Castlevania handheld thread!

Grindspine

Grindspine

Moderator
Since my thread on getting a DS Lite http://www.egameaddiction.com/forums/index.php?topic=14769.0 is slowly becoming about handheld Castlevania games, here is a topic dedicated to just that.

Since between the GameBoy Advance and the Nintendo DS there are six Castlevania games along with some older GameBoy and GameBoy Color Konami offerings to the series, it was about time someone started a dedicated thread.

Thoughts, comments, and stories about Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia are all very welcome!

I currently have five of the above games (minus Dawn of Sorrow, which I'll probably get by year's end), and an old copy of Castlevania Adventure 2 that I play on my GBA/SP or my SNES GameBoy Player from time to time!

So, um, post up!
 
So i only have played Aria of sorrow, Order of Ecclesia and Portrait of Ruins out of all the handheld Castlevania games and i gotta say that Order of Ecclesia wins the cake for me by far..... technically speaking Aria of Sorrow was my first castlevania game but Order of Ecclesia was the first one i beat and the one that got me into the series (now i own Symphony of the night, Aria of sorrow(first time i played it was borrowed), castlevania 3 and castlevania IV)

My favorite thing about Order of Ecclesia was it's glyph system, using glyph to create strategies to beat bosses and clear areas was fun. it felt like there was always more than 1 effective way to beat a certain Area, and it usually depends on strategy rather than the strenght of the spell/weapon. Also its difficulty was indeed challenging for me, a lot of people told me that this was not a Castlevania game for "noobs" but i still tried it out and while the boss battles were frustrating at times, most of the times when i lost i learned something new about the boss fight and then i could create a strategy to counter the boss.
 
I loved the GBA CastleVania games!!!

Circle of the Moon was developed by the original crew who was famous/infamous actually for CastleVania 64. The level designs were interesting and brought an interesting "card" system to summon different attributes each time you use a pair.

Harmony of Dissonance however, was developed by half of the staff who made CastleVania Symphony of the Night. You play as the grandson of Simon Belmont, Jueste Belmont. This felt closer to the SOTN formula, except Jueste had magic powers like Slypha from CastleVania 3 on top of being the typical Belmont family member. The boss battle run mode is sweet, because you can play as grandpa by entering in the classic KONAMI CODE before the boss battle run mode begins :D

Now Aria of Sorrow, is the prequel to Dawn of Sorrow, so everything you ever wanted to know about Dawn of Sorrow is foretold in this game. There is a SPECIAL EASTER EGG BONUS for DS and DS Lite users too! If you are playing Dawn of Sorrow and the "Aria of Sorrow" cartridge is in the game, go to the first item shop in the game and you will find Soma's sister in the background and your reward is a super rare ring that can be purchased for FREE!
 
MegaDrive20XX said:
There is a SPECIAL EASTER EGG BONUS for DS and DS Lite users too! If you are playing Dawn of Sorrow and the "Aria of Sorrow" cartridge is in the game, go to the first item shop in the game and you will find Soma's sister in the background and your reward is a super rare ring that can be purchased for FREE!
Click to expand...

I will so have to use that trick... Great Easter egg!

Gaming Maiden, you didn't sell/trade in your ability to play GBA games, did you?! Shame!
 
Grindspine said:
I will so have to use that trick... Great Easter egg!

Gaming Maiden, you didn't sell/trade in your ability to play GBA games, did you?! Shame!
Click to expand...

i was planning on doing that (since i got a GBA SP).

but yes, when i get dawn of sorrow i will try this trick and if i get after a DSi then i'll just ask a friend for his DSlite real quick xD.

unless there is another way to get that? in order of ecclesia you can get a special equipment by conecting the game with judgement (i will not call it castlevania) or by beating the game on hard mode level 1. and i might be crazy but i want to try the second option rather than the first xD
 
I think OoE is my favorite. Although I love the intro for Portrait of Ruin :p

I remember linking OoE with Castlenote Judgement, I don't remember what the bonuses were though. :lol
 
I recently got portrait of ruin for my birthday. I dont know why people think this is a bad game, its one of the best... Unless you count killing the 1000 godforsaken old axe armors to unlock old axe armor mode, that was a true pain. Dawn of sorrow was my first castlevania game, and boy was it a masterpiece. Too bad it didnt get another sequel. More later.
 
Aria of Sorrow was great. I think that Portrait of Ruin is at or above that level of excellence. I will say though, the boss fights (especially the last one) are somewhat annoying since one must depend more on the paired magic spells rather than skillful whip/sword attacks.

Perhaps the game can be beaten with whip/sword, but the final bosses were frustrating if not using the joint magic attacks.
 
It's been months since I played Portrait of Ruin heavily... But, I couldn't sleep last night. So, I broke out the copy of Dawn of Sorrow that I bought for my girlfriend. She went through about 80% of the game before tapering off and avoiding the final boss battle. I just went through a bit of the beginning last night, but it seems like a very solid game.

The glyph system is already taking me a while to grasp though. I cannot draw worth anything.
 
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