Fun fact: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow on the DS was my first Metroidvania type Castlevania game. Yes, I played the Holy GBA Trilogy a couple of years after this, and it’s 19 years since I first played Dawn of Sorrow. I’d not even had this diary going for that long at the time.
Somehow, I still remembered a lot of the game. Most of the bosses, how to reach certain areas, and certainly the plot were all there in my head ready to go again, which is odd because the same wasn’t true for the GBA games which I replayed recently on the Switch. This is on the Switch too, by the way, as Konami surprise announced Castlevania Dominus Collection which brings together Dawn of Sorrow and the other two DS games (plus Haunted Castle for $reason) and I preordered it so fast I got whiplash.
To the game, then. It follows on from the Game Boy Advance Aria of Sorrow, following Soma Cruz again as he ends up in Dracula’s castle again, this time up against a cult who are trying to resurrect the Dark Lord in the body of one a couple of prospective vessels.

As with all these games, there’s exploring, map filling, huge bosses and the usual things you’d expect from a Metroidvania. It’s also still really good!
Being a DS game (and following the weird DS trend where game subtitles had to have “DS” as initials) there are some hardware specific things which don’t translate directly to the single-screen Switch. The main one is that the game screen and the status screen (with the maps and stats) now fit on a single screen, although you have control of the size and arrangement.
The other thing is the touch screen controls. They’re still there if you play handheld, but otherwise you use the right stick to move a cursor. It’s hardly needed, just a few areas where you tap blocks. In the original game you had to draw sigils to “seal” beaten bosses, but you can now do these as QTEs instead.
The RPG and soul mechanics of the game are still excellent now and it’s just as playable and fun as it was all those years ago.
