Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow Review (under construction)

I have been playing through the game, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow for the Gameboy DS (via the 3DS) and I thought that I would share my take on this innovative installment of the Castlevania series.


Picture of Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow for the Nintendo DS

Brief Reviews of the game:

Overall Grade in my opinion: A-

Pros about the game
+ Huge map and storyline.
+ Soma Cruz's soul system is pretty revolutionary for the castlevania franchise as you can steal enemy abilities and use them to your advantage (similar to how it is in Mega Man games where you can copy abilities of bosses).
+ Expect many huge boss battles throughout the course of the game.  Also, the game does make use of the stylus system that the DS offers in various ways (such as drawing symbols when you are about to defeat a boss.
+ 3 possible endings.  By the way, you can see all 3 endings in one play though.
+ Great replay value: once you beat the game as Soma (or at least get the 2nd ending) you can unlock Julius mode where you play as Julius Belmont, along with Yoko Alucard which follows along an alternate timeline that assumes that Soma becomes "Dracula"
+ Nice storyline too
+ It is also worth noting that DOS is one of one of the few modern Castlevania games that brings back remixed versions of some of the music from some of the classic castlevania games (especially when playing on Julius Mode), such as the "Vampire Killer" theme in the "Silenced Ruins" level of the game.  Also (***spoiler alert***), if you are playing on Julius mode, the final boss fight against Soma plays out much like a typical boss fight against Dracula (teleportion, beast form, etc) from Dracula X and similar games and even has the classic "Dance of Illusions" theme song there.  Many current Castlevania games don't have music from the classic castlevania games (Portrait of Ruin for example, did not have them, neither did Lords of Shadow too for that matter), so it is worth pointing out with this title.

Cons:
- The stylus system can make some of the boss fights harder than normal, especially some of the later ones.  Also the symbols do change periodically too and become more and more complex as the game goes along.  You will definitely need to practice your drawing to make some of the boss fights much easier (at least when it comes to using the "magic seals" to defeat the bosses).
- (can't think of anything else at the moment)


Overview of the game:

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrows is definitely one of my favorite Castlevania games (being a veteran Castlevania player myself) and is on par with Symphony of the Night, Portrait of Ruin and Harmony of Despair.   Dawn of Sorrow is the direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow (for the Gameboy Advance) and continues the storyline of Soma Cruz (who was essentially trying to fight off becoming Dracula in the previous game).  After Aria of Sorrow, things were relatively peaceful for about a year or so, and then an evil lady by the name of Cecil (who wants to resurrect the dark lord), enters the scene and challenges Soma to come to her hideout (which is pretty much another version of Dracula's castle), much against the wishes of Julius and Arikado (also known as Alucard), and so Soma goes on a quest to stop Cecil's plan to resurrect Dracula, as will as fighting against his own inner demons at the same time.  Interestingly Julius, Arikado and Yoko try to stop Soma from going after Cecil and her companions for fear that Cecil may be secretly planning to turn Soma into Dracula, but understandably they pretty much get out of his way unhindered (there would not be much of a game if Julius and Arikado managed to pull a plug on Soma's quest from the beginning).

Soul System:
 
If any Castlevania game were to take after a typical Mega Man style game, it would probably be Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow (Aria of Sorrow too for that matter).  You know how in most (if not all) Mega Man games, whenever you defeat a robot master boss, you get to steal that boss' abilities (such as their weapon).  Dawn of Sorrow has a similar system where whenever you defeat a monster, ghost, boss or whatever, there is a chance you will receive their "souls", which is essentially their abilities and weapons.  For example, if you defeat an Axe armor and get their soul, you can hurl axes at your enemies.  Or when you defeat Gergoth (one of the bosses in the game), you get to shoot a huge laser that kills enemies in your path rather quickly.  Some abilities will let you fly, have enemies forced to become allies (such as summoning Gaibon to follow you and charge at enemies he encounters), move around in water, etc.  Obviously some enemies have better soul drop rates than others, but there are incentives to getting more souls, such as getting stronger, having more abilities and skill, plus if you get all of them, you can get a special ring (Chaos ring) that gives you almost unlimited MP points.

(more will be added to this post over time).

Big Picture: "In Defense of Booth Babes (Sort Of)"

Relevant

The Escapist : The Big Picture : In Defense of "Booth Babes" (sort of)

ACAM Book Event Update

The American Classic Arcade Museum has posted an official press-release page about the Brick-By-Brick signing event on 9/14. Readers of this blog already likely know the details, but it still trips me out that I'm going to hold an event there so yeah you bet I'm going to post about it.

