With the release of the Dominus Collection, one thing I've been desperately wanting to do is make a ranking of the metroidvania Castlevania entries, also referred to as "Igavanias" after director Koji Igarashi. I'm a big fan of these entries in particular for their increasingly complex combat, fun action RPG elements, stronger story focus, and more gothic atmosphere, but they're also so consistently good that actually ranking them properly is a tough task. So, instead, I think I'm just going to review them one by one and then decide on a ranking at the end.
Symphony Of The Night: I don't need to tell you that Symphony Of The Night was an incredibly influential game, one that pushed 2D gaming forward just as everyone was taking a hard shift towards the third dimension, and practically codified an all new genre. It's a big, bold, massive-feeling game that holds up to this day in so many ways, and while it may not be quite as refined or replayable in terms of its mechanics or combat, it's that boldness that still helps it stand out to this day.
Symphony Of The Night can be defined by one specific attribute: Excess. In an era where 2D games were getting increasingly fleshed out, Koji Igarashi and his team decided to go all out to make the most ambitious, feature-rich, home console quality 2D game out there. The most obvious showcase of this is in the presentation. SotN is filled to the brim with gorgeous spritework, some of which is admittedly carried over from Rondo Of Blood, but most of which is entirely new, designed specifically to take advantage of the PS1's 32-bit capabilities. Alucard's animations are jawdroppingly fluid, the environments are bold and colorful and detailed, and the few 3D assets there are blend into the environment incredibly seamlessly. To this day, Symphony Of The Night is still the best-looking Castlevania game ever made. It's also the only (2D) Igavania to have full CD audio and it shows, the music in SotN sounds crystal clear. This may not be my personal favorite soundtrack of the series, but tracks like Dracula's Castle, Wandering Ghosts, The Tragic Prince, and Lost Painting stand out among the franchise. There's even voice acting and a more rich and developed story that builds off of Rondo Of Blood's narrative in great ways. Sure the voice acting itself isn't the best, but it's got a real charm to it.
In terms of the core gameplay, Symphony Of The Night does a great job at laying the groundwork for the Igavania formula. Alucard is more fluid and mobile to control than any prior Castlevania protagonists, with free movement in the air, a backwards dash that doubles as a run, and multiple animal transformations that augment his movement even further. The combat establishes a ton of different weapon types along with the dual-hand system right from the get-go, and since there aren't any souls or glyphs or anything like that, it can even be argued that this is the least grindy Igavania as well. I also need to give praise to this game's familiar system which is easily the best out of any of these games. In later Vanias, familiars are usually relegated to magic spells or souls and I don't see much reason in using them over something more practical. In SotN, you collect familiars as upgrades and can use and swap between them whenever you want. They can even level up just like you so you'd really be missing out by not training them. Symphony Of The Night is filled with unnecessary little systems like this and I think that usually adds to the game's charm, like the hidden combo attack moves, random pieces of equipment with strange purposes, and all the fun little touches like how you eat peanuts. So while Symphony may not be quite as nuanced with its combat as later games, I'd argue it's still probably the most Igavania to just mess around with.
However, with all these fun excesses comes a bit more bloat and clunk compared to the later games. None of these outright ruin the game for me, not even close, but it means Symphony has a lot of little issues that add up. For example, you can't sell equipment in Symphony of the Night. You can sell gems only, but not equipment. This isn't an issue for making money since the game is balanced around this as you can get more money from candles than usual, but it does mean that your menus will be filled with useless junk by the endgame. The way consumables work is also pretty rough. You have to equip them in your hand, removing one of the weapons or shields, to be able to restore health. It's even worse with food, since you have to also make the extra step of throwing it on the ground and walking over it. Granted, you can just use potions instead but it still feels overly clunky. There's also the fact that a decent chunk of the relics are just straight up useless. Like why do I have to unlock the ability to see my own damage numbers? To get hearts out of candles? To see the enemy names? As I said, these are all basically nitpicks and they're mostly problematic in the early game. The first hour of SotN (barring that iconic Richter opening) is honestly kind of a slog for me because you have so few options, you can't even see whether you're leveled enough until after the first boss, and dealing with health restores is a pain. It's part of why this was the entry that took me the longest to get into.
