is one of those games that stays with you. Partly it was because I have such happy memories of playing it through to 200% completion with my brother over a couple of weeks. But mainly it’s because it’s an amazing videogame. I know this review has been put together using SotN as a lens but I think that is wholly justified as it seems to me that director Koji Igarashi has been grasping to match it’s wonder ever since his 1997 debut. I loved this game and, after sending the Japanese code back to Edge for screenshots, I went out and bought the pal version on release day to play through again. But it’s not as good as Symphony of the Night, memories or no memories.

Edge magazine. E155. Nintendo DS

Despite the lavishly layered gameplay and perfect parallax visual craftwork, Koji Igarashi’s 1997 2D Playstation masterpiece, Symphony of the night, was mostly considered anachronistic. But after so many ensuing, largely disastrous attempts to translate Castlevania’s hallmark gameplay to the third dimension, there is no small delight in this latest polygon-free release. Dawn of Sorrows is a direct sequel to the GBA games, through which Igarashi has quietly continued the series’ 2D bloodline, always attempting to match the magic of his first luminous attempt. Indeed, with the DS’s power and hardware features, it’s perfectly placed to recreate Symphony’s wonder while further redefining its dark corridors and dank, lonely castle walls.

For the newcomer, despite the retro looks, traditional genre pigeonholing is difficult. The modern Castlevania is instead a fashionable mix of platforming, side-scrolling combat and RPG management, all poured into a vast but finite castle. Here, the core action system revolves around the capturing of enemies’ souls, a development from forbear, Aria of Sorrow. Defeat enough of an enemy type and you’ll collect their soul, which can then be equipped as an offensive weapon, guardian or stat modifier depending on it’s colour. These bestow protagonist Soma with a similar attack to the defeated enemy and collecting each of the 116 souls in the game quickly becomes an obsessive pursuit, positively encouraged by virtue of a wireless soul trade-swapping feature.

Other than this, the game mostly sidesteps meaningful use of the DS’s unique capabilities. The top screen is set to either map or enemy profiler: timesaving but unnecessary. Similarly, touchscreen features are rudimentary, awkwardly bolted on to Castlevania mechanics despite attempts to paper over the joins. Most overtly, you must use the stylus to finish boss encounters. Once the antagonist’s health has been suitably depleted, a symbol appears on the touchscreen that must be traced within a strict time limit to trigger the coupe de grace. Fail to accurately draw the seal, or do so outside the time limit and the boss regains some health and the battle irritatingly continues.

Collected soul abilities vary wildly in usefulness and the emphasis to collect the most powerful and pertinent ones is heightened by the sky-high difficulty level. The weighty challenge treads a dangerous line, inspiring infuriation and infatuation in almost equal measure but always managing to feed the keen player just enough reward.

Core gameplay remains largely undeveloped from Symphony of the Night, and, despite the additions, is aspirational rather than inspirational. It’s certainly the best handheld Castlevania game but Igarashi’s team is too dedicated to the framework he masterminded for this to be anything innovatory. That said, Dawn of Sorrows never feels outdated; It’s mature and refined but neither close enough in imitation nor bold enough in revelation to reach the greatness it clearly grasps at.

Seven out of ten

Soul food

The acquisition of souls frequently seems, in practise, random¬. The problem with such unsystematic development is the game’s difficulty level; you can often find yourself working through a section of the castle, collecting souls with very little effort, then integrating the new skills into you gameplay style, only to die before the next save room. On replay, you may find it far harder to collect the same souls you did before you expired, having to enter and reenter rooms in order to respawn certain types of enemies until they eventually give up the ghost.