Castlevania - Favorite DS game?

[L5Animations]

How many of you have heard this series? Castlevania is a famous series that has been around since the early days of the NES. It's spawned many games - at least one for ALMOST any system you could think of!

Here, I want to know your favorite of the DS games. There are three of them - Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia.

Here's my opinion: Dawn of Sorrow was a nice follow up to Aria of Sorrow on the GBA, but I didn't enjoy the anime style it had on the characters, and the music didn't sound much like Castlevania. Though it was good, and I really enjoyed the remixes of past Castlevania songs - Dance of Illusions especially.

I haven't played Portrait of Ruin so I can't really comment on it yet, which sucks.

My favorite is Order of Ecclesia. For one, it got rid of the anime looks the previous games had, which is a plus already. The music I enjoy a lot - especially Sorrow's Distortion. The storyline is sad yet enjoyable, and seems to take a page of Circle of the Moon on the GBA. And, it's a nice challenge - when you don't over level and use uber powerful glyphs.

 

[Cello]

My favorite would have to be portrait of ruin, despite it's use of the anime style as well. Of course, that's not saying much considering I haven't finished any of the DS games in full yet.

I mainly just get discouraged when I try to compare any of the other games to SOTN, ha.

 

[Fee Nicks]

I've played and beaten Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin - sadly their bonus modes still go undefeated, although I have got to pretty much the end of both of them.
Out of the two, though, I'd say I'd have to go with Ruin, if only for the fact that it actually goes outside the castle more. Sorrow gets points for its endgame, but going through a ruined city flipped and repeated four times thanks to a black hole is just so much more nifty than the Abyss [even if the latter does get to show off a not insignificant number of level types that really don't appear anywhere else in the series, to my knowledge].
Plus I get to kill Death by throwing birds at him in Richter mode, which Julius mode sadly lacks - having to do the same with regular spells just isn't as satisfying.

 

[L5Animations]

I've played and beaten Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin - sadly their bonus modes still go undefeated, although I have got to pretty much the end of both of them.
Out of the two, though, I'd say I'd have to go with Ruin, if only for the fact that it actually goes outside the castle more. Sorrow gets points for its endgame, but going through a ruined city flipped and repeated four times thanks to a black hole is just so much more nifty than the Abyss [even if the latter does get to show off a not insignificant number of level types that really don't appear anywhere else in the series, to my knowledge].
Plus I get to kill Death by throwing birds at him in Richter mode, which Julius mode sadly lacks - having to do the same with regular spells just isn't as satisfying.

My favorite would have to be portrait of ruin, despite it's use of the anime style as well. Of course, that's not saying much considering I haven't finished any of the DS games in full yet.

I mainly just get discouraged when I try to compare any of the other games to SOTN, ha.

Fee Nicks - I'm not very much into bonus modes, though I have beaten both the DS games bonus I have. I loved Julius mode in DoS for the fact that you get to play as Yoko and Alucard as well. And, we all know, I'm sure, that Alucard is the GREATEST Castlevania character.

Cello - Yeah, comparing to Konami's greatest Castlevania masterpiece pretty much takes points off any CV game. But, of course, they're all still awesome. (Except 3D CV)

 

[Archer]

Dawn of Sorrow is easily the best, in my opinion. Portrait of Ruin was close, but it wasn't quite the same. Order of Ecclesia was a mess. Too many duplicated weapons and the scene was broken up too much. The whole double-glyph mechanic was horrible and many of the bosses were unbalanced (eg. the Lighthouse Crab).

In Dawn of Sorrow, I mostly played with Katanas and light-based missile attacks.

 

[A Pixy]

PoR is the only one I've played so I'm gonna have to go with that. It was pretty fun, but SotN and AoS still pwn all. n_n

 

[Archer]

PoR is the only one I've played so I'm gonna have to go with that. It was pretty fun, but SotN and AoS still pwn all. n_n

Aria of Sorrow is the prequel to Dawn of Sorrow, so if you liked AoS, have a look into DoS, which should be pretty cheap by now.

