Castlevania Dominus Collection Review

Since Nintendo settled on the handheld console market, we have seen major titles being shrunk to the palm size with some trickery. I have seen Crash, Spyro, and many other platformer titles becoming pixelated during the 2000s with Nintendo GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS. It's obviously not the same experience as the main titles, but a miniature, on-the-go version would do just fine in 2004.

One of the other long-lasting franchises, Castlevania, would also find its place in the Nintendo DS. Not only but three massive games with different plots, characters, and gameplay styles. It just… I begged people to question why there wasn't any established and well-built Castlevania for the next generation of consoles, like PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. To our surprise, Nintendo DS Castlevania games did well enough to keep our attention on the franchise regardless.

Castlevania Dominus Collection's purpose is to let us reminisce about the fact that these games did well and require some good port action for today's PCs and consoles. And props to Konami; they did deliver solid work with this collection. It has been a good experience for both new people jumping on the bandwagon after the animated series and people who want to remember the title they played as a youngster.

I grew up with Castlevania titles like Symphony of the Night and Lament of Innocence, so diving into Castlevania Dominus Collection was a new experience for me- yet it felt quite familiar. Whether it be the gameplay or the soundtrack, all three games presented great quality and made me believe in Konami once again for their old projects. Before the Castlevania Dominus Collection, they also released a nifty collection of NES/SNES era Castlevania games called "Castlevania Anniversary Collection", which also provided the same quality as the Dominus Collection.

Since this is a three-games-in-one title, I will discuss each game in its segments. Bear with me as I divide this review into three little segments. First, we gotta talk about Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, as it is your first choice when you boot up the Castlevania Dominus Collection. However, you can choose whichever game you wish to play.

Released in 2008 for Nintendo DS, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia takes place in the 17th century. It focuses on the cult of Ecclesia, which swore to take down Dracula once and for all, just like any other Castlevania title. While our protagonist, Shanoa, was chosen to be the bearer of the ultimate weapon, other cult members, especially Arbus, don't like the order of the head of the cult.

The reason is that Arbus was chosen to be the bearer, but it was changed without his being informed. To take revenge on the cult, he intervenes in the ritual and ruins the plan. In other words, he becomes the main villain before taking on Dracula. Order of Ecclesia has a different take on combat than other Castlevania games—or any Castlevania games in general—Which becomes obvious in the first few minutes of gameplay.

I kind of regret talking about the general idea of how a Castlevania game plays, as it will be confusing for newcomers to the series. To briefly explain, Castlevania takes the age-old myth of vampires, and the idea of Dracula twists it with religious takes. It gives us a way to defeat Dracula—it usually includes a whip that does damage to him, not cloves, garlic, or daylight.

The Belmont Family, known as vampire hunters, has been tasked with this Dracula-saying job for centuries. However, some other characters are also after vampires, so we usually see Belmonts as the series' main or supporting characters.

As for the gameplay, I must mention this new mish-mash of a subgenre called "Metroidvania." From the half of the word, you can see Castlevania games reference it, and these titles usually include tough platforming sections, powerups, collecting weapons, backtracking, and more to keep players hooked up to the game. I would call this game a Metroidvania, but that'd be ridiculing the series itself. To give a proper name, Castlevania is a 2D platformer game with RPG elements to level up your character as you collect loot and fight numerous god-like bosses.

Castlevania Dominus Collection has nothing but that idea spread across three games. You'll find the same formula in each game but in a different shape and form. Starting with Order of Ecclesia, the way to get different weapons is called Glymphs, and you need to find them in each place you visit. By getting the Glymphs, you can customize an attack pattern to deal the highest damage to your enemies. Unlike other games, however, using any attacks causes the energy bar to go down, as other games do not even include an energy bar.

While normal attacks drain your energy- so you don't spam attacks, special weapons require collecting hearts. As a newcomer, you might confuse hearts for health; we don't blame you. Castlevania sometimes has readability errors, accompanied by confusion, and the heart aspect is one of them. Instead of any other pickup, special attacks use hearts, and our character has a limited number of hearts before it completely runs out. To get hearts, you need to cause some havoc- I mean smashing lights, chandeliers, posts, random objects, and much more.

RPG side of Castlevania comes from the fact that every enemy you kill grants you an EXP, and you have to gather certain amounts of EXP before leveling up. Of course, as you level up, you get more damage, defense, agility, health, and space to stock heart. Although it might initially seem tricky, Castlevania has this unique quirk where leaving and entering the same room respawns the enemies. So you can potentially go on a killing spree to get free EXP, but it'll be better to just move on and defeat a higher tier of enemies to farm EXP faster.

Wow, okay, I got sidetracked while talking about Orders of Ecclesia. I just wanted to talk about how the game can be played, but I ended up talking about Castlevania's formula altogether. Still, this should give you a baseline when discussing the other two games on the collection. I am not done talking about the Order of Ecclesia, though.

