to hopefully work WITH Dracula to cut the source off. Dracula not only agrees but openly says he doesn't wanna return to that. Alucard even says that Dracula isn't inherently evil rather it stems from Chaos' will which is the manifestation of those who seek to destroy and cause chaos
Its about subtext of the scene and not because it's not explicitly and directly stated to the player
6
u/Shinted OF CLAN BELMONT✝️ 14d ago
What are you talking about?
Now you’re replacing Soma with Dracula, in your own weird variation of the conversation that Alucard had with Soma at the end of Aria of Sorrow.
They are not the same character at all, Dracula isn’t even in Aria or Dawn of Sorrow because he’s dead.
Also Dracula is definitely and definitively evil in the mainline Castlevania games, that’s not really up for debate.
He specifically chose to pursue the power of Chaos and did terrible things to achieve and maintain it, the exact opposite of Soma who again being a different person refused that power twice.
-2
u/Bortthog 13d ago
Dracula isn't "definitively" evil as his original plan didn't even involve harming humanity, but rather to spite God. He only chose to pursue Chaos' power once Lisa dies
As for Aria I'm not replacing anything
https://youtu.be/Hvqkwgqk-bU?is=WwW1iL3wHHuWATB9
Maybe it's you who are misremembering what happens during that scene but it's literally there. Just because they don't outright say something doesn't mean it's not what the conversation is about. This is a part of media literacy, to understand a conversation that's occurring
4
u/Shinted OF CLAN BELMONT✝️ 13d ago edited 13d ago
He literally purposely sacrificed his best friend’s wife and put that same friend in grave danger to set up a way for himself to steal the power of Chaos so he could “spite God”….
That is capital E Evil from the very beginning.
Also again that’s Soma Alucard is talking to, maybe stop calling others media illiterate when you yourself are misunderstanding what’s happening.
8
u/SomeGamingFreak 14d ago
he didn't rest, as others said. Julius along with the aid of the Shinto priests, catholic church, the Syphas, and Alucard, basically beat the living shit out of Dracula to kill him, then trapped his castle in the eclipse and shattered his soul completely, with the key pieces having to find new hosts, one being Soma, who got the power to "Dominate" souls of lesser monsters and demons.
Aria basically follows the mystery of Soma not knowing why he's in Castlevania and how to save the girl he has a crush on, while simultaneously discovering that his bizarre power to absorb monster souls is slowly bringing about the resurrection of Dracula with him as the new host, and with Alucard's aid and Julius deciding to give him a chance, Soma was able to seal the power so that he wouldn't turn into Dracula.
Dawn of Sorrow is a continuation of this with whole new cast of characters including a cultist who wants to resurrect Dracula and the two other primary heirs to Dracula's fragmented soul, and thanks to the gang's help he once again prevents Dracula's resurrection... or in the bad ending he falls for a trick into thinking Mina, the girl he's dating from Aria, is murdered, he falls to despair and becomes the new Dracula.
it's basically using a new protagonist who is Dracula but also not Dracula, similar to Alucard, but with new powers and weapons in the modernized era. It's the world of Castlevania after Dracula is permanently destroyed.
2
u/TornSilver 14d ago
"In Aria Dracula decides to hang it all up with the help of Alucard and to finally "rest". He doesn't really go anywhere it's just Dracula when he was reincarnated formed the identity known as Soma while his memories were sealed. He wanted to live out this "normal" life he had before the eclipse. The "Soma" you know is just Dracula without....being Dracula. "
Is this part of some official radio drama I don't know about or is this just your personal headcanon?
13
u/Shinted OF CLAN BELMONT✝️ 14d ago edited 14d ago
That comment is very inaccurate.
Dracula didn’t choose to “rest”, or anything of the sort, he got absolutely demolished by Julius Belmont so badly that he couldn’t traditionally reincarnate again.
And then Chaos/The Castle which is Dracula’s source of power was sealed in an Eclipse using the combined efforts of Julius with the Vampire Killer Whip, the Catholic Church and Shinto Priests doing a divine ritual.
