Technically this is just a review of the DS trilogy itself and not the Dominus Collection proper, but I worked hard on these videos that almost nobody saw, and the games in question are essentially untouched within the Collection. Plus, these games are most likely never going to be immediately relevant again before the sun explodes, so please indulge me lol. Hope you enjoy!
@@ThrillingDuck I agree wholeheartedly! Shanoa is my favourite video game character of all time and I'm glad she's front and center in this collection. I bought the collection on release, I was surprised to see that we even got concept art! The game runs perfectly too, no visual artefacts or oddities or bugs. I think there are some dialogue tweaks? I don't think it's regional differences but I could be wrong.
@@cynthiasoolihua2410 Yeah, there's actually quite a lot of dialogue tweaks and some of it even has typos or words missing. I haven't played Ecclesia on here yet, but I've been checking the originals against the collection and I think ~1/5 dialogue boxes are altered. It's definitely going to need an update to clean up stuff, I really hope we can make a big enough stink on social media about it because it's clearly first draft work or possibly done by a non-native English speaker? At the very least most of the changes were pretty rushed.
Little bonus for the "duo" theming in Portrait of Ruin was the main composer of the series, Michiru Yamane, collaborating with another composer, Yuzo Koshiro, of Streets of Rage fame, to work on Portrait of Ruin's OST.
14:38 Just to be clear, the last time Death had dialogue (other than the intro monologue in 'Lament of Innocence') was not 'Symphony of the Night' but instead 'Harmony of Dissonance'... albeit many forget HoD's existence. Edit: Soon reminded by unknownuser494 in the comments that before 'Portrait of Ruin', Death had spoken dialogue within the entry 'Curse of Darkness' released the year before.
@@mcihay246 I cannot tell you how happy I am that somebody finally caught that mistake lol. I’ve been sitting on it in the original video for like 9 months and not enough people even saw it for anyone to bring it up.
Additional Fun Fact: Each of the three playable characters in Julius Mode has different, unique dialogue if they happen to be the character that you're playing as when you confront Soma.
I played these games so much. I long for the day when Castlevania gets a proper comeback. It's a shame that new 2d games are seen now as "side-games", not worth to be it's own thing, but that have to be put into a collection just to be a little extra thing, like the new Rebirth one.
A note on Ecclesia glyph combos: pairing a Melee weapon with a Spell tends to make an elemental weapon strike of some kind. With the three glyph sleeve system, you can keep one on the back burner to pull out, and avoid using it during normal gameplay where the weapon/spell combo would be awkward, and use it in a pinch. The Death Ring combos well with the 'Lightsaber' combo (Nitesco + Sword) and is one of the preferred speedrun combos for Dracula.
They somehow made the Dominus Collection ports even better than the originals - and that says a lot. The triple screen setup, the high resolution music and sound effects along with controls that somehow have been made even more responsive. ❤ It’s a 10/10 for me. The new way to do the magic seals is perfect. Portrait of Ruin is so underrated. The extra modes are off the chart! Ecclesia is my personal least favorite of the trio, but still a fantastic game on its own.
I looked for a thorough review for the Dominus Collection and the video I clicked on is the 42+ minute one. This is exactly what I’m looking for. I don’t care if you’re not reviewing the actual collection. Even better, you review the individual games. I never played the DS games but dig the Advance Collection and SotN. This is a must-buy for me. This is great work! Thank you for compiling these. Big Ups!
@@nightmarishcompositions4536 If we could just get Symphony of the Night on Switch now it would be the definitive Castlevania machine as far as I’m concerned.
I never played any of these before this collection came out. I had so much fun playing them. Portrait of Ruin was definitely my favorite. The boss fights and abilities were definitely the best to me out of this trilogy.
As an old man (early 40's lol) who's been a big fan of the series since the beginning (well, I guess since Simon's Quest, I never owned the first game, and never beat it before emulators became a thing due to the Death fight BS; IV is my personal favorite for a combination of nostalgic and aesthetic reasons), this was great to watch. Your familiarity with the whole series is impressive for someone who started with these games... it always warms my heart to see a person who started playing games around when the "big Western shift" in gaming culture happened (aka, when non-Japanese developers finally started making games that weren't complete trash lol, aside from the, uh... Rare exceptions to that early rule, and the average Western player could latch onto things more culturally in tune with themselves), but not only kept playing Japanese games, but looked back into the history they had missed out on. Subscribed, and yeah I'd love to hear what you have to say about the Netflix anime series!
