Of all the great video game compilations to come out this year, the Castlevania: Dominus Collection is one of my favorites. It brilliantly collects Nintendo DS classics like Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia, as well as including a new version of Haunted Castle. I've been playing a lot of these games recently, which got me wondering what the critics said about these side-scrolling adventure games. To answer that question, I decided to flip through the pages of Electronic Gaming Monthly, GamePro, Edge and more classic magazines to see what the critics said back when these games first came out. Get that holy water and wooden stake ready, because this is a very stabby episode of Castlevania: Review Crew.


After having a successful run on the Game Boy Advance, the next obvious step for the Castlevania series was the Nintendo DS. Dawn of Sorrow is yet another 2D, side-scrolling Castlevania game, this time with slightly better graphics, more role-playing mechanics and some gimmicky touch screen stuff that fans were split on. This is the direct sequel to 2003's Aria of Sorrow, which leaves us with a rattled Soma Cruz, who discovered that he is Dracula's reincarnation. The good news is that Soma, with a little help from his friends, is able to thwart fate and avoid becoming the new dark lord. However, it won't take much to send our wannabe hero on a dark path, setting up a morally twisted tale set in the far-off future of 2036. But that's enough setup, let's see what the critics thought of Dawn of Sorrow.

Electronic Gaming Monthly loved the game, giving it an average score of 9 out of 10. Mark summed it up this way: “As reliable as Dracula's castle reappearing every 100 years, Dawn of Sorrow is everything we've come to expect from the excellent handheld Castlevanias – responsive controls, beautiful, crisp 2D graphics, and old-fashioned gameplay that'll keep you up way past your bedtime. It's a formula that's changed little in almost a decade, but many refinements here do make a difference, especially the ability to collect multiple monster souls to increase powers and upgrade your weapons. It keeps you gladly swatting at enemies as you crisscross the castle and, along with awesome playable characters and plenty of secrets, makes it impossible to put down Dawn of Sorrow until long after the first time you see the credits roll.” Shoe agreed, but not quite as much as Mark: “Musty hallways. Skeletons, bats and flying Medusa heads. The slick weapon that's just out of reach because I haven't scored the double jump boots yet. Wait ... haven't I visited this castle many times before? Yes, Dawn of Sorrow walks down the same design path as its GBA predecessors, but that's just fine because it has the same excellent pacing that makes exploration, combat and leveling up so compelling.”

Believe it or not, EGM's 9 out of 10 is smack dab in the middle of the scores. Nintendo Power also gave the game a 9, and you saw the equivalent over at GamePro, when they gave Dawn of Sorrow a score of 4.5 out of 5. If you're looking for a counter-opinion, then let's take a look at Edge issue 155. Giving the game a 7 out of 10, Edge explained that the “core gameplay remains largely underdeveloped from Symphony of the Night, and, despite the additions, is aspirational rather than inspirational. It's certainly the best handheld Castlevania game, but Igarashi's team is too dedicated to the framework he masterminded for this to be anything innovatory. That said, Dawn of Sorrow never feels outdated; it's mature and refined, but neither close enough in imitation nor bold enough in reinvention to reach the greatness to which it clearly aspires.”

As usual, Edge was the outlier, with pretty much every other magazine raving about this first Castlevania game on the DS. For example, Retro Gamer gave it a score of 92% in their 25th issue. Game Informer went a little bit higher, giving it a 9.25 and concluding that “in a genre that has been iterated on for the better part of two decades, Dawn of Sorrow manages to feel fresh and new. It's not perfect – it could be longer, the story still fails to impress and some horribly imbalanced combos are around – but there's not a DS owner I wouldn't recommend this title to.”

In other words, Dawn of Sorrow picked up right where Aria of Sorrow of Sorrow left off, both in story and quality. If you liked the Game Boy Advance trilogy, you're going to love this game. It's that simple.

Released one year later, Portrait of Ruin takes us back to World War II and continues the story of Castlevania: Bloodlines. Although the setting and characters may have changed, this installment keeps many of the updates and improvements that were found in the first DS game, Dawn of Sorrow. It's also the first handheld Castlevania game to have English voice-overs. This is another strong entry in the long-running series, thanks in large part to a strong list of bonuses, including alternate modes that allow you to play as different Castlevania characters. I'm a big fan of this entry, but what about the critics? Did they agree with me?

Of course they did. Of the three games we're going to talk about today, Portrait of Ruin is the one with the most consistent reviews. That said, it's not the one Electronic Gaming Monthly liked the most, as they gave it an average score of 8.7 out of 10, down slightly from the last game. Jeremy was the one bringing the score down, arguing that “the game's good bits are REALLY good, like the exceptional dual-character system, each with their own advantages. It's a nice attempt to merge the modern Castlevania style with the classic feel, although it falls short of the source material. The stages lack challenge and feature way too much copy-and-paste design, especially in the game's second half. Overall, though, Portrait is a slightly disappointing step back from 2005's superb Dawn of Sorrow.” Michael liked it a bit more, saying, “sure, Portrait of Ruin ain't perfect, but at least it does something the previous GBA ‘Vanias have neglected to do – stick a stake in the monotony. Both the character-switching and the pseudolevels make the main castle-crawling play less like a rotting corpse. My only complaint: Konami needs to chuck the terrible anime art design in the coffin.”