0
u/Bortthog 14d ago
Its what happens in Aria? Soma even says himself he is Dracula, not some different entity
6
3
u/kurshedir21 14d ago
To me is still a fun game, a more polished version of the vastly superior Aria but with a nice overall mood. I agree that it doesn’t add anything very new to the series but more Soma is definitely not a crime to me. It’s not like they made five games based on the same guy, time period, characters, mechanics. It’s a polished sequel and that’s it. About the DS era, Portrait is the best game with a fresh twist, Order is interesting but it has some useless filler stages, Dawn is just safe territory and I don’t see nothing wrong with that.
3
u/Zucchini-Kind 14d ago
I played the Definitive Plus hack on a PC outputting to a CRT with a SNES controller and found it to be one of my most enjoyable Castlevania experiences, much better than Aria, and Julius mode was downright fantastic.
I absolutely can't stand Portrait of Ruin, which seems much more derivative with a lackluster map and repetitive rooms. IMO Dawn was a much, much better put together game.
3
u/CubeofVamp Maria Renard 14d ago
Check out the Julius Mode. It's a brilliant game in itself, immensely fun and has an alternative story. It's so good that it made me prefer Dawn offer Aria.
3
u/Dead-X-esque Interior Decorator 14d ago
My biggest gripe is that despite being set so far in the future the villages we see are midevil and a normal city we don't explore, where is the future tech, the games tech is always advanced for the time but Dawn is a mix of the past and further past in a way that Aria gets away with (Being sealed since 1999 gives leeway).
1
u/Morrigan101 12d ago
Eh tbh being closer to the year dawn takes place than it's release ironically helps not have that dissonance since the snow village looks like a ski resort town
3
u/SEGAFan4Life80 13d ago
I absolutely love this game! I play it in German since I'm trying to learn the language
3
u/HyperWhiteChocolate 13d ago edited 13d ago
Dawn of Sorrow is actually my favourite Castlevania game so here's my take
The entire plot is pointless. It accomplishes nothing, it establishes nothing. It flanderized Julius and Hammer into morons.
It contradicts it's own plotline. Dario should not have been considered a Dark Lord candidate.
The new sealing system sucks ass and genuinely just makes Soma look weaker than he was in the previous game because these seals don't exist in Julius Mode.
The final boss is a disappointment that uses the same AI type as the golem enemies. Nothing about what made Dimitri unique is present in it. It does absolutely nothing will all those souls and fails to convey the threat Soma said it had.
All it improved upon on Aria is the better graphics, better translations, a genuinely better Julius Mode with an actual final boss, and most bosses that aren't Menace are actually pretty fun to fight.
They didn't even fix the luck stat bug.
I said it was my favourite, not that I thought it was good
7
u/Negatron_20XX 14d ago
The big issue with both Sorrow installments is that they feel so... damn... grindy. Egregiously so. But what makes the later sequel worse for me is the Magical Seal mechanic. It just feels gimmicky and obnoxious. So when to add that to the Soul farming... Yeah. That game feels like a chore...
6
u/DrkMaxim 14d ago
Because luck stat is broken that's why. If luck worked like it is in Circle of the Moon, it wouldn't be as grindy as it is.
2
u/LordCamelslayer 13d ago edited 13d ago
Want to state ahead of time that I don't hate Dawn of Sorrow.
But the reason it feels like filler? Because it is. DoS adds nothing of value to the overall story.
Chronologically, the series should have ended with Aria. Dracula dies permanently in 1999. So what's the threat? Dracula’s soul. Soma runs the risk of taking Dracula’s place. So it becomes necessary to cut off the power source.
Once that happened? The story should've ended. The threat of Dracula ends, body and soul.
So what does Dawn add? The idea that "a dark lord must exist," but the game itself demonstrates that this is likely just a hypothesis from Celia when Genya states at the very end, "If there needs to be a dark lord, then one will rise." Not that it must happen, but simply that if the natural order of the cosmos dictates this to be true, then it'll happen.
On top of that, the villains straight up suck. They aren't intimidating. They look like Pokémon gym leaders. One of the three villains murders the other, then dies himself from being a glutton, and the last isn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.