Thankfully, once you reach the shop and get the Unlock Jewel, Symphony Of The Night really starts to open up more than any of the other Igavanias. While the later games tend to have some sort of structure to them, SotN is almost entirely nonlinear, allowing you to explore most of the castle however you please which is a ton of fun. There are so many little secrets hidden everywhere as well, so even if you scour the entire map, there's still so much new to discover. And then, just when you think you're done, the developers reveal their greatest trick: A second inverted castle that you can explore however you want with no restrictions. In case Symphony wasn't huge enough already, the madlads at Konami just doubled its size. Now, the inverted castle is a bit divisive as once the novelty wears off, a lot of fans tend to think of it as just blatant padding. But honestly, I think the inverted castle improves the game for me. I feel a lot of metroidvanias tend to end just as you get some of the most fun abilities in the game, even some of the other Igavanias have this issue, but Symphony solves this by essentially giving you a massive playground filled with entirely new, more complex enemies and even more powerful equipment to mess around in. The simple act of flipping the map on its head does a lot to force you to rethink how you navigate these otherwise basic room layouts, and the fact that you can do the Inverted Castle in any order means you'll often be coming across different builds every time you play. Add in a haunting sense of atmosphere and two of the best music tracks in the game and I genuinely don't think I'd like Symphony as much if the inverted castle wasn't in it.
However, the Inverted Castle does expose another issue that Symphony has. Once you get past that first hour, it becomes very easy very fast. For as cool as Symphony's nonlinearity is, you can the developers didn't know how to properly balance an open world because it's very easy to overlevel far above everything else. Most of the bosses past the Scylla fight can be beaten in mere seconds with little effort even on a casual playthrough, and it only gets worse as you get more and more powerful equipment. The Inverted Castle being entirely open makes this even worse, especially since it houses some of the craziest game-breakers in Castlevania history like the Crissaegrim and the Alucard Shield. That being said, I actually kinda like this about the game. One of my favorite things about Igavanias is being able to discover and mess around with insanely powerful builds, and Symphony Of The Night is so filled with wacky pieces of equipment that, as I said, it's just fun to see what crazy combinations I can come up with even if it does trivialize the game. The only part I'd agree goes too far would be the bosses since some of them are really cool in theory but just end too quickly. The succubus fight in particular has such a cool setup behind it, but barely puts up a fight.
In the context of its generation, I can absolutely agree that Symphony Of The Night is one of the greatest games of its time, and it's the only 2D Igavania that I'd say truly feels like a next gen experience. The sense of scale it offers is still unparalleled compared to the rest of the franchise. I think it's the hardest Igavania to immediately get into especially if you've played some of the later games first, it's certainly not as tight as the Sorrow games nor as mechanically rich as Portrait or Ecclesia, but it comes together really well by the end and leaves me satisfied every time I play it. The fact that SotN is still this good is a testament to how well Igarashi and his team hit the ground running with this formula, even if I can't exactly call it the best entry in the series.
Circle Of The Moon: Circle Of The Moon is the only "Igavania" game to not actually be developed by Koji Igarashi and it shows. This game has a lot of weird quirks like the addition of a run button, the lack of weapons beyond your standard whip, and the abundance of HP-enhancing collectibles locked behind breakable walls. It feels like this weird middle-ground between Classicvania gameplay and Igavania progression, and I kinda love it for that?
So, I'll be the first to admit that Circle Of The Moon gets off to a rough start. Nathan's base movement at the start of the game is dreadfully slow, and you spend about ten minutes slowly trudging around before you get access to the running shoes which allow you to dash by double-tapping the D-pad. It takes a bit to get used to, especially if you're played other Igavanias, but I actually really like being able to run around. Most of the other games don't give you your dash move until near the end (hell, Dawn doesn't give one to you until the final area), but Circle Of The Moon lets you spend the entire game speeding around the map and I can't say it isn't a ton of fun. This is also where the combat starts to get pretty interesting. For the most part, Circle's combat is pretty much identical to that of the Classic games in that you have a whip and subweapons but not much more. The varied lineup of weapons you can acquire in the other Igavanias is nowhere to be seen, so combat in Circle is less focused on coming up with a powerful build and more focused on doing the best with what you have. There's a really satisfying rhythm to combat in Circle as you dash in to land attacks before quickly running out of the way to avoid getting hit by enemies. Circle Of The Moon is a really tough game since the enemies take a lot of hits and can hit like a truck back, but if you're willing to be patient and really study the enemy movesets, they all feel really fair and satisfying to take out.
