95%Nintendo Switch

Fantastic, fun game. To me, all the advance games were brilliant, and this is another of them. Highly recommended.

80%Nintendo Switch

Not as good as Symphony of the Night or Dawn of Sorrow, but still great.

85%Game Boy Advance

Solid game!

80%PlayStation 4

Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
• First time playing
• I had high hopes coming into this and man, was I impressed right from the get go.
• What the Witcher 3 did for the fantasy RPG, Castlevania Aria of Sorrow did for the Metriodvania.
• There’s a level of polish, refinement and evolution to the formula that can only happen with the right mixture of experience and ambition.

100%Game Boy Advance

I feel kinda bad giving all these games 10/10 ratings recently, but man, I just keep playing banger after banger.

I'll preface this by saying I'm not even a huge fan of metroidvanias in general. I've played a few and enjoyed my time, but the genre never clicked with me.

Turns out, I might just like the -vania more than the metroid-.

Aria of Sorrow had me hooked from minute 1, with gorgeous art-style that pushed the GameBoy Advance to its limits, fantastic music, buttery smooth 60fps performance, engaging combat, fluid movement and entrancing exploration.

This game is way more of an RPG than I would have expected, with not only a leveling system and finding loot (I love how nearly every weapon has an unique animation and hitbox), but also an awesome magic system that allows you to use souls randomly dropping from certain enemies as a weapon agains their comrades. Throughout my playthrough, I kept switching my "soulset" constantly and was surprised by how many of these souls are actually viable.

This game is just pure, exciting fun. I've spent around 12 hours of my life playing it, and I am incredibly excited to dedicate even more time to other games from this series. Especially Dawn of Sorrow, which continues the story of this game.

Oh yes, the story is amazing too.

This game hasn't aged one bit - I highly recommend you to try it out, whether it is on Switch, PC or one of those emulation handhelds - I completed it on an Anbernic RG35XX SP and can't imagine a better way to play this game nowadays.

80%Emulated

Honestly I think I prefer Aria over Symphony. While SOTN is one of the godfathers of Metroidvanias Aria just feels like an overall tighter experience. With a massive selection of demon powers and weapons as well as an intricate, secret-full castle with great soundtrack for GBA. Aria is great.

In particular I love the story, a Castlevania game that takes place in the future sounds insane but they somehow make it work. Soma Cruz is a really likeable protagonist just because he's some guy who gets pulled into these shenanigans.

If there's one issue I have with the game it's that the water sections aren't good. Constantly swapping power ups to go down and up throughout the water is incredibly repetitive and frustrating to navigate.

But despite that the game is a great tight Metroidvania and absolutely worth the play.

70%Game Boy Advance

De los mejores Castlevania que he jugado, una joyita desapercibida de la GBA. Un poco tedioso el completarlo al 100% por la aleatorierdad de la obtencion de almas

100%Game Boy Advance

Best game boy advance Castlevania.
The grind to collect souls and customize your character using different soul is so satisfying.

65%Game Boy Advance

As a sucker for and 8- and 16-bit Castlevanias, this finally floated to the top of my backlog. Sadly, while probably awesome back in 2003, today it's a very straightforward game with not much appeal compared to most modern Metroidvanias. It's also virtually identical to 2019's Bloodstained.

The Souls system -- absorbing each enemy's essence as a different magic spell -- was the game's lone innovation back in the day. Some Souls are simply optimal, so it renders the vast majority pointless. A fair amount of gametime would have been spent grinding for Souls -- but I heard this was a big problem and used a cheat code to raise the drop rate, and I'm glad I did.

There are lots of weapons but, similar to Souls, some are optimal choices so the rest go unused.

The story is terrible. Cheesy corny anime nonsense. Unearned emotional responses. The gothic horror of older Castlevanias is absent.

The game's biggest problem is that it's way too easy. Since there's no traditional Metroidvania platforming challenges, the difficulty is entirely based on fighting, and your character happens to be very overpowered. If your health ever happens to get low, pause, drink one of the many potions in your inventory, then unpause with full HP.