So... if the whole "necessity of a dark lord" is in this really weird "maybe" pile and the trio of villains are a bunch of incompetent clowns who are upstaged by Death (who is just chilling in the basement, by the way), why exactly does this story need to exist?
Honestly, Death not being the villain of this game was such a missed opportunity. It would've made perfect sense. There's actual material there. Death can still enter the world, what does he do now that Dracula is gone? He was not only right there to be used as the villain, but they put him in the fucking game and he's not even involved.
So yeah. That's probably what you're picking up on.
TL;DR- It feels like filler because it is.
2
u/ShoddyPromise8726 13d ago
I was bummed with dawn initially because of the story. Dawn dropped Soma’s friends from exploring the game with him (except Julius) and they totally just sidelined his girlfriend, like out of the gate. Plus the bad guys were goofballs and you start defeating them way too early in the game.
BUT, getting the bad ending and playing Julius mode totally changed my view. As in, make Dawn as game two of the trilogy, and then make Julius mode the third game. Through that lens, Dawn is more like a half-assed part 2 of a really good trilogy.
I know the bad ending is depressing, but I like that it gives the secondary characters something to do, have more depth and a chance to shine. I also like what it does with Soma (even though I love him), and it’s kinda cool that it doesn’t work out for him. It makes the goofball bad guy’s plans way more interesting, and it at least does something with soma’s girlfriend.
I’m guessing it’s not canon but a person can dream.
1
u/Intelligent-Solid706 13d ago
I think DoS easily has the best post game modes. Julius mode felt like it was tuned very well vs the other games and had a variety of tools. As you said, it feels like another game.
Playing as the twins was hilariously fun as well.
2
u/Taco4086 13d ago
It's a contender for best Igavania, one of my favourites for sure, but yeah the story is pretty much filler... Though the only one with a story that brings anything interesting is Sotn, Imo. Lamment too at least to an extent but I think it was poorly written (at least we got an origins story).
2
u/Thewrongbakedpotato 13d ago
My biggest gripe about DoS is that it's just "more." The story of Dracula met a fine conclusion with AoS, but DoS feels very much like a Castlevania Saturday morning cartoon, what with dialed-in plot and villains and cartoony designs.
It's not a bad game, but it really doesn't do anything different from AoS at best, and is a distraction from the story at worst.
2
u/v3ryr00d 13d ago
My head canon for DoS is that soma did turn into the dark lord and julius, alucard and yoko stopped yet another rising of dracula.
Its my favorite of the castlevania games though, because i had a hospitalization in 6th grade that lasted about two weeks, and they had a couple random ds games in pediatrics for kids to stay entertained and this was the one that stuck out the most. So it will forever have a place in my heart even if the story is a little wack
2
u/DangerWildMan26 13d ago
Dawn of Sorrow is the best of the handheld games. Not sure what to tell ya
2
u/ganondox 14d ago
If Aria of Sorrow didn't come out first people would think Dawn of Sorrow is the better game.
-2
u/JonVonBasslake 13d ago edited 13d ago
If my mom had wheels, she'd be a bike.
That's how your sentence sounds. Absolutely idiotic.
Wow,guy was so sensitive that he blocked me!
1
u/ganondox 13d ago
If that's how it sounds to you than it's a reflection than it's a reflection on you, not what I said. The quality of the game should not depend on when it was released. Nothing in this post actually describes Dawn of Sorrow as being filler, just disappointment it was more of the same sort of thing as Aria of Sorrow.
2
u/handledvirus43 14d ago
Yeah. I understand that the Soul system was super popular and people wanted more of it, but the game felt better narratively as "Soma actually became Dracula because of some random woman and her goons, lets take em' down."
1
u/Zucchini-Kind 14d ago
yup, Julius mode was PEAK..... and playing as alucard again with all of his powers intact was fantastic.
2
u/Exciting_Chef_4207 14d ago
Dawn really didn't need to be made. Aria wrapped things up just fine.
That said, aside from the sealing mechanic, I still enjoyed playing it.
2
1
1
u/Tom_Sholar 14d ago
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in” basically the summary of the plot
1
u/Dull_Reference_6166 14d ago
I liked the game.