Compared to the other two, the game plays more like a proper RPG rather than a mix between Metroid and Megaman, where platformers are emphasized more. There is a castle hub and a central hub to visit when buying or selling items. It's not that Castlevania doesn't include a convenience store in every game, but Order of Ecclesia felt like I was playing Zelda II: The Adventure of Link on NES.

While most weapons can be scattered in Castlevania games, in Order of Ecclesia, you need to earn them by finding villagers trapped by Arbus in certain castles or dungeons. They always have an extra Gylph or Magic Glyphs for Shanoa to gather. These act as weapons- from throwable knives to swords and many others- and extra attacks for her, and sometimes even certain enemies can drop them, too.

Enemy's drops usually coincide with the type of weapon they are carrying, such as a pirate dropping a cutlass or a skeleton knight dropping a sword. Oddly enough, Orders of Ecclasia is the only Castlevania that doesn't include the renowned "Dracula Killer" whip.

By pressing up and continuing to press up, Shanoa can gather these items and use them as weapons. What's better is that sometimes she can find extra items that are considered magic. For example, the Magnes item allows her to stick to certain objects to keep herself in the air, fling herself towards unreachable areas, or evade the boss' attacks.

Combat in Order of Ecclesia is rather rudimentary, though it's hard to keep track of what Shanoa wants to do. Sometimes, the frames get messed up, and you get no response on jumps; she only does backward evade, so if you are running away from an enemy, you usually end up bumping into it while evading. And what bothers me the most is there are zero invisibility frames. That means you have no idea if you are still invincible to the enemy after getting hit. Then you end up getting hit multiple times because controls forget to register and so forth…

This might just seem like a cry for better optimization in the control department, but in reality, Castlevania games have been like that since the beginning. Control schemes- or the effective timeframe when controls are registered- are quite tight with Castlevania, just like other NES platformers like Mega Man and Metroid. Therefore, Konami has developed a neat mechanic to make it less painful for you to experience these Castlevania titles.

As I said earlier, Castlevania games were and still are- quite brutally hard games. Konami has also developed a rewind button to let players roll back a mistake they made up to the previous 10 seconds. Therefore, if you struggle with boss fights and want to remember their pattern, rewinding mechanic is just for you. Alternatively, if you want to keep the old-time flavor, you can opt not to use a rewind system; it's totally up to you!

Let's move on to the next game: Portrait of Ruin. Released in 2006 for Nintendo DS, it adds a twist to the Castlevania series by adding a playable second character. Rather than being a sole action RPG with platformer elements, Portrait of Ruin comes with puzzles that require both of the characters to cooperate. However, either can vanish and give a single-player experience at any time.

The story is your typical "We gotta kill Dracula." plot but with a guy who doesn't know how to use his whip and a magician girl who is there to help him in his quest. Oh, it takes place just before World War II, around 1944. Including a second character can be a double-edged sword, considering you can have extra firepower for oncoming enemies, and they can also get damaged, which can affect the main character's health.

You can change between Jonathan and Charlotte with one push of a button. You can even get great combos out of it, too, but I advise not to keep them on the screen too much, as they share the same health pool, and you might get damaged even if you didn't want to. Sometimes, the AI that takes care of the second character can make bad decisions and jump for their death- or walk straight into a trap, so just take your partner out whenever needed.

The whole premise of Portrait of Ruin can be understood from the title actually. Jonathan and Charlotte find themselves in a castle deemed to be ruled by Dracula, but they find another vampire to be the castle's owner. To stop their reign, they have to get rid of the shield that protects the castle and vampires, which are spellbound to many portraits around the castle. In short, the castle acts like a hub world while you go through paintings to fight bosses.

Since Portrait of Ruin has paintings for you to go through, it opens up the topic of diversity between enemies and enemy types. Castlevania, as a whole, is still an RPG, and while you do 2D combat, enemies you come across have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to certain weapons. Figuring it out is as easy as just attacking them, realizing that you do less damage, and switching to another weapon until it does greater damage.

UI helps with this case, too; while confronted against certain enemies, you can check which weaknesses they have, how much EXP they give, and how much health they have. The most important bit when it is the items they drop. It's a good idea to track which items they drop, from weapons to consumable items. Don't expect to find them all the time; items are rare when it comes to dropping, ranging from one star to five, one being quite often and five being ultra rare drop items. Quite convenient, I'd say, though, in every new encounter, the information will be blanketed, so be advised.