I also really like the way exploration is done in Circle Of The Moon. The map design is still probably some of the best in the entire franchise, utilizing a simple but effective hub-and-spokes system for its layout. All the major areas are connected by a central hallway that you get to visit early on in the game, and this makes getting across the map feel really easy and convenient. As I mentioned, most of the collectibles this time around are in the form of HP and MP increases that you primarily find behind breakable walls. There's a metric ton of these secret rooms and once you get the hang of sussing them out, you really can't go too far without stumbling into one. The other major collectible are these DSS cards that drop from enemies that form the crux of the magic system. There are 10 action cards to find and 10 attribute cards to find, and you can combine these two types of cards to form one of 100 different magic spells. I really like this system in theory, since you only need a few cards of each type to already get access to a whole bunch of spells, and the more cards you find, the more the possibilities grow. The only problem is the game never hints at which enemies drop which cards, and most of the cards have drop rates low enough that they'll probably require some grinding. However, with only 20 DSS cards in total to get, I don't think the grind is quite as bad as, say, the Soul system in the Sorrow games. For the most part, I actually really like going for 100% in Circle Of The Moon, moreso than in most of the other Igavanias. This does come at a cost though, as the limited amount of collectibles and decreased RPG elements means I also don't think CotM is quite as replayable as most of the later entries as it's lacking much in the way of build customization. The DSS cards do help, but only so much.
Presentation-wise, Circle Of The Moon is also a bit strange. Being an early GBA game, the artstyle for Circle is a lot more basic and simplistic than in the other Igavanias, once again going for a style more akin to the Classic entries in the series. The simple animations and lack of background detail easily makes this the least artistic Igavanias, and I do think that holds Circle back a decent amount. Being an early GBA game, CotM is also infamous for having a really dark color palette which made it nearly unplayable without a backlight. This is obviously an issue that Konami rectified with later games, but now that I can play Circle on modern screens, I love the game's bold and dark color work. While Harmony and Aria certainly look better, they feel a lot more washed out than Circle by comparison. In addition, the more simple visuals means the sound quality is probably the best out of any of the GBA games as well. Circle Of The Moon still has one of my favorite soundtracks in the series for how well it balances a strong selection of remixed tracks with some really good original tunes, and it all sounds impressively crisp considering the hardware. As for the story, well, it's kind of a nothing-burger. Aside from the neat rival edge with Hugh, there's just no substance to the narrative here, and the lack of any NPCs only makes it feel more like an afterthought. Definitely one of the most underwhelming things about Circle.
I'll admit that I do have a bit of nostalgia bias towards Circle Of The Moon as it was the first Igavania I ever played, but the fact I still go back and replay it, and still have a great time doing so says a lot. I think people tend to pass on this one because of how different it is from the Igavania formula, but it still nails the exploration-combat blend that makes these games so fun, just in its own unique way.
Harmony Of Dissonance: Harmony Of Dissonance is... well... a harmony of dissonance. It's a mix of brilliance and poor design in equal parts, and it's a bit tough to reconcile just how much HoD knocks out of the park and just how much it bungles at the same time.
So let's get the strong points out of the way first, because trust me, this game does have some strong points. Harmony Of Dissonance is the only Igavania to allow you to dash both forward and backwards using the L and R buttons. This took a bit for me to get used to at first, but once you realize you can spam forward and backwards dash with barely any delay, allowing you to move way faster than if you just walked normally, everything just clicked for me. The schmoovement in HoD is incredibly fun, and just dashing around the map gives me so much joy. The individual room design is also shockingly good, maybe even the best in the franchise. The devs put so much effort into making each and every room unique and memorable thanks to a variety of cool setpieces and environmental interactions, with a big highlight for me being that one marble race room that gets even more complex in the parallel castle. The story is generally a lot stronger than Circle's as well. Juste is a far more charming protagonist than Nathan, and his relationship with Maxim feels a lot more developed and realistic. The HP/MP collectibles may be gone, but the fun chair sidequest does a good job at filling that void for the most part.
And yet, the problem with Harmony Of Dissonance is that most of these positive traits are a double-edged sword. The dashing may be fun, but I still can't say controlling Juste feels especially great because of how floaty his jump is. The room design may be top-notch, but the overall map design is a tangled mess that boasts by far the worst endgame item cleanup in an Igavania, primarily thanks to the decision to include a duplicate parallel castle that you can't even freely explore until right before the end. This is most apparent with HoD's audiovisual presentation. In some areas, I do genuinely like Harmony's wacky presentation. The visual fidelity is absolutely stunning, genuinely managing to rival Symphony Of The Night at points, and the bold color palette can occasionally look quite pleasing. I love the dark blues of the Skeleton Cave, the frenetic skybox in the clock tower, and just how gnarly most of the gore looks. More than in any other game, the castle feels like its own character here, it's just so weird and distorted. But of course, this once again comes at a cost. Other areas feel way too garish, and the final boss arena in particular has such a wild background that it genuinely hurt my eyes. The soundtrack has similar issues. At times, it's chilling, unconventional, and atmospheric. And at other times, it's just straight-up hard to listen to. Nothing in Harmony Of Dissonance is perfect, but nothing is ever truly bad either. It's fun enough that I can still get a ton of enjoyment from it, but not so well-designed that I don't find myself wishing it could've fully realized its potential.