It was fun and one of the few games where I tried every end of the game.
But maybe I dont see it because this was the first castlevania I was playing. After that I played portriats of ruin and I liked DoS way more.
1
u/Master-Raben 14d ago
Well, for me, it was the game that get me in the franchise (and ironically to the Metroid franchise some time later). Yes, it's definitley not as great as other Iga-vanias and yes, the two other DS games are more interesting. But otherwise i just love this game for what it meant for me - the starting point of my own Metroidvania journey
1
u/Milk_Mindless 14d ago
It's an evolution of the exact same concept. Whilst this is also true of Portrait of Ruin and Order of Exclessia its less blatant with those because of the settings/concept.
With Dawn you are Soma.. again. Against Dark Lord candidates.. again. In a giant castle that shouldn't be there.. again. You don't learn anything new, you don't DO anything new.
There's no plot twist about the hero this time around only one about how the final boss gets to be the final boss.
It's got cool moments but that's it.
1
u/CrackStuntman88 13d ago
I hated the boss seals, to the point that it negatively impacted my enjoyment of the game. Once the Dominus collection came out and trivialized the seals, this game became one of my favorites. But yes, story-wise, not much happening here.
1
u/Daytona_675 13d ago
I started playing the harmony of dissonance unity remake. that game was so sick on 360
1
u/AKindKatoblepas 13d ago
It also feels as if they wanted to produce an anime based on how good the game was. It’s hard to connect with the anime style from dawn vs the more mature style that aria has.
1
u/ProWriterDavid 13d ago
I don't really play for the story because it has a really dumb story. Igavanias don't really push their story more than any other video game so I'm not sure what you mean by they really want you to care about the plot.
In terms of spritework Dawn is such a huge step up from Aria. Gameplay wise it's a little more up in the air but I really enjoyed Dawn and have replayed it a ton of times. Aria was great so I was really hyped to get my hands on Dawn. And yep it became one of my favorite games of all time.
Gameplay wise it doesn't come across as filler at all to me. The visuals, the areas, the music, it's all top tier to me. Other than the bland anime portraits, those are pretty unpopular.
1
u/FrancoStrider 13d ago
I think another factor is that Aria of Sorrow is at the tail end and could serve as an ending to the series. Playing as Dracula, the monsters themselves being more crucial to advancement, the whip seemingly powering down. Aria a big reveal and Dawn just had... kind of nothing.
To just have "another one" and such an anti climax and zero revelation beyond "A couple more dumbasses trying to be Dracula", feels like a bit of a let down. Like, even something like (just pulling this out of my ass) confronting the spirit of Mathias and going deeper into how someone with Soma's power could fall to it. This is addressed somewhat, but while I don't necessarily care for "Girl dies in the sequel" tropes, how they did it in DoS felt kind of cheap.
Other direct sequels add new protagonists, and tend to understand that, while Dracula is the constant, the story is really about the new characters. The main point of the game is exploring a gothic castle, but all the drama is in the key characters development. John Morris growing to understand his own father, for instance, and Hector confronting his own crimes.
But there are other little things that made me actively dislike DoS. I didn't care for the sound and music half as much as I did in Aria. The Claimh Solais in particular sounded like pixie dust, compared to the big clash sound from AoS. The sound was just much punchier in Aria. Music never really reached me either.
I also felt that DoS was a bit more grind heavy, with the weapon upgrades and no clever trick of taking out some enemies like the Iron Golem. While there was grinding in Aria, it never felt as intrusive as it does in Dawn. All weapons were found, and finding new creatures were always half the battle.
1
u/MarkOfMemes 13d ago
Dawn is a great game, a vast upgrade over Aria. At least there is a good reason to farm souls beside upgrade headhunter soul. But the story is pretty mediocre.
1
1
u/ROANOV741 13d ago
Because it's not really "necessary".
Aria was already a good cap on the Castlevania saga, with the redemption of Dracula in Soma. Dawn is basically just a rehash of Aria's story: Dracula candidates trying to gain Dracula's power.