AoS nonetheless deserves a decent score because the combat is quite fun. A responsive double-jump followed by a deft slash simply feels good. Turning curiously-nude 16-bit enemies into a fine bloody mist is very satisfying.

100%Nintendo Switch

the best Castlevania on GBA— feels like the first since Symphony of the Night to try being something different— the Soul System is one of the best gameplay additions ever implemented in the series and provides a lotta fun customization options for multiple playthroughs— the futuristic Japanese setting, while mostly unnoticeable throughout the actual game, is still a fun twist on the franchise that, if anything, serves as a backdrop to perhaps some of the franchise's most likable characters (at least for one that doesn't usually emphasize them)— I was invested in Soma's arc and the finale being about the connections he'd made was genuinely touching, especially for a Castlevania game— mix that with a castle that's a lotta fun to explore, easy to navigate, and actually possible to 100% without insane moon logic— and you get one of the strongest entries in the series

95%Game Boy Advance

Mesmo Aria of sorrow vindo depois de Symphony of the Night, acredito que ele não superou seu antecessor, o game tem uma arte bonita, historia interessante, a gameplay é igual dos outros castlevanias, mas acredito que o game peque em suas musicas, provavelmente por limitações do gameboy advance, mas tirando isso, o game é incrivel, inclusive me motivou a zeralo, coisa que é dificil de eu fazer com qualquer jogo kkk.
Recomendado.

100%Emulated

My first Castlevania...incredible experience!

100%Nintendo Switch

A really fun Metroidvania. I really like the soul system even if it is a bit grindy. Exploring the castle was fun and the game has lot of experimentation with the abilities. One problem is the difficulty is pretty unbalanced but the game was still enjoyable. I recommend this game.

100%Nintendo 3DS

I put 13 & 1/2 hours into this game in the space of 2 days.
enough said.

100%Game Boy Advance

MASTERPIECE! ★

100%Game Boy Advance

A great game and very good for beginners in this series

90%Game Boy Advance

An all-timer in terms of the castle design and variety. Pretty solid power ramp, although a little tough to start and one difficulty spike in the middle. Wish the drop rate of the souls was better for an initial playthrough.

90%PlayStation 4

As fun as Sotn but not as atmospheric

100%Game Boy Advance

Awesome game, one of my favorites in the franchise.

100%Game Boy Advance

Esse jogo foi uma experiência única para mim já que foi meu primeiro metroidvania zerado, a historia desse jogo é surpreendentemente boa, eu to impressionado, o castelo é bem construído e eu fiquei preso nesse jogo de verdade, dei uma descansada no meio dele e voltei pra zerar e acabei platinado (coletando todas as almas), eu de verdade to muito impressionado com esse jogo e por conta dele agora eu quero jogar todos os outros castlevania que existe, impressionante, talvez um dos melhos jogos que zerei esse ano, eu de verdade não consigo pensar em pontos ruins.

90%Game Boy Advance

Third and final new Castlevania for the GBA. I've started getting a real taste for these Castlevania games, especially for saying that I'd never played one until last Halloween, and Aria of Sorrow (AoS) did not disappoint me. It borrows a few ideas from Symphony of the Night but that's no bad thing and it in fact builds on some mechanics, plus it has a fun Pokémon collecting system to spice things up.

In terms of gameplay its very similar to SotN and the other Metroidvania type entries in the series, you're presented with a big castle to explore and a map to fill out, of course its got an addicting map percentage to go along side it just in case the exploration wasn't enough to stimulate your Parietal cortex. If you've played SotN then it should feel familiar, not least because you explore pretty much the same map, it sounds lazy but the rooms are changed enough to feel new plus it allows you to reminisce about the good times you had in SotN, such as the time I spent twenty minutes juggling the Master Librarian to get his items, yep good times *grinds teeth*. I do miss some of the cool 3D effects available to the PS1 but AoS still looks very respectable in comparison with some of the best sprite work on the GBA not just in terms of looks, which are fantastic, but also the hit boxes are spot on so no hit feels cheap.