But there's one thing in particular that irks me about Harmony Of Dissonance and that's just how weirdly spiteful it feels? So many of this game's decisions feel like they're meant to be a direct response to what Circle Of The Moon did. The story of Juste and Maxim bears a lot of similarities to that of Nathan and Hugh. Juste solely wields a whip just like Nathan did. The new spellbook system feels quite a lot like the DSS Cards system but with both less grinding and less combinations. CotM was too dark, so HoD was blindingly bright and saturated. And it also takes a lot of inspiration from Symphony Of The Night, particularly in its aesthetics and parallel castle system, likely because Circle wasn't enough like that game. And don't get me wrong, there are things Harmony does do better than Circle, particularly the story and visual fidelity, but it leads to Harmony lacking much of a dedicated identity. It bases so much of itself off of what the previous two games did, and as a result, just doesn't feel as fully-formed as it probably could've been.
That being said, I still enjoy HoD. The things it does right, it does really right. I like Juste as a character, I love the way dashing works, I love the room design, and I even like the soundtrack quite a bit. But it's far and away the weakest 2D Igavania, it's just too uneven. As a matter of fact, it's the only 2D Igavania that I'd argue is anything less than fantastic.
Aria Of Sorrow: Aria Of Sorrow is one of the most beloved games in the series. It's usually the one Castlevania game you can get away with saying you prefer to Symphony Of The Night, and I do kinda see why. With Circle being so weird and Harmony being so derivative, Aria Of Sorrow is the first game to feel like a proper evolution of Symphony, and it keeps a consistently solid level of quality while it's at it. I'd argue it's probably even more polished and refined than Symphony to boot, though, I still can't shake the feeling that it's just slightly missing something.
As I mentioned, Aria Of Sorrow is the first Igavania since Symphony Of The Night to really nail all the fundamentals. For as much as I like Circle Of The Moon and its quirks, it's hard to deny that Aria Of Sorrow just feels smoother and more refined in pretty much every way. Soma controls like a dream, lacking the fun spammable dash that Juste had, but feeling far more natural and weighty in exchange. In terms of scope, Aria is a much smaller-scale game than Symphony, only featuring a single condensed castle, but I feel like that's to its benefit. There is pretty much no fat in Aria, it's an incredibly well-paced and tight Igavania that never drags and never drops the ball. No single biome overstays its welcome, and the locations are some of the most memorable in the series to date like the mazelike Floating Gardens, the female-only Inner Quarters, and the optional Forbidden Area. The introduction of the Soul system is also a great expansion of the magic system from prior entries, as you can now steal abilities from enemies and use them against them. The sheer amount of Souls and the sheer variety of functions they could have gives Aria so much customization and experimentation, making this the first entry in the series where coming up with a player build feels genuinely engaging and fun. Of course, there are issues with the Soul system. The low drop rates and the broken luck stat means that grinding for the souls you want can feel really frustrating, and shuffling through your inventory for the souls you want can feel pretty tedious as the soul count racks up by the end of the game. However, overall, I think the Soul system combined with the return of multiple weapon types makes for a game that's really fun to mess around with, especially in the second half. It makes for what I feel is far and away the most replayable entry in the series to date.
However, Aria Of Sorrow also feels like it's almost restraining itself at points. As I said, this is the shortest Igavania and it really shows. Since it's not until the last hour or two when you're able to get a lot of the most fun souls, it feels like I don't actually have much time to fully mess around with the systems as much as I'd want. Of course, that is what the New Game+ is for, but when certain souls (cough black panther cough) don't even carry over, even it doesn't feel like a perfect solution. I also feel like Aria is the easiest Igavania, not even for a lack of difficulty balancing like with Symphony, but just because it ends right as it's getting difficult. The overall presentation also feels a bit held back by the GBA hardware. The visuals manage to maintain most of the fidelity that Harmony had while reducing the eye strain, but in what feels like a stark overcorrection from its predecessor, it almost looks too muted and washed out. Similarly, the soundtrack brings back Michiru Yamane and boasts crisper samples, but the music still sounds quite muddled compared to Circle's OST. And then there's the story. Aria Of Sorrow brings the series into new heights in terms of storytelling overall. The mystery-focused story about Soma realizing he's the successor of Dracula is genuinely intriguing, I love that there are genuinely likable side characters as well, and the final act where Soma has to fight his friend Julius, who just so happens to be a Belmont, is one of my favorite moments in the series. But even it feels held back by a stilted localization and truncated dialogue thanks to the small textboxes.
