Castlevania Dominus Collection (NS)
by
Evan Norris
, posted 2 hours ago / 342 Views
Over the past five years, few publishers have been as active in video game preservation as Konami. Starting in 2019, to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the company released three major anthologies: one for its iconic arcade shoot-’em-ups; one for Castlevania; and one for Contra. Two years later, it released the Castlevania Advance Collection, a compilation of three Game Boy Advance titles. The following year, it collaborated with Digital Eclipse on The Cowabunga Collection, which assembled 13 Turtles games from the 80s and 90s. And earlier this year, together with Limited Run Games, Konami opened the vault and brought Felix the Cat and Rocket Knight Adventures back into the spotlight. The latest, and perhaps greatest preservation effort — at least from the point of view of technical achievement — is Castlevania Dominus Collection, a compendium of the three DS Castlevania games.
The Dominus Collection includes three Castlevania games previously released for the Nintendo DS between 2005 and 2008: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Castlevania: Portrait or Ruin, and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Also included are two bonus titles: Haunted Castle, an early arcade installment in the Castlevania franchise, and Haunted Castle Revisited, a reimagined take on the original game.
Taken only as an assortment of games, the Dominus Collection represents great value. Each one of the DS titles is worth playing, for anyone remotely interested in the Castlevania series or in backtracking action-adventure experiences. While potentially the “weakest” game in the collection, Dawn of Sorrow remains a rock-solid entry in the series, due to rewarding exploration, creative bosses, and a huge assortment of monsters. Its biggest problem, apart from some gimmicky touchscreen features, is that it lives in the shadow of arguably the finest handheld Castlevania ever made, Aria of Sorrow.
Up next is one of the most underrated franchise installments and a genuinely great game: Portrait of Ruin. Thanks to a unique WWII setting, wildly-creative levels, and an effective partner-swapping mechanic — in which players control both the whip-wielding close-range fighter Jonathan and the magic-user Charlotte — it’s an essential piece of the Castlevania canon.
Last but certainly not least is Order of Ecclesia, the final Castlevania game released on DS. Because of its unique stage structure, novel glyph system, brilliant collection of bosses, and consistently challenging difficulty level, it’s arguably the best game in the collection. It’s also the most unusual, playing like a mixture of Castlevania II and Symphony of the Night. You’ll explore smallish, discrete stages that are accessible from a world map, and often return to a hub town area to visit rescued villagers and complete side quests. Later on, you’ll experience a much larger map with a true Metrodvania feel.
As a result of this atypical structure, the game takes some time to find its footing. Once it does, however, everything clicks into place. You’ll have to track down and absorb elemental glyphs to defeat powerful enemies, explore every nook and cranny to find all the imprisoned townsfolk, and come face to face with some truly surprising and deadly boss monsters — all against an unusually dark and personal narrative focused on the amnesiac Shanoa.
Setting aside the quality of the games, the Dominus Collection is also of great value due to developer M2’s porting work. It was one thing to transfer single-screen GBA games in the Castlevania Advance Collection back in 2021, but here M2 was responsible for recreating dual-screen games with stylus functionality on modern platforms. As you’d expect from the port masters at M2, everything was handled about as well as humanly possible. The right stick functions as the stylus, with the ZR button used to interact. If you play the collection on Switch, you can also use your finger on the screen.
More importantly, M2 figured out how to present dual-screen games on a single monitor, and in so doing has established a blueprint for future DS porting efforts. There are five screen setting options, which allow you to view two to three screens at once, in a variety of configurations. I settled on the fourth configuration, which shows the in-game action on a larger screen to the left, and the map/sub-screen on a smaller screen to the right. It truly doesn’t feel like anything important has been lost from the original handheld experience.
If anything, something has been gained. Each game now comes with a compendium, where players can reference weapons, souls, glyphs, equipment, items, and enemies. You can even cross reference which enemies drop which items. In addition, you can bind the controls to your liking, rewind at any time, and quicksave at your leisure. You can also unlock several achievements per game, although some of these count as minor spoilers (you’ve been warned!).
Outside of the bevy of customization options, you’ll find multiple bonus features: a gallery with concept and promotional art from the three DS titles; a music player with tunes from all the included games; and the option to switch between American, European, and Japanese variants.
The most significant bonus feature, though, is Haunted Castle Revisited, a reimagining of 1987’s Haunted Castle, one of the very worst Castlevania experiences and also included here, ostensibly for the sake of posterity. Thanks to an explosive new intro, enhanced visuals, remixed tunes, smoother animations, and a much more lenient difficulty curve, it’s not only redemption for a former dud, but a good game in its own right. Fans of old-school adventures like Super Castlevania IV will find it especially enjoyable.
With the Castlevania Dominus Collection, Konami has once again preserved an important slice of its history. Not only that, but the company has turned in one of the finest collections of the year. Indeed, thanks to three must-play DS games, innovative porting work, a slew of special features and quality-of-life upgrades, and a surprisingly strong remake of a former franchise dud, it’s among the best collections released under the Konami banner in the last five years. If you missed the original games on DS, or just want to play them again in a more convenient, complete package, this is the compilation for you.
This review is based on a digital copy of Castlevania Dominus Collection for the NS, provided by the publisher.
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