@@jedgrahek1426 Thanks a lot man! Got a few requests for the anime talk, so that’ll most likely happen at some point. And yeah, I have a great passion for delving backwards through storied franchises that I originally get into later in their lifespans :) My interest in gaming started during the N64/GBC era, but somehow I only really came to Castlevania during the DS era for whatever reason haha.
Have I already watched your series on all three of these games before you put out this Dominant collection? Yes. Did that stop me from watching this again after you laid out the terms in the beginning? No. I feel your pain on the view count front and your right, these games will more than likely never be talked about on a main stage like this ever again, but hey at least we get to experience them again. Should you play these again sometime down the line, in the collection or not, I hope you have fun with them.
@ThrillingDuck that is THE million dollar question, isn't it? It's a tragedy that it's not on that system at all, and it's not like they don't have an in for it. Call it the Dracula X collection or something. Easy win.
@@ThrillingDuck it's like a 3 way tie I'm glad they took away the touch screen boss spell nonsense from the DS...Also Mandragora was broken in Dawn along with the weapon/souls combining feeling a little unpolished IMO...It's still a great game but it's hard not comparing it to Aria which was a superior game
@@kg21bestpf94 Legit, automating magic seals will single-handedly give Dawn a new lease on life. Easily the extra feature I’m most excited about in this collection lol.
Fun Fact: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow released in 2005. Demon's Souls released in 2009. Dawn of Sorrow did Boss Soul Weapons before even Demon's Souls did.
I got this set of games yesterday, and I beat Dawn of Sorrow today. I played a little bit of the other two via emulators, but I absolutely LOVE Dawn of Sorrow and the soul system is just magnifique. (Fun fact: you can squash Abbadon with the Quetzalcoatl and Malachi souls alone)
@@DemonKingCozar Collectively these 3 titles are basically the peak of the series for me personally, with honorable mention going to fan favorites Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow. Those 2 titles are still extremely worth your time, but if you’re just dipping your toes into the series for the first time anyway, then the Dominus Collection will give you by far the most bang for your buck at the most consistent quality. Symphony of the Night doesn’t come bundled in any currently existing collection, and Aria of Sorrow comes with the Advance Collection, which is still great, but Dominus’s titles are total bangers of a much higher average quality imo.
Just don't use melee weapons in Ecclesia after the first few stages. The spells are more than viable and what you lose in DPS you gain in range, which'll keep you alive longer.
I can agree with a good amount of this! Until we get to Ecclesia Player expression is fine. Sure there'll be two resistances on an enemy so you shouldn't use those, but there's 11 other damage types (or so) that you can choose from. I promise, the game still isn't a bear even if you use a neutral damage glyph. I'm not familiar with your other reviews. Is music generally not discussed? It came up shortly with Ecclesia, but otherwise was absent from the others.
@@loscadu I generally don’t do traditional reviews, no. But if you want my opinion, then obviously all 3 of these games have 10/10 soundtracks. Honestly I don’t think music needs much discussion in a review besides “it’s great” or “it’s not that memorable” anyway. Regarding Ecclesia tankiness I’d say agree to disagree, but that’s fine! My reverse preference for it is only by a tiny margin anyway. But to elaborate on my opinion a little, regardless of how many or few resistances an enemy has, you’re going to have to switch loadouts, which is a massive pain before you get the Glyph Sleeve. As for why I went with melee weapons in most cases, I explained that in the video (high DPS, low mana cost). 11 other damage types are great, but until you have Nitesco, they’re rarely an efficient option.
