Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is a brilliant platformer reminiscent of Symphony of the Night in its layout and gameplay mechanics. It stars Soma Cruz, a high school student, who gets caught up with his friend Mina Hakuba in a paranormal event, which ends up with them stuck in Dracula's Castle. They meet a man named Genya Arikado who tells Soma that Mina will not be able to survive long in the castle, and that he has to find a way out. Taking these words to heart Soma journeys through the castle, meeting all kinds of new people, discovering new abilities, and learning more about himself in the process, for better or worse.

The game itself focuses on the concept of taking "souls," from monsters once you've killed them. Each soul gives either a passive, active, or reactive ability to be used to help progress further in the game. Red souls are generally used to attack, blue souls for utility, and yellow souls to increase attributes or give some new ability. The mechanic works well, the game makes it feel compelling to get all of the souls due to their diverse and interesting abilities. Most important to get are succubus, flame demon, and giant bat. I won't give any spoilers, but make sure those three souls are equipped when fighting the final boss.

For a gameboy advance game, Aria of Sorrow has fantastic graphics that make for a set of easily recognizable characters and enemies, as well as the well-known setting of Dracula's Castle. Some things that were done using the limited graphics they had seemed a little pushed, such as when fire really doesn't look like fire anymore, or when something flies overhead so quickly that you cannot even see it, yet you are expected somehow to hit it. That being said, the positive aspects of the graphic design greatly outweigh the negative ones.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is a wonderful game. With such a huge setting, I found myself playing it over and over again. The characters were so compelling and unique that I couldn't help looking up more about them just to see what I could find. Play Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, and you'll have a hard time stopping. Try to collect all the souls, and once you've finished try making a new file with the name JULIUS. You'll have lots of fun.