I don’t know if Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow was always that high up on my bucket list, if I’m honest. I enjoyed the classic platformers on the NES and SNES, and I grew to appreciate Symphony of the Night, but I was always playing other games whilst the series was enjoying something of a handheld comeback in the early 2000s. Yes, I had a Game Boy Advance, but I was too wrapped up in Wario Ware Inc. and Donkey Kong Country 2 to find time for the new Castlevania games. Over time I read and heard more and more positive comments about Aria, and I did attempt it once or twice in recent years, but it was only this month that I persevered and discovered a great entry in the crowded Metroidvania genre.

Aria of Sorrow – no filler

Aria of Sorrow plays like other games in the genre – you literally map out the game as you walk into new areas, you find equipment and items in various rooms that aid your progress, you gain experience and level up as you defeat enemies, and you eventually gain new abilities that allow lead character Soma to traverse the map in different ways – a floating descent, movement through water, sliding into tight gaps, and so on. The traversal options allow more areas to be reached and more discoveries to be made, until you can go almost anywhere and are eventually led to the final encounter. It’s the standard format for this kind of game, and it worked well enough for Symphony of the Night, but what I hadn’t appreciated was just how “tight” Aria of Sorrow was as an overall experience. My first playthrough was a little under eight and a half hours, but so much of that time was spent either making swift progress around the map or running into boss encounters – and even some busy rooms – that would annihilate me. Rather than aiming for a longer hour count (although there is a second mode I haven’t looked at yet) and giving a player the breathing room offered in a Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow presents a game that doesn’t overstay its welcome but still makes sure that every moment is engaging and satisfying.

The challenge is real

It has the classic map format of finding save points that restore your health, but journeying between those save points can be rough when you’re exploring for the first time. Soma is stuck in hitstun when an enemy attack lands, he can eat a combo of damage if attacks are coming from multiple directions, attacks act as anti-airs if you’re in mid-jump, there are status effects to deal with, health items can either be found or bought but you have to survive the journey back from the store, and you find yourself caught between a decision to either retreat… or to push on into the unknown and hope that you find a save point. Towards the end of the game you can afford to be a bit less cautious, but Aria of Sorrow isn’t afraid to punish complacency. Personally, I felt like certain boss battles continued to be a problem no matter how many levels I gained since the previous attempt: Death was impossible to “cheese” and I ended up being more patient and reading his attacks so that I knew when I could go in. Legion has a gimmick where it uses strong laser attacks after you destroy parts of an outer shell, so I ended up kiting it back and forth and only attacking one or two parts on the “underside”. Even when I approached the end of the game and was eviscerating the majority of fodder enemies, there was a battle just before the final “zone” that caused problems. Maybe it’s because I don’t yet know all of the secrets, but it definitely felt more challenging than Symphony of the Night’s late-game “Alucard Shield”-blitzing.

That being said, it’s all still generally do-able. One of the key aspects of Aria of Sorrow’s gameplay is that certain defeated enemies have a chance of dropping a “soul”, which Soma can equip for a new ability. This could be something that aids traversal, a new kind of attack, a boost in stats, and so on. And so when you face a particularly difficult encounter, it’s likely that there’s something in your soul set that could give you an edge. However, you can’t rely on souls for everything, and learning attack patterns always helps. Outside of the second mode I mentioned, I completed the main game in the space of a few evenings, and it’s easy to recommend for those who find larger games somewhat daunting. Admittedly, the clock was only counting successful gameplay between save points and not all of my game overs, but it’s still a reasonable length and would make me keen to come back to the game in the future.

Aria of Sorrow and the Castlevania Advance Collection

Next to other games I’ve had on my list of classics to play, Aria of Sorrow felt like a bit of an unusual pick, but I definitely enjoyed my time with it. In 2021 it was released as part of the Castlevania Advance Collection on Steam and consoles, but I don’t know how good that collection is so you may need to investigate on your own. I don’t think that it has dethroned Symphony of the Night as my favourite, but I definitely respect the tight hour count and challenging encounters. I think that it’s my first completed game of 2023 as well, so whatever happens over the coming months I know that the year has had a strong start.

The Castlevania Advance Collection is available for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation and Xbox platforms.