Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow | Review

After years of finding myself more on the "Metroid" side of the Metroidvania divide, Aria of Sorrow finally made me understand Castlevania. So much of that comes from the way it iterates on both the successes of Symphony of the Night and the failures of both Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance while also being fully aware of its limitations as a Game Boy Advance game. That understanding of its portability feeds into the fairly liberal placement of save and teleportation rooms which — alongside the generally fast movement and robust combat options from the very start of the game — lead to a surprisingly breezy experience traversing Dracula's castle. There's no moment of Aria where you feel stilted or lose all of your abilities, you start in a place that feels fantastic and end feeling even better. It's hard to overstate how important that balance is! I loved revisiting this game and finally seeing it through and it's really primed me to both continue into the DS era of…