Let’s finish up the GBA trilogy.

Many people regard AoS as the best post-Symphony of the Night Castlevania in the “““search action””” genre. I prefer the DS ones thanks to the persistent second screen for maps and status, but this is certainly the strongest of the GBA ones.

For one thing, it looks great. It effortlessly makes it two predecessors look like piles of rancid digital sick. This may be the peak of GBA graphics in general, with impeccable spritework, lovingly crafted animation, and minimal gimmicky 3D effects.

The gameplay is my favourite: a big castle to explore with shortcuts and little guidance, and best of all you’re not limited to a crummy whip. Like Alucard, Soma can equip a huge range of weapon types, so you can tailor to your preference or the situation (although finding the hidden Claimh Solais makes all others redundant immediately, at least until very late game). And the clunky subweapon and heart systems have been scrubbed in favour of the cool new soul capture mechanic!

This is a genius move that all three DS games follow up on in various ways: basically, every enemy in the game will (with varying rarity) drop their soul for you to use, giving you abilities. There’s three categories, some active, some passive, which let you customise even further and give you a reason to fight every enemy you see, beyond EXP and item drops. It also makes for a deep and extensive endgame which I engaged with fully. They also tie the traditional progression-gating abilities into this system, so it feels well integrated into the formula.

The story is very cool too! It’s set in the near-future, after Dracula’s final and total defeat. Yes he’s dead… or is he? Yes, but might he be reincarnated in some form…? Possibly??? There’s a compelling cast of side characters—some new, some tying back to legacy folks—and some twists that make Soma more interesting than the goth teen with a penchant for fur coats he initially appears to be. It’s no wonder this is one of the few instalments with a direct story sequel.

I actually have played this game before. Long ago, when I was first getting into emulation, I heard tell of its quality and tried it out. Some kind of emulator crash softlocked me before the end, sadly, but this time I got 100% souls, completed hard mode and got the best boss rush reward, and naturally did Julius mode as well… I love this game! Let me take a quick moment to praise the method I used this time: the Wii U Virtual Console, which has support for remapping controls, savestates, pixel-perfect scaling, and a nice scan of the manual. Head and shoulders above any other of Nintendo’s retro delivery systems.

Anyway. This may not be the best place to start for Castlevania since it’s essentially the finale of the saga story-wise, and has a deep customisation system. But it’s also very fresh and streamlined, so maybe you can start and end with it, as I tried to do many years ago! Either way if you’re into the genre I’d consider it essential, and it was a blast revisiting and conquering it.