I just realised - good thing they didn't call it Dark Dawn of Sorrow...:D

 

[Time Guardian]

--Ecclesia - Easily one of my favorites of the series. It has more of a challenge as opposed to the other DS games plus unlike the other games you can really make it more of a challenge with some runs as well. (Death Ring run anyone?) But I feel it lacks quite a bit in being unable to use some form of whip-wielder (or even a whip-based glyph) Some of the linear areas were a bit too short and felt that they were just slapped in for no reason at all, and the last battle against Dracula was a dissappointment as well.

Dispite all that I still enjoyed that one a lot more then the other DS games to be honest. But I still find Dissonance and Symphony to still be on the topmost of my top list (dispite not being for the DS)

--Dawn--I honestly don't find it AS good as Aria. As opposed to the other games, this one has the entire castle and just the castle to explore, altough it's much larger then in Ecclesia and Portrait. And I felt that the usage of the touch screen wasn't that much needed in areas (Alright, it did work good with the bosses, but with needing to use it for the Balore soul just felt like it was put in at the last minute. But I find this one has a few of my favorite boss fights, and more memorable then Portrait. (oh man, the Puppet Master gave me shivers the VERY FIRST time I seen him) And there's also Julius mode as well, which I enjoyed because of playing a bit like Dracula's Curse in a way. (Shame Hammer didn't make it as playable, though.) And the fact that Julius mode has a bit more of a story to unlike the other game's extra modes worked out better. Especally with having it's own unique final boss as well.

--Portrait - This and Dawn are both close for the 2nd and 3rd spot as they both have things about them that I like and such. For Portrait, I liked being able to finally explore out of the usual scenery a bit with the paintings, And I liked some of the themes in this one a slight bit more then the others (then again, I'm a HUGE fan of Crucifix Held Close as well.) I could also be sorta biased on this one because there is Richter mode as well, and I love playing through that mode more then the main game itself.

Either way, my favorites order goes in this for the DS installments.
1 - Order of Ecclesia
2 - Dawn of Sorrow
3 - Portrait of Ruin

(Ironically Portrait is my least fav of the games, and that's what my sig is fromf.)

 

[razzbat]

still need to play ruins so out of ecclesia and sorrows i would have to go with ecclesia. It is one of my favourite games on the ds. The music was great, mixing glyphes were awesome, and the characters and design were very nice. XD although unlikely, i'm hoping for a sequel with shanoa in it again...

 

[Archer]

I don't want to offend anyone, but I really didn't like Ecclesia. To the point where it's sitting there unfinished. Levels didn't seem to have a point and it's VERY linear, aside from the pointless town that you always return to. I really didn't like the dual-glyph system. Just give me a primary, ability and guardian-esque ability and I'm happy. Healing and magic were also neutered. Because magic returns so fast, let's make an extra ability gauge that doesn't restore over time! And we won't give you a way to heal, aside from insanely expensive food. Is it just me or is it VERY hard to get money in this game?

 

[L5Animations]

I don't want to offend anyone, but I really didn't like Ecclesia. To the point where it's sitting there unfinished. Levels didn't seem to have a point and it's VERY linear, aside from the pointless town that you always return to. I really didn't like the dual-glyph system. Just give me a primary, ability and guardian-esque ability and I'm happy. Healing and magic were also neutered. Because magic returns so fast, let's make an extra ability gauge that doesn't restore over time! And we won't give you a way to heal, aside from insanely expensive food. Is it just me or is it VERY hard to get money in this game?

You don't have much money? Strange, I always seem to have a boatload of cash. And you DO know of that money trick in the mountains with 2 gold rings and the money-increasing red glyph where you keep hopping on a candle, right?

 

[Archer]

You don't have much money? Strange, I always seem to have a boatload of cash. And you DO know of that money trick in the mountains with 2 gold rings and the money-increasing red glyph where you keep hopping on a candle, right?

Nup. I have no idea. I will get around to finishing the game soon. But never felt the need to grind in the old ones.