Now we move on to the next and the last title in the Castlevania Dominus Collection: Dawn of Sorrow. Released in 2005, it is easily the most barebones game of the trio as it doesn't include any plot twists or special take on the genre. A simple, rudimentary Castlevania game about what happens after getting rid of Dracula. Twisty take, I know, but the story works so well that Dawn of Sorrow's most important bit is how things turn out for each character during the story. Sadly, mechanics come later in the list of importance.

Set in the year 2035, a year after defeating Dracula, Some Cruz becomes rather free as he never gets interrupted by the dark powers he absorbed from Dracula. Unfortunately, this is tied to another Castlevania game called Aria of Sorrow, which is never mentioned during the cutscenes or the plot. One day, Soma gets disrupted by a cult that wants him defeated as someone else needs to take care of the dark power given by Dracula.

Eventually, he dives into the cult's headquarters, which is located in a castle (duh, of course). It turns out that two other powerful villains want to take his place by absorbing the dark power. Oh, and the whip makes a return regardless, which is something good to see after its absence in Order of Ecclesia; it just needs a bit of a tweak and getting used to it again since Soma last used it in the fight between himself and Dracula.

Not to be mean, but Dawn of Sorrow has the least straightforward instructions for playing the game so far. Sure, I mentioned how it plays like a regular Castlevania. But that doesn't necessarily mean there are little things on the gameplay side that bothered me. Before ever talking about anything, remember that the Nintendo DS had a screen on which you could use its special stylus. That's why special games like Nintendogs and Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training were so popular.

The addition of an interactable screen led to many other games using touch controls to give more immersion to the titles. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is the only game from the series that includes this mechanic, and I swear it's the most confusing in the trio, not because it's unique, but because I am simply not using a small screen LED screen with touch controls. That means I must use my controller's analog stick or the mouse to draw something on the screen. I hope you can see which point I am making.

I haven't made it clear in my reviews, but I am actually using a Steam Controller, as it feels natural to have an analog stick that acts like a mouse while having the same luxury as a controller. Most developers intend to make the game compatible with a Steam Controller, so it leaves me with much confusion as I am having a hard time with most games. Dawn of Sorrow's "Magic Seal" mechanic, where you need to draw a certain shape to keep souls away, is harder than what it looks like while making it work.

If you are using a keyboard and mouse, that would be great. But get ready if you are using a controller because sometimes it is a hassle to control the virtual "pen" you are given, and most of the time, you fail with the seal. Another thing to mention is the "tactical souls" mechanic, where you can keep enemies' souls with you and trade them for better abilities or use them to upgrade your weapons. Castlevania already makes upgrading and finding special attacks easier; it surely didn't need an extra step to make it more… Confusing?

Despite the negative points, Dawn of Sorrow still plays well, as do other games in the Castlevania Dominus Collection. The movement is smooth (surprisingly), the level designs are challenging, and it includes puzzle elements like Portrait of Ruin, which is a great addition. I just wish I had discovered the dashing button earlier; it would have made my life easier while tackling health enemies and boss fights, but oh well.

You might think the review stops here because I covered all three games, but I would also like to talk about how great these three games were ported over to PCs and consoles. In the age of old games being ported over to the newer generation of hardware, there might be some clashes or difficulties setting stuff up. This is most blatantly obvious with Nintendo's own ports, as they somehow always make one aspect of a port wrong or play like a slog. Sure, sometimes extra content is nice, but what's the point if the game doesn't play well?

Konami, conversely, has been successfully porting the games with their authenticity intact. They kept a solid 60 frames per second with updated visuals, an all-in-one screen for better readability, and the crisp quality of the soundtrack. I must mention that if you haven't heard any Castlevania soundtrack before, do it now! Just find any game's soundtrack online and listen to it. You'll be shocked at how good the composition quality of the use of chiptunes is.

The soundtrack aspect of Castlevania was always a plus. Highly dense organ blaring, action-packed chanting, and a mix of both religious and high-tempo rhythm were the elements that made Castlevania's soundtrack unique from others. As you might guess, with all its glory, the Castlevania Dominus Collection also includes high-quality rips of these three games, and you can listen to them separately. I highly suggest that if you are looking for a different direction for your music taste, you won't regret it.

Castlevania Dominus Collection's plus sides aren't over yet. You can also find a copy of Haunted Castle (the official name of Castlevania in Japan) and Haunted Castle Reimagined, fully rendered in pixelated goodness. While the first one reminds me of the NES graphics, the Reimagined version was altered to look like it was made in SNES.

If you are looking for the live 2000s aesthetic and cannot find a single copy of these games near you, then the Castlevania Dominus Collection is absolutely worth it. Konami did a great job on the anniversary collection, and there is no doubt they were able to show it once again with the Castlevania Dominus Collection. Now, I only want Symphony of the Night to be ported over to PC so I can enjoy it at 60FPS with a banger of a soundtrack. I hope this is Konami's next move because, along with me, many people would like to experience Symphony of the Night again.