Edgar Wright @ Gallery 1988!!

**Update**
"Shaun of the Dead" prints are available to purchase by clicking HERE **SOLD OUT**
"Hot Fuzz" prints are available to purchase by clicking HERE **SOLD OUT**
"The World's End" prints sold out at the show opening!
**********************************************************************
"Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz", and now "The World's End" make up what writer/director Edgar Wright has deemed "Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy". They're three relatively different films in that their only main connection is that they're written/directed by Edgar Wright, they all star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and at some point, Cornetto ice cream cones are eaten in each movie. That's an excellent basis for a trilogy in my opinion.

With "The World's End" opening next week, Gallery 1988 has teamed up with Edgar Wright to celebrate his career with artwork portraying his various projects. I adore his films, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what he does with Ant-Man for Marvel in a few years. The footage he showed off at San Diego Comic Con last year was incredible, and I think there's no better director than Edgar Wright for that project.

When I started working on ideas for what I wanted to do for this show, I felt drawn to doing three pieces, based off of the trilogy. I love combining things that are clearly not for kids with things that clearly are only for children. So what better way to take these three films, and turn them into children's books!

Limited signed/numbered prints of each piece will be available at the gallery! I'll also have framed #1 prints on the wall.
(I'll provide links for online sales whenever they're available)

There will be some VERY special guests showing up to the opening, so if you can make it, please come early, as the line will no doubt be insane. 

"The Official Edgar Wright Show"

Gallery 1988 West

7308 Melrose Ave.

Los Angeles, CA 90046

http://www.gallery1988.com

OVERBYTES: "Don't Censor Me!!!"

After an unplanned/overlong hiatus, OVERBYTES is back with some thoughts on the evolving debate about game censorship - and why it has a lot more evolving yet to do:

A Note On Ads & Promotions

I just wanted to address a few few issues that some have voiced concerned about vis-a-vi advertising - specifically advertising on this blog and my own promotion of my book and other projects. Those who've had such concerns, please hit the jump for more. Those who don't care, wait just a moment because a new (and overdue) "OverBytes" episode will be going up right above this one shortly after it's posted.

Okay, firstly to the issue of on-site ads. It's been brought to my attention that the infamous "For Male Gamers Only" ads have been popping up in the rotation on this blog. Rest assured that I'm as annoyed by this as you are, that I did not ask for them to be present and that as soon as I have the means to do so I plan to block them from re-appearing further. For now, I apologize to anyone who was offended by their presence.

Why not block them right now? Well, the issue is that this blog uses a Google Adsense partnership in order to display ads as unobtrusively as possible. The way that works is that I effectively "sell" specific empty spaces on the site to Google, who in turn provide the ad content. For the most part, these ads not only change (ideally) each time the page is re-loaded, but which ads appear are often influenced by the browsing-history of the individual person logging on. As such, in order to blacklist an individual ad or an entire advertiser, I need to first see the ad trigger for me and then follow it back to it's source in order to get the correct URL for a complete block.

As of yet, I haven't been able to grab that code because the offending ads have not been triggering for my browsing in a manner condusive to reaching the source (no, just looking up the company's site has not done the trick) but I'm working to resolve this. If any fellow adsense participants out there have dealt with these ads already themselves, I more than welcome them to post the relevant info here.

Now, as to my book:

I appreciate that some folks have become tired with promotions for either the sale of "Brick-By-Brick" or a public-appearance book signing appearing so frequently on the blogs and at the tail-end of my various series. I'll be honest - I don't necessary grasp why some are so bent out of shape about them (I wanted them to be as skippable as possible, which is why they're both at the very end and just part of the clip rather than some kind of hyperlinked/unskippable thing) - but I'm sympathetic to both the "I don't want to see ads" and "I've seen this advertised too often" positions. I understand this, I only ask that readers also to understand my end of the situation.

I've been pretty open and clear about this, but just to reiterate: I'm not one of the internet personalities for whom this is a hobby, a student project or supplement income - This is my entire job right now. Escape to The Movies, Big Picture, Game OverThinker, OverBytes and all their attendant separate profit-streams are my sole source of income. I'm not looking for sympathy there. These are time-consuming jobs, but they're also fun jobs and while I don't earn nearly as much as I would in an office job, or in retail, or construction I'm doing alright for myself. Still, the economy is the economy and every little bit helps.

