With Castlevania: The Aria of Sorrow, Konami’s Castlevania series makes a departure from past incarnations by pitting you against the Dark Prince in the future instead of the past. What does this mean from a gameplay standpoint? Not much really. Aside from a few items, the game has a similar look and feel to the previous medieval-themed Castlevania games, but that’s not a bad thing. While at first glance it may appear that this newcomer to the series is lacking in the innovation department, the game in fact boasts some great new features that make it a personal favorite of mine.

If you’ve played any Castlevania games before this one (with the exception of the Nintendo 64 version) you’ll find the controls make you feel right at home. The game handles like what we’ve come to expect from any Castlevania game The A and B buttons are for your weapon attack and jump. Probably the most difficult action to get used to is activating your red soul powers which is done by pressing up on the control pad and your attack button. The right shoulder button activates the blue soul power (more on soul capturing in a moment) and the left shoulder button controls certain abilities such as the Backwards Dash.. The select button brings up a map of the previously visited areas. And the start button brings up your status screen where you’ll manage the library of souls you’ve captured, equip items, and use any consumable items you may have. At first, the status screen can be a bit confusing as there are so many options available to you but it’s not hard to pick up. You can also "Sleep" from this screen which essentially allows you to quick save at any point in the castle other than the save rooms. This is a nice feature if you need to turn off the game in a pinch. Once you’ve restarted from your "sleep point", it is wiped from your save game file so that you cannot exploit the feature to get past a particularly difficult area..

Aria of Sorrow introduces some RPG elements as well as some other cool new features not seen in earlier games in the series. As you kill creatures, you gain experience and go up in levels. With new levels come additional hit points and magic points as well as increased stats (Strength, Constitution, Intelligence and Luck). The tedium of gaining experience is somewhat lessened by Soma’s soul capturing ability, which is by far one of the coolest features in this game.

There are four different types of souls you can capture. Blue souls consume your magic meter while generating a continual effect such as a shield to protect you or wings to make you fall slower. Yellow souls don’t consume any of your magic yet produce a continual effect on Soma such as altering his stats, preventing him from being turned to stone, or even allowing him to walk on water. Silver souls consume no magic and grant you new abilities that can be turned on or off such as the backwards-dash and double-jump. Red souls consume magic each time you use them but enable you to use special attack. For example, killing the grenade-throwing Zombie Soldier grants you the ability to toss grenades at the cost of a bit of magic. These souls, which can be of the red, blue or yellow variety, are what you’ll spend most of your time collecting in Aria of Sorrow. With every monster you slay (and there are well over 100 different varieties) there is a percentage chance that you will absorb that creature’s soul and gain its power in combat..

Did I mention that your soul powers increase as you go up in level? Each soul power is directly tied to one of your four ability scores. Suffice it to say, at the higher levels, you will become nigh untouchable.

As you play Aria, you’ll find yourself wanting to collect all 110 individual creature souls to see what cool new abilities they’ll grant you. You and a friend can even trade souls that you’ve captured with each other through the GBA link-up feature. It would have been nice for Konami to do more with the GBA’s linking feature, but soul trading is a nice plus if you’ve got a friend playing the same game. All souls are attainable with some persistence however, and you can always re-visit an area later to pick up any souls you might have missed earlier in the game. In fact, part of the fun of the game is had in experimenting with different souls and finding new combinations that work well for a particular area.

There is an extensive set of items and equipment to use as well in the game. With over 40 weapons, you’ll easily be able to find one to suit your own particular fighting style. Even with this variety however, some weapons are easily more preferable than others. There are standard weapons (daggers, swords and axes), elemental varieties, and even a whip-sword which is reminiscent of the whip from earlier games in the series. An armor and an accessory slot round out the equip-able items. Additionally, consumable items such as potions, anti-venom, and a variety of food types can be used to restore your health, magic and overall status.

Even though the game takes place in the future, you’ll find yourself walking through medieval castle hallways, towers and locales. The castle interconnects like one big jigsaw puzzle and new areas become accessible as your abilities increase. Sometimes though, you’ll find yourself wandering around aimlessly looking for that one passage at the end of some errant hallway you’ve long forgotten about. Fortunately, the castle has portals you can use to quickly jump to different areas.

The graphics in Aria are vivid and the animations are smooth. Nearly ever creature dies in some gruesome fashion from skeleton bones flying around the screen to giant golems crumbling to pieces. The dying monsters scream or wail and the sound of stone crumbling when you defeat a rock golem is a treat to the ears.

Musical themes for each area keep the soundtrack from being boring. I even found myself humming them from time to time. In the 20+ hours I put into this title, I never once got sick of the music or found it necessary to turn it off. As an added bonus, after you beat the game is a full sound mode where you can listen to every musical score and sound effect the game has to offer.

Aria of Sorrow takes about 10 hours or so to finish but if you’re a collector and wanting to get every soul, then you’ll spend significantly more time on the game. Thankfully Konami put some thought into the replayability of the title. Once you’ve beaten the game, several new game modes open up. One of the bonus options allows you to play the game on a harder difficulty level (although you keep all the souls and items you’ve collected which kind of defeats the purpose of "Hard".) There’s also a new gameplay mode called "Boss Rush" in which your goal is fight each of the game’s bosses as quickly as you can. The faster your time, the better your reward. Three of the game’s exclusive items can only be unlocked by getting a quick time in Boss Rush. Also, depending on the new name you give yourself when you start a new game, you can play through the game without the use of souls or items, which ramps up the difficulty considerably. Finally, if you beat the game with the best ending, you can play through again with a new character, Julius Belmont, complete with his vampire-hunter whip. Julius cannot collect souls or use items but he does have a complete set of classical sub-weapons such as holy water and the cross that consume his magic meter.

The Castlevania series is one of the most long-standing game franchises and the reason it continues to persist in part is because of great games like Aria of Sorrow. For sixteen years now, we have been hacking and slashing our way through Dracula’s castle to save the world from evil, and still can’t get enough. The Castlevania story might be getting a bit dated, but the delivery is tried and true. Aria of Sorrow maintains the classic style of its predecessors while giving players a few new treats and strategies this time around. Fans of the series as well as newcomers looking to find an adventure title with strategy elements will find themselves right at home with Aria of Sorrow.