Castlevania Aria of Sorrow is considered one of the best Castlevania games and one of the best Gameboy Advance games. This game is my favorite in the series, so I definitely agree. The story starts with a prologue narrating that it’s the year 2035, and Japan is about to experience its first eclipse. I noticed in this prologue that they refer to the main character, Soma Cruz, as Mina Hakuba’s childhood best friend. However, it’s also stated that Soma is a foreign exchange student in Japan, while Mina and her family have been living there their whole life. Translation errors are common in the Castlevania series, but when I was reading the prologue for the first time, that immediately threw me off. Luckily, it doesn’t affect the story too much.
Behind the text in the prologue, Soma Cruz is walking up the steps to the Hakuba shrine, the shrine owned by Mina Hakuba’s family, to watch the solar eclipse with her. The stairs feel longer than usual, and before he makes it up, he passes out. He wakes up in front of Dracula’s castle, but is not alone. Next to him is Mina Hakuba, who is still passed out, and in front of him is Genya Arikado, a government agent. Genya’s awake and explains to Soma that he’s in front of Dracula’s castle inside the eclipse. In the year 1999, Dracula’s soul was sealed away here after a large war against him. All of a sudden, monsters come out of the castle and attack them. Genya uses a power that instantly kills most of them, but one still remains. Soma, having a knife on him, uses it to kill the last monster. This grants him that monster’s soul. Genya explains to him that, whenever he kills a monster, it could give him its soul, which will give him a new power.
A part of this game that I love is the amount of characters in it compared to other games. The first person Soma meets is someone named Graham Jones, a missionary of the church, which remains unnamed. Graham explains to Soma that he believes himself to be the reincarnation of Dracula. Not long after, Soma meets a witch named Yoko Belnades, a member of the church. Yoko explains to him that she’s looking for Graham and that he’s not a good man. After defeating a boss and going to the room after it, Soma is greeted by a soldier named Hammer. He was sent to the shrine to investigate it, when all of a sudden, he was teleported to the castle. He doesn’t intend to explore it, but to hang out in front of the castle and sell what he’s been collecting around there. The last character in there is a man with anesthesia who says his name is J, since he can’t remember his actual name. He fought in the war of 1999.
Going through the castle, Soma collects souls every time he beats a boss or beats a variety of different monsters. Every enemy can drop a soul. Soon, he reaches the throne room. Graham is there, and he deems Soma a threat. Graham believes Soma stole the souls from him, and although Soma tries to give them back, Graham denies them, saying that he has already stolen them and he intends to kill him for that. Graham has three stages to his fight and two forms. In the first two stages, he remains the same, but in the third, he changes into a monster. This monster is designed to look like a uterus, as if he were forcing himself to be reborn as Dracula. After defeating him, the power leaves Soma, and he is returned to the shrine with Mina and Genya. However, that is the basic ending. To get the good ending, Soma needs to have specific souls equipped to fight Graham.
When he fights Graham, with the right souls, instead of the power leaving him, he becomes someone else, called the Dark Lord. He still looks the same, but is not the same person. Afterwards, Genya comes out of nowhere and tells Soma that he is the reincarnation of Dracula. He explains that, to not fall to evil, Soma must defeat an entity named Chaos. Chaos is in the chaotic realm, a messed-up version of the castle. Throughout this story, J has been trying to regain his memory, and he is met with a portal to the Chaotic realm. His real name is Julius Belmont, and as a member of the Belmont clan, he must defeat Dracula, who is now Soma. For me, this was one of the hardest fights. Julius moves rapidly and throws stuff, such as crosses and holy water, at Soma. There is an attack called the grand cross that involves sucking everything into a giant cross. This is a very powerful move that I struggled with. Not only was I struggling with it, but the attack also started tearing the castle apart. Soma ended up beating Julius and forced him to make a promise to kill him if he became the Dark Lord.
The Chaos realm has monsters not seen outside, making it hard to get through. However, due to the multiple save rooms, I managed to get through it and to the Chaos fight. This fight was extremely difficult, not because of Chaos being strong, but due to the amount of stuff covering the screen. The first form is three statues circling the screen, each holding souls taken from Soma. To get these souls back, Soma needs to attack the statues. The second form is a black circle in the middle with a dragon flying around and an eye in each corner of the screen.
There are two ways this could end. If Soma dies, the bad ending will start. He’ll be seated in the throne room, and Julius will walk in. He apologizes for being late and states that he’ll keep his promise. If Soma survives, either the good ending or the best ending will start. Soma and Mina are back in the shrine together and, after a bit of discussion, they watch the eclipse end together. Additionally, if you collect all the souls, they’ll also hold hands.
This has to be my favorite Castlevania game, and I’ll have to give it a 9.5/10. The mistranslation in the beginning threw me off, and I wish Graham and Yoko did more throughout the game. Other than that, I enjoyed this game a lot. The attacks felt fluent, and I enjoyed all the characters.
