The star of Dawn of Sorrow is Soma Cruz, the young adventurer who narrowly avoided becoming the next Dracula in Aria of Sorrow. Soma has the ability to collect the souls of monsters he kills, thus inheriting their powers. A year after Soma escaped Dracula's castle, a mysterious woman named Celia shows up and attacks him. Celia is a priestess of a new cult that is attempting to resurrect Dracula. Since Soma already proved once before that he's capable of foiling the resurrection of the dark lord, the cult decides to eliminate him before he can mess up their plans as well. Soma survives the attack quite easily and Celia is forced to retreat. Apparently Soma doesn't take kindly to people who try to kill him, so he sets out to find Celia and prevent her from reviving Dracula. The entire game takes place at the cult's base, which is a replica of Dracula's castle. In true Castlevania form you'll start off relatively weak, with only a knife and some mediocre armor. As you progress through areas of the castle, you'll fight monsters and search the mazelike hallways where you'll gain experience, as well as find new and better equipment. As you gain experience, you'll level up and your stats will increase in attack, defense, strength, constitution, intelligence, and luck. Throughout the game you'll also collect the souls of monsters you kill. These souls can be equipped to give Soma new abilities. There are three types of souls you can equip, as well as ability-type souls that grant you special powers without having to equip them. Ability souls are collected when you defeat bosses, and these abilities are usually required to progress through the game. By using these ability souls Soma can learn how to double-jump, move underwater, and break crystal blocks--all of which are required to access certain areas of the castle. The other three types of souls have to be equipped. Bullet-type souls give you a special attack, usually involving projectiles of some sort. If you have the axe armor soul equipped, you can throw axes at your foes. However, each toss of the axe consumes a little magic. Guardian souls have a wide range of effects, and when activated they continuously consume your magic points. These souls let you summon familiars and perform special abilities, like turning into a bat. Finally, there are enchant-type souls, which have to be equipped but don't cost any magic points. These souls grant passive stat or ability bonuses. For example, you can equip the golem soul to get a bonus to your strength, or the skelerang soul to improve your throwing ability. Since there are more than 100 different enemies in the game, the combinations are almost endless. Not all monsters give up their souls that easily, though. You'll usually have to defeat the same monster several times in order to collect its soul, and since some monsters appear very rarely, it can take quite awhile to collect every type of soul in the game.
Other Helpful Reviews for Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Since 1987, Konami's long-running Castlevania series has told the stories of heroes past and future who have been called upon to prevent the return of Count Dracula, stopping his followers from their nefarious plan to hi... Read Full Review
With its intuitive controls and addictive game play, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is a reviewer's nightmare. It's extremely fun to play, but to put it down in words, it just never bring across the same message. Simply put... Read Full Review
