Ever since I first played and fell in love with the DS Castlevania games, I have been begging for a DS Castlevania collection just like we got for the GBA games, and at long last, it has arrived. I'm just going to get right to it, Castlevania Dominus Collection exceeded my expectations entirely and I believe will be remember as one of the greatest game compilations ever made, between the sheer amount of extra features, perfect quality of life and community feedback, and one of the most extra additions to a collection I've seen.
So, let's start by going over what this collection contains. As you'd expect, we have the three DS Castlevania games: Dawn Of Sorrow, Portrait Of Ruin, and Order Of Ecclesia. These are three of my favorite games in the franchise, so having them all in a single collection makes for an incredible deal. Overall, I find the engine that's used for the DS games to be really fluid and smooth, along with being quite visually-striking with its blend of detailed spritework, prerendered visuals, and full 3D assets. The fact that all three games share the same engine also allows for quite a lot more consistency compared to the very hit-or-miss GBA games, though that also means that they all share like 80-90% of enemy sprites. I do want to individually review the Igavanias some day, though probably once I've actually played the PS2 entries, but to sum up my thoughts on all three of the DS games individually:
- In so many ways, I think Dawn Of Sorrow is an improvement over Aria. The castle design is more fun to navigate and boasts more inventive level design, the bosses are generally really strong, the visuals and sound design are top notch, and the pacing is spot-on making for an incredibly breezy experience with little downtime. It has its fair share of issues like a weaker story and the weapon crafting only exacerbating the issues with soul grinding that Aria had, but in this most recent playthrough, the strong points massively overshadowed the issues for me. I also actually found myself liking the magic seals this time, maybe because I actually had a touchscreen I could use.
- Portrait Of Ruin is the most interesting and experimental game of the bunch, shaking up the Igavania formula in a number of ways. The level design is even more wacky thanks to the addition of paintings that take you outside the castle, the partner system makes for some of the most fun moment-to-moment gameplay in the series, the more personal and emotional story really works for me, and the game has so many charming little interactions that give it so much life. However, the flaws did feel more apparent on this playthrough, like the tedious subweapon mastery system, the tedious and often missable sidequests, the frustrating true ending requirements, and the second half being a complete asset flip. Portrait has a lot of rough edges, and yet, it's so fresh and stylish that I'd still probably rank it as one of my favorites in the series.
- Order Of Ecclesia is, and has always been, my favorite Castlevania game. It too has its flaws like some underwhelming level design in the first half and the sidequests still not being very fun, but everything else feels like a complete refinement of the ideas Portrait introduced. The glyph system combined with the ability to swap builds makes for one of my favorite combat systems ever which I'd argue carries the whole game on its own, but I also love how the structure combines the classic and metroidvania styles. On top of that, the boss lineup is easily the strongest, the narrative rivals Portrait's in terms of sheer emotion, and the darker visual style and moodier soundtrack give Ecclesia a wonderfully gothic and slightly edgy atmosphere that always stuck with me.
In terms of the porting job, they're pretty much spot-on with the original games. No upscaling, no embellishments, but also no concessions made either. The two biggest exceptions are with the online multiplayer and the touchscreen. Both Dawn Of Sorrow and Order Of Ecclesia had a side mode with wi-fi functionality, and sadly that has been removed, though the singleplayer elements are thankfully still there. As for the touchscreen, you now have quite a lot of options for dealing with it. If you own a Switch or Steam Deck, you can still use the touchscreen as intended, and there's a number of screen arrangement options you can pick between. You can also just use the R-Stick and ZR to simulate it which works totally fine for menu navigation. And then there's Dawn Of Sorrow in particular, in which M2 allows you to replace the touch screen inputs with button inputs, so the magic seals have turned from frantic swiping across the screen to a basic QTE. Your mileage may vary on this, I actually found myself preferring the touchscreen controls since I didn't need to memorize which buttons to press, but I appreciate the extra options regardless for those who found the magic seals a huge deal-breaker.
But on top of that, M2 also included Haunted Castle, one of the earliest entries in the series and arguably the worst. This was my first time playing it, and yeah, it's not very good. I know, what a shock. Your movement is slow, your jumps are floaty, using your whip has no impact, the colors are garish, the soundfont is grating, the hitboxes are janky, the levels and bosses are bizarrely short, and the game loves to toss cheap gotcha moments at you. It's obviously an important piece of Castlevania history, and it should be preserved like every other entry in the series, but I can't exactly say this enhances the Dominus Collection on its own. It's a neat novelty for like a minute before you go jump back over to the DS games, or at least, that's what I would normally say. However, M2 went the extra mile and also included a full top-to-bottom remake of Haunted Castle called Haunted Castle Revisited. This isn't the first time M2 has done something like this, they made a sequel to the GG Aleste games for their Aleste Collection and it was awesome, but it still stands out as incredibly extra. All we really needed was the DS games, so the fact that this collection also comes bundled with the first traditional Castlevania game in over a decade just elevates it so much more.
But how is Haunted Castle Revisited? Pretty great, actually. This is M2's second Castlevania game since The Adventure Rebirth, and that was a game I thought was generally solid. It got the controls and game feel right, but the level design was long, mazelike, and kinda dull which held it back from being a personal favorite. Haunted Castle Revisited, on the other hand, is a lot more streamlined, linear, and setpiece-heavy and I think that makes it a more fun entry than its predecessor. Each level is fun and memorable, and I love the way the visuals perfectly capture the look of arcade games from the early 90s. But what really makes Revisited special is how it reimagines Haunted Castle, taking the mediocre stages from the original game and expanding them with more interesting platforming mechanics, vastly improved boss fights, and an incredible remixed soundtrack by chibi-tech. It is admittedly on the easier side, if it weren't for the final boss being a bit of a difficulty spike, I could've easily gotten a 1cc on my first try on Normal. Considering how brutally hard many Classicvanias can be, though, that's not really something that bothers me much. Haunted Castle Revisited is a great return to form for the franchise, and an incredible addition to an already top-notch collection.
Beyond just the games, though, this collection is so dense and feature-rich. The DS games have savestates along with a rewind function (which most DS emulators don't even have), along with newly added achievement systems, the ability to play all the different regional versions of each of the games, and full compendiums listing out all the weapons, items, souls, enemies, glyphs, etc across each of the three games. As you'd expect, there's also an art gallery with tons of concept art including screenshots of each of the games' manuals, along with a music section that lets you listen to all of the games' tracks along with being able to create a playlist of your favorite tracks. All of these features are tied together with an incredibly intuitive and easy to navigate user interface that's just oozing with that gothic Castlevania style, with a particular highlight being the cool clocktower motifs that display whenever you use the rewind. M2 put so much care and love into this collection, and it shows in every aspect, from the few quality of life tweaks they did make like the aforementioned magic seal fix, to the fact that they recently released an update that purposefully reimplemented speedrunning exploits that were in the original DS versions.
Overall, the Castlevania Dominus Collection is an incredible compilation, easily ranking up there alongside the likes of Sonic Mega Collection and the Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection as one of my absolute favorites. Not only does it contain a selection of some of the finest Castlevania games, but M2 truly went the extra mile to deck it out with so many comprehensive features along with a pretty great original Castlevania entry to boot. But most importantly, it just makes me so happy to see that more people are going to be able to experience what I feel is secretly the peak of the Castlevania franchise.
5/5 Stars
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