Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (commonly abbreviated AoS) was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, and it closely follows the new franchise gameplay and features established in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Its Japanese title is Castlevania: Minuet of Dawn (キャッスルヴァニア暁月の円舞曲 Castlevania: Akatsuki no Minuet (Enbukyoku)).

Plot
The game takes place in the year 2035 and stars Soma Cruz, a high school exchange student in Japan. While visiting the Hakuba Shrine with his friend Mina Hakuba, Soma is transported into Castlevania (Dracula's castle) along with her. There he meets Genya Arikado, who defeats a group of attacking enemies and explains Soma's ability to absorb monsters' souls.

Aria of Sorrow has several possible endings, depending on the course taken by the player.

Gameplay
Aria follows the model established by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, that of an action-RPG. The player collects new equipment and skills by exploring the game's castle setting and fighting increasingly powerful enemies and bosses, leading up to a climactic encounter with the castle's master. The player primary attacks at close quarters using variety of weapons. Soma Cruz's control and fighting style is reminiscent of Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, as opposed to that of a whip-wielding Vampire Hunter most prominently featured in the series. However, he has a different system of secondary attacks.

As with previous titles in the series, Aria introduces a new magic system. Each of 110 enemies in the game may provide a unique soul upon their defeat, depending on the player's luck. Once collected, souls may be equipped, granting new abilities.

The souls come in four main types:
 * Guardian souls - these provide mainly defensive abilities such as summoning Familiars, temporary invulnerability, or shapeshifting. They are activated or toggled with the R button.
 * Bullet souls - these provide subweapon-like functionality such as fireballs and other attacks. They are activated with the UP+B button combination.
 * Enchanted souls - these work to give Soma new latent abilities such as walking on water or increasing statistics.
 * Ability souls - these provide always-on abilities such as a double-jump and slide move. These are generally obtained from bosses and used to mediate level design in the same manner as in the Metroid games; that is, as new abilities are acquired, more areas are available to the player to explore.

Souls can be traded with the use of two GBAs, two cartridges and a link cable.

Unlockable modes include playing as a Belmont (Soma Cruz is not a Belmont) and Boss Rush mode, where unique items and very powerful weapons are awarded for defeating the Boss creatures in sequence in a set amount of time.

After finishing the game, a new game can be started in Normal or Hard mode, with the option of keeping all items and souls (except souls that are necessary to keep the game storyline in order).

Reviews and reaction
Aria of Sorrow was well received by Castlevania's fandom in general, as opposed to the previous GBA installment Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, which received very mixed reviews. It is considered by many to be the best of the Game Boy Advance games and is often paired against Castlevania: Circle of the Moon for this title. While many felt the Metroid/Castlevania hybrid gameplay started by Symphony of the Night had begun to wear thin at this point, Aria offered more balanced and clean gameplay, along with a fresh plot, good visuals, and other generally agreed upon improvements. The soul collection system is seen as quite fun, and gives much room for improvising and customization when combining Soma's powers in different ways. Many felt, however, that the system wasn't delved into as deeply as it could have been. Also, a complaint from the previous game, Harmony of Dissonance, that the game used too little visual contrast in the backgrounds, remained somewhat in "AoS", although there are many genuinly beautiful and colorful backgrounds, and the tiling seems to have been done in a more competent manner.

Perhaps Aria of Sorrow's biggest claim to fame is a major plot twist near the end which surprised many long time Castlevania fans. See the stub about Soma Cruz for more details, but be warned; major spoilers lie ahead. While Aria of Sorrow continued to expand on the tried and true exploration format of many of the previous installments, many fans felt that this plot twist, as well as the totally new era (this is the first Castlevania game to take place in a futuristic time period, although the signs of such were minimal, such as grenade throwing enemies or a handgun weapon), was just the potential for innovation the series' plotline needed. A follow up of Aria, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, has been released in 2005, which continues the storyline started in Aria.

Re-Release
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow was re-released in the United States in January of 2006, alongside Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, as Konami's Castlevania Double Pack, which has both games on one GBA Game Pak.