The basic but still fun RPG system returns with your usual damage, defence stats etc, its simple but sometimes simple works and the power difference can be felt as you climb up the levels which is always appreciated and makes revisiting earlier parts of the castle less annoying. Now I'll mention the unique aspect of AoS the soul collecting, the souls allow you to use the abilities of the enemies that you kill, for example if you kill an archer and get its soul you can shoot arrows this is one of the more basic ones though, you can get some wild stuff in here and I mean wild so its always fun trying out new acquisitions. Using these souls is fun getting them is not. The devs decided to shoehorn in a trading system, because GBA I guess, and as a consequence of that the drop rate of some of the souls is ridiculously low, like <0.5% low, I got them all because I enjoyed AoS but it'll drive you insane for sure, I'll be seeing medusa heads in my sleep for a while. The good news is that the only required souls have a decent drop rate so the only reason to get all of them is for the sake of collecting and to make the game easier, not that you need to as while its no where near as easy as SotN its not far off with the potions, which you can always quickly restock on, washing off any difficulty the bosses have. I also wish it had a few more teleport rooms but overall any short comings this has are minor, the game is an absolute blast to go through.

its the far future year of 2035, you play as Soma Cruz a silver haired, protagonist looking lad who decides to visit a remote Japanese shrine with his childhood friend Mina to celebrate the upcoming solar eclipse as you do. When the eclipse dawns it opens a portal that sucks Soma and Mina into Dracula's castle and so Soma has to venture in to find a way out. The plot is fine, I don't really get the reason of setting it in 2035 but otherwise fine like I said (obvious plot twist not withstanding), the dialogue on the other hand is just awful with melodramatic line after melodramatic line and so...many...damn...ellipses. Music is great, not quite reaching the heights of SotN but not many games do so its understandable.

Another really good Castlevania game, one that I enjoyed more then SotN due to it at least having some semblance of challenge to it. Soul collecting can be annoying but I would say its a positive inclusion, a good entry to start with if looking to get into Castlevania.

85%Game Boy Advance

A fantastic metroidvania game from the Castlevania franchise.

The soul system is really good and adds a lot of gameplay variation through new abilities earned from killing enemies. The enemies and bosses are really good with many unique designs and abilities. The music is fantastic and the gameplay is great.

The RPG systems are very good with a lot of varied gear. The map is designed very well and it is very fun to re-explore it with new abilities. The story can be a little silly, but it is still fun and has some good story beats. The artstyle and the sound design are great aswell.

90%Emulated

A great entry in the Castlevania series

90%Emulated

Awesome Castlevania game! You will remember a lot of things from SOTN. Must play if you are a Metroidvania fan!

80%Game Boy Advance

8/10. Really good and fun.

This game was only okay to start off, and grew on me as I played it. I think it only suffered by me playing it for the first time immediately after Symphony of the Night. If I had played this one first, it would have been higher. The Soul system is really neat, big fan. I think the writing shifted a little too far in the "anime" direction, but it wasn't bad. The big twist, even if you knew it was coming, was pretty cool.

Definitely worth a playthrough.

95%Game Boy Advance

Aria of Sorrow is the Apex of Koji Igarashi's formula, and as matter of consequence one of the best 'metroidvania' ever made.

90%Xbox One

For some time I've heard Aria of sorrow is among one of the best Castlevania games out there. Coming out of circle of the moon (which disappointed me) I had some high hopes and if I'm being blunt, this shit is GAS. I wasn't expecting AoS to be THIS good.

This game is the closest to pocket symphony of the night as you can get. Excellent castle design, incredibly tight controls, fun gameplay, surprisingly memorable characters despite it's length and the best theme in the game in heart of fire (While also being an absolutely insane boss fight against Julius). This game is also a lot quicker to beat as you can 100% this game in less than 5 hours. Truthfully there isn't much I can say here, this is just an all around superb Metroidvania. I legitimately can't think of any critical flaws this game might have as all my gripes are rather small. Play this game please 9/10.