That being said, though, I still really like Aria Of Sorrow. Symphony and Circle are fantastic, but I really think this is the point where the Igavania entries truly found their voice, with improved combat mechanics, stronger pacing, more replayability, and improved story-telling. As you know, I think the DS Igavanias are where the series peaked, but they definitely wouldn't be this good if Aria Of Sorrow hadn't laid the groundwork. And while I do think Aria on its own has its issues, I'm glad that of all the Igavania games, this is one to get a direct sequel.
Dawn Of Sorrow: When I say the DS era is the peak of Castlevania, I genuinely mean it. Dawn Of Sorrow, Portrait Of Ruin, and Order Of Ecclesia are all incredible games that reach some of the highest highs in the franchise... but I do think Dawn is easily the weakest of the trilogy, though I have grown to appreciate it more since playing it in the Dominus Collection. In so many ways, it fixes a ton of my gripes with Aria Of Sorrow, but it also has some painful stumbling points that prevent it from being an easy favorite of mine.
Where Aria Of Sorrow took a while to really get going, Dawn Of Sorrow comes bursting out of the gate with one of my favorite starting areas in the series, The Lost Village. Right from the get go, Dawn offers far more unique settings despite still taking place in Dracula's Castle, from a rustic snowy village, to the steampunk-y alchemy lab, to a large garden populated with plant-based enemies, to a giant tower that you completely wreck during a boss fight, to an absolutely wild hodgepodge of a final area. But beyond the environments, this is a rare entry where the map design and the room design feel on par with each other. Dawn employs a similar hub-and-spokes system to Circle Of The Moon, but it also has a ton of goofy and memorable one-off rooms like the piano and sliding puzzle rooms in the Demon Ghost House, the strength test in the Subterranean Area, and the many masochistic spike mazes in the clock tower. The difficulty is also a lot more challenging in Dawn without being too challenging, and the boss fights are consistently really fun and creative, with the soul-copying battle against Dimitri, the tower-wrecking fight with Gergoth, and possibly the greatest Death fight in the series being highlights. In general, I'd say this is the first Igavania to really nail the difficulty balancing, not being too hard or too easy. Even my issues with the inventory management has been fixed here. The addition of a second screen and touch functionality makes sifting through the menus faster ever, and the addition of a second loadout means you can hold up to six souls at a time allowing you to accommodate for both movement and combat.
That being said, I can't say Dawn Of Sorrow doesn't also take a few steps back. I criticized Aria for being grindy but Dawn is a million times worse. Hunting for souls is as grindy as ever before, but now it's been made worse by the addition of a weapon synthesis system where you need to fuse souls with weapons to get more weapons. Konami tried to balance the game around this system by locking most of the really powerful weapons behind synthesis, but that only makes the issue worse since know you need to grind souls even more just to get the really fun stuff compared to how you could just find most of the best weapons in hidden areas in Aria. It's a real shame too because I actually think the soul abilities are more inventive in Dawn, but it's harder to mess around with them compared to late-game Aria because of the grinding issues. I felt consistently underpowered in Dawn, and the feeling of being able to mess around with crazy pieces of equipment and powers like in Symphony or Aria or even later games like Portrait is just nonexistent in Dawn unless you take a ton of time to grind. While I'm talking about flaws, you might be wondering why I haven't mentioned the infamous magic seals, and honestly, I don't hate them? On the Switch at least, being able to use my finger rather than whip out a stylus makes them feel really accurate and satisfying to nail. That being said, I do get that magic seals aren't for everyone and forcing the mechanic onto the player was probably a bad idea, but nowadays there are so many versions of the game that remove or replace the touch controls entirely, I can't even say it's a deal-breaker anymore.
I also felt the story was a bit weaker as well, sadly. Now that we know Soma is Dracula, the sense of mystery that made Aria so engaging isn't really here, and Dawn doesn't do too much to raise the stakes. The characters are still likable, but even they're kinda occupied by a pretty tedious love triangle subplot that I just found myself skipping through whenever I could. The highlight of Dawn's story for me is actually Soma himself since seeing him repeatedly risk being tempted to turn into Dracula is a genuinely fun conflict, especially since there's a legit bad ending where he does, which in turn unlocks a Julius sidemode where you proceed to fight Soma yourself. And speaking of the DS hardware, I do also want to mention that Dawn Of Sorrow was a pretty huge step-up in terms of presentation. I love the way the DS engine looks with how it blends clean 2D spritework with 3D effects, and the brighter color palette strikes a nice middleground between Harmony and Aria. The one exception of course is the new anime-inspired portrait art which, despite what Castlevania fans may tell you, isn't bad because it's animesque. Rondo Of Blood is the most anime game in the series and it looks incredible, the real problem is more that Dawn's portrait art just looks really cheap. On the other hand though, the soundtrack is easily one of my favorites in the series, endlessly catchy and memorable, especially compared to Aria's offering.