Once again, Edge gave the lowest score, but not by much. With a score of 8 out of 10, this is Edge magazine's favorite Castlevania game on the DS. “The meat of the game remains the franchise's staple hacking and slashing: It's a tad repetitive perhaps, but mitigated by the delightfully reactive animations of the masses of monsters on offer. And breaking the potential monotony is the addition of optional sub-quests, which provide satisfying objectives when you run into the game's deliberate sticking points. Full of bravado, packed with features and brimming with invention, this 20-year-old veteran is as vital and relevant as ever.”

Moving up the scale, there's a three-way tie for the highest score. Game Informer gave the game a 9 out of 10, down slightly from the 9.25 out of 10 they gave the previous title. Nintendo Power also gave the game a 9 out of 10, the same score they gave Dawn of Sorrow. And then there's GamePro, who gave it a 4.5 out of 5 and concluded that all of the changes make for a better game, “but the genius of Portrait of Ruin is it retains the elements that made the previous titles so much fun. Despite the removal of the touch screen functionality, the core gameplay is still a total blast and upgrading weapons and abilities keeps things from getting dull. The only real complaint with Portrait of Ruin is the process of reloading a game once you've died is incredibly cumbersome and inconvenient. It would have been easy for Konami to lazily release an underwhelming remake or compilation to celebrate Castlevania's 20th anniversary. Instead, they release Portrait or Ruin, a game that not only reaffirms the series' greatness, but is easily one of the best handheld titles released this year.”

By shaking things up a bit, Konami was able to find a way to keep Castlevania fresh and exciting. This is another strong game that you'll have a lot of fun playing (or replaying) in the Dominus Collection.

Order of Ecclesia isn't just the final Castlevania game on the Nintendo DS, it's also the final new game in the mainline series. After this release, Konami opted to reboot the franchise with Lords of Shadow on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, which was followed by Mirror of Fate on the 3DS and a proper sequel on home consoles. The good news is that Order of Ecclesia takes the original timeline out on a real high note. It takes the series back to the 1800s and chronologically follows Symphony of the Night, giving us a more interesting world to explore that isn't just confined to a creepy castle. This DS game also adds a new combat system built around Glyphs, giving players a surprising amount of variety when it comes vampire hunting. It also makes use of the DS-to-Wii connectivity with the terrible fighting game Castlevania Judgment, but the less said about that the better.

Now, when it comes to the reviews, the scores are mostly in line with the previous two games released on the DS. Electronic Gaming Monthly, for example, liked it more than Portrait of Ruin and gave it an A-. Why the minus? “So what keeps Ecclesia from ousting Symphony as the ultimate Castlevania? A well-intended set of subquests that sees you running all over creation to rescue kidnapped villagers end up becoming a disastrous chore when you're forced to comb every pixel of the world to do their bidding. You must rescue everyone in order to access the last third of the game, and the paucity of in-game hints invokes the classic frustration of Simon's Quest.”

It's worth noting that there were critics who were starting to grow tired of the Castlevania formula. Game Informer went from giving the previous games top scores to being in the middle of the pack with an 8.25 out of 10. The same goes for GamePro, who went down to a straight 4 out of 5. That may not seem like a bad score, but they had a lot of complaints: “The boss fights will also frustrate you as you'll usually defeat them only after learning their patterns – something you can't do without first facing them multiple times – and there are confusing environmental puzzles that have no clear solution; I am currently hopelessly stuck in the game and have no idea how to proceed. At this point, I've resorted to sending an email to Konami to beg them for help.” Wait ... they gave the game 4 stars but couldn't even beat it? That's a lot kinder than I would have been.

Over at Edge, they agreed with GamePro about a lot of the complaints, especially when it came to the excessive side quests. However, unlike GamePro, they gave the game a much lower score, a 6 out of 10. From the worst to best, the highest marks came from the Official Nintendo Magazine, who gave it a 92%. “From working out the best combination of glyph spells and figuring out the weaknesses of particularly nasty monsters, to discovering secret areas and earning medals for beating bosses without being hit once, there's very little to fault Order of Ecclesia. Of course, we don't doubt that plenty of people will disagree. They'll moan about the music not being haunting enough, the fact that the hero is a lady or, more likely, that it's just too hard for them. But we'll say this: Ignore those fools and just go experience Order of Ecclesia for yourself. You'll thank us for it in the end, we guarantee it.”

Okay, these reviews are all over the place. Ranging from 60% all the way up to 92%, there's not a lot of agreement here between sides. And that GamePro review still rubs me the wrong way. Personally, I dig this entry, but it definitely has some glaring problems. Problems that could be easily solved if Konami were to release a proper sequel. What do you say Konami?