I'm not going to get into hard numbers here, but these are the facts re: "Brick-By-Brick." Nobody paid me to write it. I didn't get a contract, there was no down-payment, I didn't use a Kickstarter. I wrote the initial manuscript, then I shopped the pitch around until I secured an arrangement I liked the look of with a publisher who would handle the editing, formatting, online-sales, shipping, warehousing, etc. However, the actual costs of printing the first run of physical copies was paid for by me. Period.

That wasn't, I stress, the only option - sharing the expense with the publisher was also a possibility, and while that would have provided a "cushion" should the book turn out to not be success it also would've meant a lower overall profit for me if it did end up selling well (it also would've potentially delayed the release, which I didn't want either.) I decided to roll the dice on "this will work out." My only "insurance" move was to have a portion of the first run of physical copies sent to me while the majority went to the publisher. My allocation (though, since I paid for them I can always ask for more) roughly evened-out to the number I'd need to sell (at regular price) to cover the initial printing cost, the idea being that if worst came to worst and nobody bought any copies online I could maybe eventually break-even selling these on the convention circuit.

As it turns out, I was selling the book's appeal a bit short: Again, without getting into specific numbers, between copies sold at SGC 2013 and the subsequent online-profits, I actually made all of my initial investment back (and then some) in roughly the first week and a half of sales. Never in a million years did I expect a response like that - in fact I'd been steeling myself for exactly the opposite - and I remain awestruck and grateful to all my fans and readers for making it possible. Basically, this project that I took a total leap on with no assurance of succeeding was in fact a success (and a profitable one) right out of the gate; and thank you so much to everyone who bought a copy - I can only hope you find it worthy of your money and time.

Now, on the one hand, that means I probably won't be keeping a full-scale ad blitz going for much longer because, frankly, it's not necessary. There will continue to be mentions on this site and I'll keep the post-credits ads on relevant videos where appropriate, and I'll tweet about it, but the P.T. Barnum routine won't be needed; and as glad as many of you will be too hear that rest assured I'm much gladder.

On the other hand... the remainder my overly-cautious "insurance" allocation of physical copies (cut roughly in-half by SGC and the event at Comicazi) is still taking up space in my apartment. And since the Escapist Expo is still aways off (and since I don't know what the "rules" are for selling at PAXEast - though I can confirm that copies will be at Fangamer's booth at PAX Prime) I figured setting up some potentially high-turnout signing events would be as good a way as any to move some of that inventory - especially when ACAM said they were interested, I've wanted to do some kind of event there for years.

So... yeah. Basically, I overestimated how much in-person selling I needed to do on my own, but I'd still like to move that inventory all the same hence the signing events. And when those crop up, yes, I'm going to promote them. But if things keep going the way they've been going (i.e. very well) the ad-blitzes for those won't be nearly as frequent going forward as well. Again, I appreciate the "broken record" aspect of promoting this project, but this is a business for me and sometimes that entails advertising.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Book Signing Event: September 14th at THE AMERICAN CLASSIC ARCADE MUSEUM!

So, then, the cat is out of the bag.

On September 14th, I'll be appearing at the American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot in Weirs Beach (Laconia), New Hampshire to sell and sign copies of "SMB3: Brick-By-Brick."

If you'll be in the area, I'd love to see you swing by and check it out - not just to see me, but because this place is amazing - one of the ultimate landmarks for fans of Golden Age gaming. Funspot is a massive family-entertainment complex, current holder of the Guinness record for world's largest arcade, and along with games they also have bowling, restaurants, redemption-games, etc - plus, it's in the neighborhood of Weirs Beach on Lake Winnepesaukee, so there's an actual beach, water-slides, go-karts and other great places to hang right nearby. To my fans/readers with children: Imagine a rural, more parent-friendly Chuck-E-Cheese's the size of an indoor mall - it's really pretty incredible.

ACAM itself takes up the Funspot complex's third floor, and houses over 300 classic games including many ultra-rare machines you won't see anywhere else. I could not be more excited for this to be happening here.

You can find Funspot/ACAM at 579 Endicott St North (Rt 3) Laconia, NH 03246 I'll be there on September 14th from 12pm to 3pm. Supplies of the book are limited and not garaunteed, all dates/times subject to change. Watch this space for more details.

Brilliant

THIS is parody done right. Watch all the way through. Starts out as a clever if surface-level send-up of the most common critiques of "Tropes vs Women," (factual flubs, overly-obscure reference points, etc) then morphs into... well, you'll see:

Tropes vs. Women Part III is now up

Ugh. This goes up just as I'm on my way out the door. Here's the embed, commentary to follow when I watch the damn thing - though I'm most interested to see/hear where she falls on "ironic" sexism:


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