Which Sorrow game is better will always be a heated debate among Castlevania fans, and I can definitely see why. On their own, they both have some really glaring flaws. Aria is the more tonally cohesive and well-paced package with some of the most fun build experimentation since Symphony and a strong narrative. Dawn has far superior map, room, and boss design and more rewarding difficulty, but a weaker story and easily the worst build experimentation in the franchise. While Dawn certainly reaches higher highs and I have a ton of adoration for the stuff it gets right, I'd ultimately rather play Aria because Dawn's weapon synthesis system is such a vibe-killer. They're very close though, and my favorite of the two will change depending on the day. However, the best way to experience the Sorrow games in my opinion is to play them together, one after the other. Aria and Dawn pretty much cover each other's weakpoints, and combined, they make for the strongest overall packages in the franchise. Despite their flaws, the Sorrow games form one of the most unique and replayable takes on the Igavania formula in terms of gameplay, story, and atmosphere, and makes for a duology that I will always have a softspot for.
Portrait Of Ruin: Portrait Of Ruin is one of the weirdest entries in the Castlevania series overall, in ways both good and bad. It's an immensely experimental installment that tries to shake up the series' formula at long last, and while its short development time definitely shows in places, I'd say it's the first Igavania to share Symphony Of The Night's quirky excessive spirit since... well... Symphony Of The Night.
Portrait Of Ruin makes two incredibly bold and brilliant additions to the series, and it only seemed right to get them out of the way right off the bat. First off, Portrait Of Ruin has you play as not one but two characters at the same time, Jonathan and Charlotte. Jonathan is the Belmont-inspired character who uses weapons and subweapons to attack, and he can improve his skills by learning Alucard-esque button combos and training his subweapons to become more powerful. Charlotte is the first proper magic-caster in so damn long, and you can equip her with a ton of varied spells that can make short work of enemies and bosses if you know which ones to use at the right time. You can swap between both characters at will, have them both out at the cost of making it easier to lose health or MP, and use team-up moves to solve environmental puzzles. There's so much customization built into this partner system, and the whole game takes full advantage of it through both its combat encounters and its level design. You will be expected to learn how and when to use each character, but you're still given so much freedom to make your own solutions according to your mood. If I want a more traditional Vania experience, I'll play mostly as Jonathan. If I want to go all out with a mage build, I'll go Charlotte. And if I want to shake things up, I can have them both out and swap between them often. This all adds up to what is easily one of the best combat systems I've ever experienced in an action platformer, and makes the sheer moment-to-moment gameplay of Portrait Of Ruin incredibly fun on its own. My only real gripe with this system is that dealing with two characters means the inventory sifting from Aria is back, but it's something I can put up with when everything else is just this fun.
The other major addition is the fact that Portrait Of Ruin is now a hybrid of linear action platformer and metroidvania. You spend half the game in Dracula's Castle which is just as open as it always was, and spend the other half going through paintings that take you to other parts of the world. The painting segments are easily the highlight of Portrait Of Ruin, as they offer so much more environmental variety than in any prior Igavania, and the more linear layouts allow for a ton of cool and memorable setpieces. The opening area, City Of Haze, is a great example of this. It takes place in a modern city filled with interiors to explore, an underground tunnel with a minecart to ride around, and tons of charming interactions like being able to knock food off of tables and enemies that are nice to Charlotte but will immediately attack Jonathan (and eventually vice versa). You can make the argument that some of the level design is a bit more gimmicky than you might be used to seeing in a Castlevania game, and yeah, I'll admit the overall map design could be a bit better as there just aren't enough connecting shortcuts between areas a lot of the time. However, on a micro level, there is rarely ever a moment when Portrait Of Ruin isn't tossing something new, fun, or charming at you. It's got so much mechanical variety across all of its rooms, but it also feels more cohesive than something like Harmony which was all micro and no macro. And frankly, after five games worth of Dracula's Castle, I'm so glad that Igarashi finally got the memo and changed up the environments a bit for once.