I feel like your analysis of the combat of Ecclesia is a bit lacking since you seem to not be aware of the more advanced mechanics of the DS Igavanias specifically. I don't mean this as a critique of your video, it very much encapsulates a casual player's perspective, but I wanted to give my 2 cents on this. Right off the bat saying you only used the backdash in this one already weirded me out as it's pretty much an essential movement tool in... every Igavaiana. Literally every single one. Backdash jumping or backdash canceling by crouching to eliminate the endlag are great ways to move around, and in the DS games specifically, it enables a super easy attack cancel by repeating Attack > Backdash > Crouch. With the right rhythm you barely move backwards, and can absolutely keep an onsalught of attacks going. Character swapping in Portrait also functions similarly, as changing characters to eliminate endlag also allows you to chain backdashes extremely fast The specifics for this in Ecclesia are even cooler, as using the Magnes glyph also lets you cancel your backdash even faster than crouch cancelling it, providing this cool tradeoff of extremely fast movement at the cost of the MP for activating Magnes on every single backdash, which you might not be able to use to defend yourself. Another great thing about this in Ecclesia is that it completely eliminates the need to equip 2 of the same glyph, as attack canceling just 1 of them is just as fast as alternating the 2 attacks. This totally bypasses the need to use the rapid fire alternate attacks and lets you carry more damage types on your 3 sets, of which there are way more than 3, as spell elements are also damage types! The various spells and their function does make a huge mechanical difference, and I usually run my glyph sets with 1 melee glyph and 1 spell glyph to cover as many bases as possible. One critique I have towards this system is that there is also a "Mastery" for each damage type (melee and elemental) that is one of your main stats, and just like in Portrait the only way to increase this Mastery is to use that damage type to land the killing blow on an enemy. Since the game has far more enemies weak to slashing damage than, say, blunt, due to this Master system, blunt glyphs fall off really hard at endgame. Now of course all is fine, I'm sure most people who play these games don't know this stuff, it's not really easy to figure out, but playing with these techniques has greatly enhanced my enjoyment of all three titles, and especially Ecclesia with its deep combat.
This is really interesting stuff! And yeah, I'm a casual as you can see lol. I'm not into high level tech stuff like this (in general, animation canceling is one of my least favorite things about game design honestly - I think it's uncanny and weird af), and I will never play a Castlevania game by backdashing everywhere because I'm not a speedrunner and I think moonwalking all over the place just looks stupid af to be brutally honest, but I admire the depth and the fact that it offers different types of players different ways to engage with the same games. All that said, I will genuinely try out some of the tech you recommended for Ecclesia on my next playthrough, simply because I desperately want to experience it with more versatile builds that aren't hamstrung by doubling up on boring melee Glyphs. Thanks for sharing :)
I thought the separate re-visitable stages in Ecclesia was actually an interesting mid-point between the older games that told a story of how the protagonist got to the castle and the newer explorable castles.
been playing through the collection, I only got a chance to play through dawn as a kid, which is still my favorite, so its great to have a chance to finally play the other two! Funnily enough, I think Ecclesia is my second favorite, though maybe that'll change once I get further into portrait since I've mostly been speeding through OoE. I actually think I disagree about the glyphs though, near the end of the game and magic has pretty much entirely replaced weapon glyphs for me, and I've only been struggling a bit with the bosses (and one of the secret levels)! But yeah, great videos!
@@thehatman7051 Thanks a lot! And yeah, once you get to Dracula’s Castle, the viable non-weapon Glyphs start getting much more fun and interesting (Nitesco, the rock golem punches, and three Cerberus heads spring to mind)! And again, all 3 of these titles are so neck and neck for me that my preference order is almost completely inconsequential haha.