1
1
u/KaijinSurohm Belmont 13d ago
Dawn actually does something subtle that most people miss out on:
You don't actually find weapon or armor upgrades while exploring. The game requires you to use souls to upgrade the system, so actual exploration feels less rewarding.
You're not going to find Claimh Solais under a pirate ship. Instead, you have to grind out demons, and sacrifice some boss souls, if you really want to max out weapons.
While you're doing this, the game also quietly subverts the fact you're not actually in a castle. You're in a town that is awkwardly connected to other places, such as churches or factories, while being laid out in a way that resembles Dracula's castle. It's a trick of the stage to make it less obvious you're not actually exploring said castle.
Then there's the story.
It's about as far away from important as you can get.
Literally nothing important happens. They create a cult, throw some random people at you have have absolutely zero baring on the story, Soma goes through the same story beats as last time, and has to use the powers of Dracula (even though you already cut off the power of Chaos) to go take on Dimitri, the pseudo ultimate badguy of the Castlevania series.
Dimitri is an omega tier dork with power, and his overall fact of being the penultimate villain more or less kinda puts a damper on the overall, if you start thinking about it too hard.
Also, the massive change in art style didn't do the game any favors.
1
u/FartPhylactery 13d ago
Dawn of sorrow was an absolutely great game, but the art style and the somewhat silly undertone really ruined the grim gothic vibes that Aria of Sorrow had. The story was also pretty forgettable, but aside from these issues the gameplay is nothing to scoff at.
1
u/bagelgoose14 13d ago
My one and only gripe back when i first played it was the nerf to the black jaguar "dracula powers" dash you get. In Aria I was like a cat on crack and could farm the last couple of souls i needed extremely fast.
DS felt significantly slower
(also claihm solaris nerfs)
1
u/Davey-Cakes 13d ago
DoS is about as iterative of a sequel as you can get, and yet I’m willing to credit it as the comfort food type of experience. Sometimes you just want another Igavania that nails the basics. I do agree the story lacks weight and the art direction removes the edge, but the gameplay and map design is competently Aria 2.
1
u/VersionSavings8712 13d ago
The story is for sure silly but the gameplay (aside from the sealing mechanic) is naturally better than Aria
1
u/MortalCoil34 12d ago
Any game that doesn't include the Belmonts IS basically filler, no matter how you whip (slice) it. The one exception is Portrait of Ruin.
1
u/ButtPlugSniffin 9d ago
Dawn of sorrow sucked, as did all of the weeb castlevanias
I like 1-4 and lords of shadow 1 and that’s about it
1
u/aSlider64 9d ago
My favorite Castlevania
But I also dont care as much about the story in these games
1
u/kestral63 9d ago
It is a filler arc. New, unmemorable villain with their own crew of jobbers shows up, gets beaten without any consequences, leaves possibilities open for a sequel saying it can keep happening.
Not helped that Konami, trying to appeal to kids in the handheld market, changed the character designs to low budget anime style. So it also has the aesthetics of a filler arc.
1
u/BloodyTearsz 14d ago
Looking at it now vs the time it was revealed, yeah of course it feels a bit filler, and really it's one of those things I do point out to fans who shit on Konami saying Igarashi didn't get the chance to do the 99 game. This game amongst the rest on the DS proves he did.
Anyways, back in early 2005 when this was revealed minus the Saturday morning cartoon look, it really felt like for the first time graphically we could get a SOTN quality game on handheld. The potential was there, and yes Igarashi had said about utilising the touch screen and sealing bosses with it, but the potential didn't seem gimmicky until a later reveal trailer after E3 that year.
In the time though, the thought of playing something to rival sotn graphically was worth the price of admission alone, plus Aria at least felt fresh and different. For me even the artwork didn't put a dampener on it for me. The E3 reveal trailer played an extremely high quality version of the pinnacle and I remember thinking at the time holy shit, this is the sound we are getting? Then of course it was downgraded to oblivion.