90%Xbox Series X/S

The best Game on the Collection!

80%Game Boy Advance

8/10

90%PlayStation 4

Now this is more like it. Easily the best Castlevania out of the GBA trilogy. The true ending and soul drop rate are a bit archaic, design wise, but between a great castle design, fun exploration and an interesting Tactical Soul System, it has stood the test of time.

80%PC

baller game, had fun the whole time

kinda easy for castlevania but it's not a big deal

80%Game Boy Advance

Castlevania clássico, progressão e combate ótimos, mas inimigos apelões demais em determinadas partes.

90%Game Boy Advance

The third Castlevania game on the Game Boy Advance, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is the best entry of this series on this platform. While it doesn't quite reach the heights of Symphony of the Night (the PlayStation 1 version that all these GBA entries are based off of), Aria is one of the best entries of the "Metroidvania" style of Castlevania games.

Generally when people talk about Castlevania games (the 2D ones), there are two types; the "Classicvania" games, which are level based action platformers that the original games were based off of and the "Metroidvania" games, which are like the Metroid games in that there is a large open map to explore, that has areas you can access only after you acquire specific abilities to progress further into the game. Aria of Sorrow is a Metroidvania styled Castlevania game, where the player takes control of Soma Bringer, as he is mysteriously transported to Dracula's Castle (which is within the eclipse of the sun) where him and a handful of other people have been transported. One of the people there will inherit Dracula's power, and become the new lord of the castle, and Soma must stop a new reincarnation of Dracula. The story is mostly just a backdrop to give the player a reason for being there, and is progressed with some laughably bad dialogue between the characters. Thankfully the story isn't really important as I mentioned, and the game play is excellent. Like other Metroidvania games, Aria has Soma gather many sorts of weapons and abilities to get in order to progress through the castle and confront the person who will inherit Dracula's power. New to the series, is Soma's ability to "dominate" demons, which when slaying a monster, there is a chance that Soma will absorb its soul, giving him a new ability to use. This system is incredibly fun, and extremely impressive as nearly every enemy Soma encounters in the game has an ability Soma can get. It is very fun and addicting trying to collect as many souls as possible and seeing what they do. To add to this, a nifty feature in the game is the ability to get multiple copies of each soul and trade them like pokemon with another person who has a copy of the game via the link cable peripheral.

No need to mince words with this, but Aria of Sorrow is flat out GORGEOUS, and is easily one of the best looking games on the platform. The sprite work of the characters and enemies is fantastic and highly detailed, with many frames of animation, the backgrounds often look beautiful, have tons of variety, and most sport multiple layers of parallax scrolling. This game looks incredible, and is definitely pushing the capabilities of the Game Boy Advance. The music easily compliments the visuals, with fantastic tracks for each of the areas, and some rocking boss tunes. Sound effects are also extremely good, with some excellent shrills and screams that many enemies make when fighting or killing them. Aria of Sorrow just excels in the overall presentation department.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is one of the best games to pick up for the GBA, the only minor critiques I could say about it is that it always felt a bit on the easy side (aside from a couple of bosses) and I just wish there was more to it. Even with getting the true ending the game is a bit short if you compare it to Symphony of the Night, which was released six years before this. Honestly though my issues with the game are fairly minor, and what is here is a damn good game that is easily worth the play through.

Pros:

+ Incredible visuals across the board, highly detailed and animated characters and enemies, and fantastically detailed backgrounds with layers of parallax scrolling
+ Excellent music score and sounds effects
+ Soul system is a very fun and engaging system, with an impressive amount of souls to collect within the game, that can be traded with friends
+ A large amount of weapons, items and armor to find in the castle
+ Excellent boss fights that not only look incredible, but are genuinely fun to fight

Cons:

- Dialogue between characters is often laughably bad
- Aria of Sorrow is a bit on the short side compared to Symphony of the Night which was released six years earlier and this game was designed like
- Most of the game outside of a few bosses is a bit on the easy side

80%Game Boy Advance

05:15:03 at the last save before Graham. Plan on 100%ing and killing Chaos eventually.