Dawn of Sorrow seems to have benefitted the most from the collection due to the change in how Magic Seals work. A QTE that doesn't force the player to use a completely different control scheme and then punish them by immediately switching back to the normal controls on a failure? Please and thank you, Konami. Currently playing through Portrait of Ruin for the first time via this collection and the amount of grinding to get 1500 Mastery Points to Master 4 subweapons (Knife 300, Axe 1000, Cream Pie 100 and Paper Plane 100) has been quite low, currently on 832 for the Steel Ball which I've been using to grind item drops more than the weapon itself. You only need to hit an enemy once with it and then the Skill Points are all yours when that enemy is finished off. I'm aiming to get 100% of Subweapons mastered, finish all the Missions and 100% every map first run. Luckily I'm the type of player who has difficulty managing my inventory in Bethesda games due to being a hoarder who is against using consumables. Order of Ecclesia Glyph Symbols on the pause screen are as follows. Bludgeoning Weapons (including Lapiste). Slashing/Piercing Weapons (including Pneuma). Fire Spells. Ice Spells. Lightning Spells. Light Spells. Darkness Spells. And oh my god why? You're using Nitesco+Nitesco at the cost of 20 Hearts and additional Fire+Light damage when literally any Weapon Glyph is right there for the Nitesco Sword for Slashing+Fire+Light damage that has the best screen coverage and damage outside of the Light+Dark and Dominus Unions. And costs a mere 15 hearts instead of 50 or Shanoa's soul. In terms of grinding up Shanoa's Affinity points to that whopping 65535 points, it is better to use the Nitesco Sword as often as possible to get up three at once for triple the efficiency, do it while wearing two Master Rings for 12x the efficiency. Acerbatus stolen from Albus does Lightning+Dark, so that's 2x the efficiency without the Master Rings, 8x with. The Nitesco Sword isn't unique among Spell+Weapon Glyphs, it's just so good you'll want to exclusively use it for its quarter screen coverage and three damage types all for the lower cost of 15 Hearts or 7 Hearts with the Queen of Hearts. My problem with Order of Ecclesia is how until you beat the crab, Shanoa has low DPS against most enemies. Which for a glass cannon, is pretty horrible. Once you get past that hurdle, the difficulty curve for the rest of the game sort of just levels out. Whereas the difficulty for Portrait of Ruin is at its worst at the first boss, after that it levels out. Dawn of Sorrow on the other hand, there is no similar early game nightmare, unless you count grinding Ouija Board and The Creature for easy healing.
If you wanna worry about skill points much later then I suggest the final desert painting world where a bunch if fire demons spawn and clone themselves. A few hours there and we'll over 3 skills maxed. Also play the US portrait as there is a glitch to duplicate reward items for easy money to get the masters ring and more. I hadnt used it way back then and my current copy is the EU version but I decided to try it out and the ports are faithful to their region
For me OoE was the most satisfying in trilogy to 100%. Grind for whole compendium was not that bad. I even completed lvl.1 mode, but on NG+, both for Shanoa and Albus... Albus one was a pure hell, but I really loved his mode. Like where else in Castlevania series you can see man with the gun, who can actually oppose forces of Dracula with ridiculously high efficiency of bullets?
There is still one Castlevaina game that we'd like to see. Julius Belmont's fight against Dracula in the year 1999. Remember: that year was mentioned in Castlevainia Portrait of Ruin and Aria of Sorrow.
@@Maelael Oh 100%. I’m in the camp that’s keeping fingers crossed for that to be the next entry if Konami ever decides to stop sitting its fat ass on the IP.
The Magic Seal element was used to exploit the DS touch screen mechanic. It was hated and Konami wisely dropped it in Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia.
@@curtisholland16 You won’t regret it! Regarding the video’s title, it’s simply a reference to the titles of the original videos that comprised it (they were all called Gushing About [insert game]).
Is it really that good? I’ve been thinking about getting it for my switch, but with my only option for a collector’s edition of Sonic X Shadow Generations being the Limited Run version, costing me $340, and needing to get both physical and Digital Deluxe versions on both Switch and PS5, I have been hesitant to buy any games this year, even Epic Mickey, which was originally one of the games I wanted to buy.
@@Hynotama I mean, they’re your resources to allocate. I think they’re that good, but if you’re willing to get Dominus digital, you can always wait for a sale.