That being said, beyond the combat and the level design, Portrait Of Ruin has plenty of other strong points. The story is actually one of my favorites in the series, as it's quite dense and has a lot going for it. Jonathan and Charlotte are charming protagonists with fun banter, but their internal self-esteem conflicts are also quite compelling on their own. Meanwhile, the more tragic subplot around the fallout of the criminally underrated Castlevania Bloodlines is also genuinely really engaging and affecting, especially the stuff around Eric Lecarde and how his daughters were forcedly turned into vampires in front of his eyes. The visuals are once again full of life and detail, with Jonathan and Charlotte in particular being super charmingly animated, and the soundtrack is fantastic as usual, going for a more intense and energetic vibe than usual, almost akin to an Ys game. Portrait Of Ruin is also absolutely chock-full of side content, beyond already having one of the longer campaigns in an Igavania. Portrait introduces an entire sidequest system along with bringing back the permanent HP/MP rewards and battle arena from Circle Of The Moon, and there are so many cool sidemodes like the touchscreen-heavy Sisters Mode, the goofy Old Axe Armor mode, and the lovely Rondo throwback in the form of Richter Mode.
However, just like Symphony Of The Night before it, Portrait Of Ruin's sheer excess can sometimes work against in. To be blunt, this game is padded out to hell and back. I mentioned the sidequests and they are cool in theory, but in practice, so many of them are these tedious tasks that often require a lot of grinding for the really powerful stuff. Even worse, it's possible to permanently lock yourself out of sidequests if you happen to accidentally sell one of the items required for them without knowing. The subweapons are also pretty problematic, as it can take a while to actually fully master them. You thought the grinding was gone with the soul system? Yeah, actually try maxing out your stats in this game. The second half of Portrait Of Ruin also suffers from this padding issue hard, as the last four paintings are all remixed versions of the first four. That being said, I do think this is the lesser of Portrait's issues as the map, level layouts, and overall vibe of these remixed paintings still feel quite different, and the core combat system is still so fun that I was fine with having another hour or so to mess around with them. And thankfully, Portrait Of Ruin does still stick the landing with what is probably the best final boss in the franchise, a fun and challenging 2v2 against both Dracula and Death at the same time.
And yet, despite those pretty glaring flaws, I still love this game. Portrait Of Ruin is a case where the highs are so high that the lows barely even register, primarily since the simple act of engaging in combat is some of the most fun I've ever had with the series. Despite the removal of souls, the sheer customization on offer in Portrait is still good enough to rival the Sorrow games and makes for yet another entry I find to be really replayable even beyond the padding issues, and the wackier level design and abundance of charming little details means I'm always discovering something new every time I play Portrait Of Ruin. Portrait Of Ruin definitely could've been a disjointed mess, and in some areas it probably is, but it's still an entry that I find to be really fresh and soulful regardless.
Order Of Ecclesia: As I've said countless times before, Order Of Ecclesia is my favorite Castlevania game of all time. It's the culmination of the entire franchise, bringing together all the best aspects of every game to come before it.
Order Of Ecclesia is an interesting entry in the series because it feels almost entirely divorced from the Belmont mythos, having you play as Shanoa at a time where the Belmont clan was nowhere to be found. Despite this, however, Ecclesia still very much has the spirit of a Castlevania game, continuing the mechanical evolution that Portrait Of Ruin laid out. Order Of Ecclesia's bread and butter is its new glyph system, which is basically a fusion between the soul system from the Sorrow games and your standard weapons. You can equip glyphs on both your hands, and you can even press Up-Y to fuse the glyphs together for a more powerful attack. There's a big emphasis here on figuring out weakness types, so Ecclesia encourages you to experiment with your glyphs, finding ones that combine well and figuring out which glyphs work best on each enemy. On top of that, using glyphs use up your MP and the more powerful ones use up even more MP, so you have to be strategic about when and how you attack. This does make Ecclesia a tougher and more punishing game than most of the other Igavanias, but it still feels entirely fair and everything feels designed to encourage the player to strategize with their build.
Thankfully, Order Of Ecclesia also makes a lot of great quality of life improvements over the systems in previous games. While the glyph system does function quite similarly to the soul system in that
you primarily gain them by defeating enemies, the issues with grinding in the Sorrow games are pretty much nonexistent here. Not only are the drop
rates far more reasonable, but the game even tells you when an enemy
even has a glyph to give. In addition, you get a glyph sleeve early on that lets you hold up to three different builds and swap between them at will, essentially letting you use six weapons all at the same time and allowing you to cover most of your bases without needing to constantly sift through your inventory. The more situational glyphs, like stat boosts, transformations, summons, and movement tech are also relegated to the R button and those are also affected by the glyph sleeve, so you can also have several of them out at the same time. Most of these movement abilities are actually really fun to use too, like the Magnus glyph that lets you fling yourself across magnetic fields, and Rapidus Fio which I'd say is probably the most powerful and speedy dash move in the entire subseries. The glyph system is easily my favorite combat system in the series, even beating out Portrait Of Ruin, because it manages to have so much depth and strategy to it, while also being more streamlined than any of its predecessors.