First game completed on the Analogue Pocket. Playing or thinking about playing so many games right now but this one was too fun to ignore.

Combat felt fluid and strength progression was very apparent, although my best sword ended up being from the shop. Absorbing enemies' abilities was sick. Getting a soul from a tough enemy felt great, and getting a soul in general was always very nice.

Enemies were pretty cool. I liked seeing one for the first time and figuring out its patterns to kill it. Some enemies were cancer (horses/cart enemies, succubus because that shit last forever). Maybe one or two times was I frustratingly like "how the fuck do I fight this shit".

Used savestates a good bit, but none during boss fights. I can see this game being much harder and very annoying without savestates. Lots more trips to the shop for potions. If there was a teleport spot at the shop, I would've just spammed potions and used regular saves. A lot of backtracking too, which I didn't mind because you just one-shot everything and took 1 damage per hit. The game also did a good job letting you know when you couldn't go somewhere yet, despite it looking open.

Soundtrack was alright. Nothing crazy but not bad by any means. I thought the artwork was cool. Story was interesting, although predictable.

I started the path to Chaos right after beating Graham the first time, and just by the cutscene in that fight, it seems like that's the true ending, so I plan on doing it eventually. It'll also be kinda fun. The Graham fight was pretty dissatisfying. It was honestly really easy. 3 phases, each with 2 repeating attack patterns. Hopefully Chaos will be cooler.

Tight game. Gonna eventually try some other Castlevania games now. Solid 8/10.

90%Game Boy Advance

13/02/2014
8h00min
90%

80%Nintendo Switch

Good game, i liked it.

70%Game Boy Advance

Muy buen juego y muy entretenido.

100%Game Boy Advance

The very first Castlevania game I ever played was Dawn of Sorrow, the sequel to this one and that was 15 years ago when that game was relatively new. Since then, I've played over half of the castlevania games, including the 8 and 16 bit classics, Portrait of Ruin, and the quintessential Symphony of the Night. I can say that this game and Dawn of Sorrow are pretty much tied for my favorite Castlevania games.

Starting with Symphony of the Night, the Castlevania series began to make games with Metroid-like exploration and back-tracking, with progression to new areas locked behind new abilities that you would find all over a non-linear map. I absolutely love this style, and though most people will say that Symphony of the night is the best Castlevania, it was the first one to change the formula and still had a few kinks to work out that were much improved by the time the team made Aria of Sorrow 6 years later.

The Castle design in Aria of sorrow is possibly my favorite of the series. There is just the right amount of backtracking. The save points and warp rooms are spaced out pretty much perfectly, and I never got completely lost in finding the way forward. Unlike SotN's warp rooms, you can warp from any room to any other room without having to cycle through each one and see where on the map you are. There is even reason to continuously return to the entrance of the castle, as you can find a weapon shop there, and clues to where you need to go next. The weapon shop is so much more accessible in this game than it was in Symphony. The weapon variety is much improved as well, and the abilities of each weapon are more clearly laid out.

In fact, all the information the player needs is presented in the most convenient way. The map is good at showing you where you are, which rooms are dead ends and which rooms have additional hallways branching off of them. There are of course some hidden paths to find on your own too! At any point you can pull up an enemy bestiary and see what you have defeated so far, their health points, weaknesses, and experience gained from each. It makes it actually worthwhile to switch up what weapon you are using throughout the game. In Symphony, I felt like I picked the strongest thing and stuck with it. You even get information on what types of drops you can get from enemies. This was previously all locked away behind the shop vendor and in this game, you get to look it up whenever!

