Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

One day, I'd like to host a conference about conferences.  A meta-conference, if you will.  One of the sections will be named: "Naming Your Conference Sessions: Using Colons to Extend Your Thoughts Way Beyond a Simple Title."

Konami knows something of the use of the colon.  In its (many) series, the brand name is followed by a colon, in order to create a sub-brand using marketing witchcraft.  While it does cause there to be endless amounts of confusion, the method will seem genius once Pokemon runs out of colors (or valuable minerals), or Super Mario Transdimensionalism is released.  Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is the focus of my colon related scorn (go on, giggle, you know you want to), which I recently got to play through again.  The game was released for the 32-bit Gameboy advance, which so far as you know is how I played it (and not at all on a downloaded "copy" of the game).

Can you feel the 32-bit love?

If you haven't played a Castlevania game before now, you really ought to, and Aria of Sorrow is a good a place as any.  The series is mired in mythos, but the essential storyline involves you (sometimes you're no one in particular, and sometimes you're a Belmont) and the famous Count Dracula and his castle of undead minions.  Very few titles attempt to go much deeper into things, though they go much, much deeper.  However, Aria of Sorrow (and its sequel, for there must always be a sequel, Dawn of Sorrow) are set at the end of a shit-ton of events that occured over several centuries.

You needn't understand any of this of course.  Jump with one button, thrust or swing weapon with another.  Hold up and use your weapon button for a special ability.  Side scrolling, platformer-RPG, and beuaty considering the 32-bit restriction. 

The fun of the game lies in its Soulset system, which allows you collect souls of fallen foes and equip them to your character, Soma Cruz.  Souls don't always appear, but appear with enough frequency to make collecting them fun, challenging, but not hair-pulling.  The game also features New Game Plus, which is like discovering a remaining Oatmeal Cream Pie when you had expected that you'd eaten all of them, but one remains, glistening, waiting for you sumptiously eat it.

No, serious, I love Oatmeal Cream Pies New Game Plus features, especially when they handicap me just a little bit, so the second (third, fourth, eighty-third) play-through continues to be enjoyable.  Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow acheives this in the same way most RPGs do with New Game Plus: by resetting your level.  You keep your uber equipment, all your souls, but you start back at the bottom, and must climb your way back up.  Except this time you've got a huge glowing white sword and the climb is easier, but still enjoyable.

All in all, since I clearly own this game and was able to find it, and did not in any way have to do anything that is questionably illegal to play it, this was worth the ten hours I spooged into it, and will probably serve me good for a few more on a couple extra playthroughs.  Now, I really must look intro procuring its offspring for the Nintendo DS...