Order Of Ecclesia can essentially be split into two halves. The first half is a more linear affair in the style of a Classic Castlevania game, having you hop from level to level on a world map as you chase down Albus and try to rescue all the villagers. This part of the game often gets criticized for its several areas that are just a straight line, but it's pretty clear that they're meant to be transition areas, and the core moment-to-moment gameplay and combat is still so much fun that they never bothered me much. The more fleshed-out locations like Prison Island, the Kalidus Channel, and the Tymeo Mountains still have some really fun, varied and creative level design. Every area is also stuffed to the brim with treasure chests to find and breakable walls to uncover, along with plenty of collectibles ranging from the aforementioned villagers to optional glyphs to Max Ups to four hidden cats, so there's still a solid element of exploration here as well. Ecclesia also brings back the sidequests from Portrait Of Ruin in this stretch of the game, but they're a lot more reasonable this time. None of the sidequests are missable, and the game introduces a new, very cheap item called the Magical Ticket that lets you instantly return back to the village making backtracking far quicker.
The second half of the game takes place in Dracula's Castle and plays out more like an Igavania in terms of structure, featuring more open level design. This two act structure allows Order Of Ecclesia to feel like a really cool fusion between Classic and Igavania philosophies, almost like a bridge between both iterations of the franchise. I won't say this is one of the best castle layouts in the series or anything, it's still quite linear, but it's got some pretty cool settings like a fleshed-out library location and one of the most fun clock towers in any of these Igavanias. On top of that, the boss fights in Order Of Ecclesia are just incredible. Each and every single one of them is creative and challenging, from the tense lighthouse fight against Brachyura, to the striking shadow puppet fight against Blackmore, to the fast-paced mano-a-mano encounters against Albus and Barlowe, to yet another fantastic Dracula fight where he gets up and starts fighting you with his fists. However, despite how difficult these fights are, they all feel totally fair and learning their movesets is really satisfying. It shows that this is the only game in the series to have boss medals you can earn by not taking any hits, demonstrating the confidence on the developers' part that each boss's moveset is 100% dodgeable.
And just to top it all off, Order Of Ecclesia has an impeccable presentation, everything about it is just dripping with that gothic energy. The story is easily the darkest and most tragic in the entire franchise, with the midpoint in particular packing a truly screwed-up but well-executed twist about what Ecclesia has been doing this entire time. I love Shanoa as a character too, despite being essentially lobotomized for most of the game, her conflict with Albus and the fact that she takes on the role of fighting Dracula herself despite not being a Belmont and not even being remembered is really compelling. The visual style is far darker and moodier than pretty much every prior entry in the series, with Masaki Hirooka's stylish art direction standing out as some of my favorite in a Castlevania game with its cold blues and harsh reds. And of course, the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic, once again being a bit colder and heavier than usual, but still having that energetic Castlevania feel to it. It's a massive soundtrack too, filled to the brim with incredible original tracks from start to finish. Presentation-wise, Order Of Ecclesia is a well-executed edgier take on the series (unlike Lords Of Shadow, for example) that take the dark, gothic vibes that most of the Igavanias already had in spades and really leans in on it to great effect.
Overall, Order Of Ecclesia is an incredible Igavania, it's got everything I love from a Castlevania game. It has a fun structure that blends linear action-platforming with metroidvania-esque exploration, a phenomenal combat system that fixes all my issues with the souls and then some, a strikingly gothic presentation, and my favorite boss lineup in the franchise. As sad as it is that this would end up being the end of the Igavania subseries as we knew it, I'm glad it managed to go out on such a high note.
Ranking: Now that I've reviewed all of the Igavanias, here's my final ranking. As I said, I think Aria and Dawn are really good when played together but, on their own, I think they're both slightly weaker than Symphony so I factored that into my ranking.
- Order Of Ecclesia
- Portrait Of Ruin
- Aria/Dawn Of Sorrow
- Symphony Of The Night
- Aria Of Sorrow
- Dawn Of Sorrow
- Circle Of The Moon
- Harmony Of Dissonance
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