Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

If you’re feeling peckish for a challenge then why not sink your teeth into Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow?

This fantastically detailed graphic platformer has made the transition well from the Nintendo DS version to the mobile phone. The aim of the game is to beat up as many nasty looking creatures as you wander through stone corridor to eerie courtyard and the depths of the dungeons below. There’s a bit of a plot which keeps your attention throughout, but generally it’s as straight forward as it gets.

As you progress through the game, it evolves to offer you better skills. From being able to leap greater distances and heights, to launching fireballs at zombies and casting vampire bats at skeletons, you get to enjoy the game for longer. Naturally these various monsters you come across vary in terms of difficulty to defeat, many are able to be destroyed with a single hit, but others are much more fiendishly difficult to dispatch – particularly the bosses which help interrupt the games seemingly endless maze of rooms almost every 15 minutes.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is quite a repetitive game and it can be quite frustrating when you forget which room you’ve left and with so many similarly looking rooms you’d be forgiven if you were experiencing déjà vu! There are a few areas dotted throughout the game which allow you to save your progress, this is another factor that you should consider when playing this game. Unlike many other mobile phone games, you can’t just save your progress whenever you like, which means if you forget to save and exit the game you will have to start from wherever you last saved the game. This flaw aside, you will be able to have many hours of fun when playing this vampire title.

Unlike many vampires which seem almost indestructible to all but garlic, holy water, sunlight and stakes to the heart, your character seems almost too quick to die from all he encounters. Whether you’re walking into a monster, being hit by blades, spikes, fire or bones (yes you read that correctly), to name but a few novel ways of leaving this world, you’ll have to be quick fingered to stay alive! Rather than making this game frustrating, it makes it more playable and addictive as you’ll be keen to better your last effort each time.

The game is quite free-roaming, as such you can go off to beat other baddies and find potions and other power-ups that’ll no doubt help you when you come up against the tough bosses. Alternatively, you can march right the way through to the end level boss and use your reflexes, skills and gained abilities to win. Again, this offers the player a bit of a challenge – as there is no difficulty level for you to set up at the start.

This is a good game but for those who’ve played the prequel – Castlevania: Soul of Darkness, you will be feeling a little hollow from the experience this new addition provides. That being said, it’s still a good game for those looking to add to their collection of Vampire stuff.

Rating : 60% (this game sucks a little)

Positives

Great graphics

Simple moves

Game evolves with power-ups

Negatives

Moves get quite tricky – particularly when trying to judge jumps when your abilities improve

Can’t save the game whenever you like

The game isn’t as addictive as it could be due to repetitiveness