The most notable new feature in this game is the Soul System. When you defeat an enemy, there is a chance that you will absorb their soul, and gain a new ability. There are three types of souls: weapon, ability, and passive. You can equip one of each, allowing for a loadout of 3 abilities. This allows the level designers to create many more types of barriers to progression than before, as you get to swap abilities in and out to change what your character can do. It also allows each playthrough to be different as you may get different soul drops, or just choose to use a different set. In any case, it adds to the replayability of this game greatly. Information on the souls you collect is also added to the bestiary as you defeat and absorb each enemy.

The artwork in this game has to be some of the best I've encountered on the GBA. It's gorgeous. Even with such limited screen resolution, the whole game is beautiful and dripping with atmosphere. It also controls great, too. Movement is smooth and responsive. The animations are extremely well done. It's just a finely polished game all around.

Another improvement of Aria over Symphony is the difficulty curve. I felt little to no challenge in Symphony except for a couple rooms in the beginning when I had hardly any health. In this game, I got about half way through it and then I started dying to bosses and even some of the extra crowded rooms of enemies. I had to pay attention and learn enemy attack patterns and get better at the game. It was never too hard, but I felt like the game was challenging me in just the right way and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

The only negative is that the story is pretty bare bones and poorly written, but that's not the point of this game, so I won't hold it against it.

In short, this game is amazing, I would heartily recommend it to just about anyone. 97/100

90%Nintendo 3DS

This game fucking rules. It's a bit too linear and the story is tryhard but missing.
So much fun to play, so much fun to explore and fight.
Was almost able to 100% complete the game without help (didn't get all the items and souls cause fuck that 99.1% tho)
Challenge is kinda perfectly fine-tuned, Belmont bossfight is super fucking dope. And late game exploration/movement is spectacular. Controls are also basically perfect.
Really loved this game.

80%Game Boy Advance

At this point in time, I think this is my favorite Castlevania. Even if there are some questionable elements. The luck and intelligence stats don't work properly, the translation is questionable at some points, once you get the claimh solais (think I spelled that right) and the legion soul, don't bother using anything else, etc. I still love this game though, and Julius mode is possibly even more fun than the main game just to plow through in a single sitting.

60%Nintendo Switch

I really like SotN and was hoping this would come close to that, but I actually found this to be the least fun of the 3 GBA Castlevanias.

+ Great pixel art
+ Decent environmental variety

- Movement is not as fluid as Harmony of Dissonance
- Progression is not as challenging as Circle of the Moon
- Secrets are too obscure
- Plot and dialogue are ridiculous and kill any atmosphere (like every Iga-vania)
- Bosses are visually cool but boring to play
- Forgettable soundtrack

100%Game Boy Advance

This was my first time I played any Castlevania and good lord, what a brilliant game. It had me completely hooked within the first hour and I completed the whole game in 2 very long sessions! A great game, my understanding one of the best in the series. Soon I'll try SOTN on PS1. This game made me a fully fledged Castlevania fan!

80%PC

finally they added various weapons to castlevania

85%Game Boy Advance

Insane Castlevania for the gba, thus far pretty much the best in the series even though i dnt like the final fight

80%Game Boy Advance

Excellent Castlevania, very much like a Symphony of the Night style on the game boy advance

80%Wii U

A good metroidvania game.
Much better than the previous castlevania game I played. Super Castlevania IV
Positives:
Good mystery in story
Fun gameplay
Tight controls
Exploring the castle was fun
Upgrading Soma was addicting

Negatives:
The relationships between the characters felt incredibly shallow.

70%Game Boy Advance

it has a little something for everyone

100%Emulated

I loved this game. I played it with emulation. I got many of the powers and got the regular and true ending (with the help of a guide). It is basically the precursor to Bloodstained. It is basically the same gameplay style (collecting monster's powers for instance).

70%Nintendo Switch

The developers of Aria seem to have read into the “Metroidvania” label a little too much, resulting in a game that feels like it’s trying to be Metroid when that doesn’t play to its strengths.