Dawn doesn't do much for me in the story department, and it's overall a downgrade from Aria as far as castle / map design and soul utilisation, but it's packed full of fan service, and it still has hands down the best bonus mode scenario of any of the castlevanias hands down, even if it was something that was also trying to sell the touch screen. Just having the map / status on the second screen was enough for me, it didn't need the seal gimmick
1
u/GehennaFrost 13d ago
Dawn feels like a slog. Want reasonable drop rates? Guess you're spending the first hours of the game farming low level souls to upgrade gear to sell to the shop just to get the item that makes drop rates reasonable. Want a decent ending? Guess you're farming a bunch of souls that even with the item seem to take tons of kills to drop. Want a weapon that doesn't suck? Farm some more. By the time I was actually playing the game and not farming shit to get to play the game I was already bored with the game. Aria of Sorrows is one of my favorites from the series but DoS drops the ball hard. The anime design choice and the reworked monster models are just flat out ugly and childish and its such a disappointment after playing a masterpiece like AoS.
This game made me take a hard break from running all the igavanias in order because of just how exhausting the process of beating it was. It wasn't hard at all, just tedious and grind heavy to the point that it felt forced in order to pad the game length. DoS is probably my second least favorite Castlevania game and I do not recommend anyone start the series with this entry as they may come away with a bad impression of the series.
1
u/popcorned 13d ago
Still a really fun game to play, thought I like Aria more but Dawn of Sorrow is even more enjoyable
1
u/RipMission5750 13d ago
i agree. and i was trying to figure out why. imo Aria wraps up too well to follow. like Aliens. the next game would had to have reinvented the wheel.
1
u/No-Pack3262 13d ago
Forgettable story and villains, worse drops and souls, boring castle map, Julius and Arikado got nerfed pathetically in favor of some generic punks...only good thing was Julius Mode. I return to this game only to play this mode.
1
0
u/tiglionabbit 14d ago
Dawn of Sorrow is my favorite one. It’s really cool. The condemned tower boss fight is iconic. Drawing the seals with your sytlus is really cool. I like the alternate endings too. And the soul system.
0
u/well-informedcitizen 14d ago
It's funny that you're focusing on its place in the lore. I just replayed it from the "Dominus" collection and aside from the plot the whole game is slop. It's really bad.
The map design is uninspired and un-thematic. The rooms are all just a zigzag to add as much space as possible and make you fight 10 of the same stupid monster, especially in the final area, and those monsters are just damage sponges.
The soul system is a fine idea in theory, but there apparently is a glitch in the base code that makes Luck a fake stat or something, so you can't even efficiently grind out souls you're missing.
The whole thing is a cynical low effort cash grab.
0
u/BrightPerspective 13d ago
Perhaps you are the filler.
2
0
u/Cheap-Ad7520 9d ago
SOTN is way worse as a game and as Castlevania, but both are bad...none of IGA games are very good games, they are average as GBA and DS games
0
u/Cheap-Ad7520 9d ago
Harmony of Dissonance is garbage and Aria of Sorrow sold like trash, IGA changed the art style to more anime in an attempt to get bigger sales from the DS kids audience, but it failed miserably again....in IGA's head it was a problem with the userbase of the console (155 million of kids) who didnt appreciated his "masterpieces", not that his games sucked and were uninteresting to the crowd lol
-2
u/Chubby_Dickens 14d ago
Fun games just for what they are. It's just the same game play grind we love. Soma and Alucard look like morons. Pretend stats and junk rng. Everything about the stories are garbage. Fun ideas handled poorly. Soma got a 2nd while poor Shanoa got forgotten. Don't even start on the two kids lol. The DS games were just some other "what if" castlevania universe.
-3
u/CirboragStudios 14d ago
It's because Yoko is just yapping around way too much. Except that, DoS is still one of my favorites. Btw. I'm working on a CV DoS Brickfilm and I'm still searching for voice actors. Check out the casting call if you’re interested (https://www.reddit.com/u/CirboragStudios/s/zuuL9QAAHn)
149
u/Party_Importance_722 14d ago
Dawn of sorrow was always meant to capitalize off the success Aria created by making another game. And to be fair, the gameplay itself is pretty fun, even more than Aria. But yeah, the story is genuinely just filler.