Out of the 3, Dawn of Sorrow remains my top pick while Portrait of Ruin is a comfortable second. I'm finally getting around to playing Order of Ecclesia thanks to the Dominus Collection, and it's good but way harder than the other two. Dawn gets a lot right, but my favorite part has to be the final battle against Soma in Julius mode. From the setting and battle itself to the epic Dracula theme, it's one of the best in the series
I loved this cover of some of the Ignvania titles that I missed out on and would love your take on the animated series. As a personal note, I disagree a bit on your take about the sprites in Dawn being better than Aria. For me the Aria sprites don't need as much detail because they just radiate so much style. Like, the walk cycle in Aria is somethibg that dramatically increases my enjoyment, whereas Dawn tunes it down.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 Fair point! I love the spritework in Aria too for the same reasons, and Dawn absolutely nerfed Soma’s pimp jacket. That said, I do prefer Dawn’s higher detail overall and I’m pretty sure most fans at least appreciate the genuine improvement of Soma’s swinging animations for the heavy weapons. The awkward looking single handed super speed swing arcs in Aria were bonkers and pretty jank looking lol.
Not controlling the monsters, it says controlling the monster souls. Sure, they respawn so presumably there are more monsters, we aren't taking them all. But in Dawn, we're levelling the souls up, so that's tangibly up to 9 souls stolen, per enemy type. Which adds up to around a thousand enemies straight up eaten by Soma.
@@ingvarsuigin609 Gotcha, interesting distinction! But Graham and his complaint are only in Aria, and I don’t think souls stack in that one? Either way, it comes across quite petty on his part lol.
I feel like Order of Ecclesia is the Metroid Fusion of Castlevania, a sort of "black sheep" of the series that in reality is pretty much just as good as the other games.
I'm going to "um actually" you only a little bit, and I don't blame you for not knowing or not remembering. I don't even blame you if you remembered, but decided not to mention it in the video for sake of time or video flow. Anywho: Puppet Master does have a short default range, yes - but if you equip a specific support/passive soul (I think it's Skeleton Farmer, but it's been years and I am too lazy to double-check, if I got this right I will be a little surprised,) Soma will throw it much farther and faster... because that support soul specifically makes you _better at throwing stuff._ Granted, it probably would have felt better if the boosted range was its default range, but I guess that'd take away from the "wait, this soul works with that one?!" feeling of discovery.
@@magetsalive5162 Omg that clears up so much. I never used that combo myself but I knew I’d seen footage of the puppet being thrown farther at some point, and I was confused at why I couldn’t seem to make it happen on that playthrough lol. I was like “am I just not understanding the physics?” And then assumed I had just misremembered. Thanks for clearing that up! Still a pretty specific combo to dedicate an entire Doppelganger setup to though, yeah. Really should have just been the default throw imo.
@@ThrillingDuck Yeah, I'd only use it if I was ever going to be moving through an area where I'd need the soul for traversal. The passive works on other "thrown" souls, though - like Mandragora. Edit: It's Skeleton Ape. I got off my butt and looked it up. Farmer boosts plant-type souls, Skeleton Ape throws things farther (because it carries the explosive barrel it throws at you.)
I never got to play the DS games, cuz I never had one. And these were the games that made me second guess getting one so frequently. The 3GBA titles blew me away. And circle of the Moon is the first in the franchise that I played. The only reason I picked it up was just because I grabbed a Game boy at launch day and that was THE game that the critics said was the must-have out of all of the launch titles Fell in love with it. I've since played my share of others but, those Game boy advance titles hold a certain place in my heart that not even symphony of the night could overtake when I finally played it I had some hope when they released the advanced collection that they might release these, but I was also afraid that there might be complexities integrating the screens and touchpad of the DS and maybe it would never happen So this was like the coolest shadow drop that's ever shadow dropped for me. Finally getting to play these, and then the unexpectedly great little remake of haunted castle alongside it Castlevania is going to be the theme for me this fall for sure
I know that this is kinda irrelevant to the rest of video but between your Miraculous Ladybug video and a potential future video about the Netflix Castlevania series, this actually makes me VERY interested to see a potential video about Once Upon A Time if you have anything to say about the series. I’ve become a huge fan of the series and have heard people loosely describe it as Kingdom Hearts if the franchise was a live action show. I also have a few hot takes about it that I’d like share, particularly regarding Peter Pan story arc which I don’t want to spoil if you haven’t seen yet.
@@Master-Fawful958 I never finished it, but I made it many seasons in many years ago. And I remember the Peter Pan arc also! I thought it was cool at the time, but I don’t recall all the details or have strong feelings about it.
I personally really liked that arc but I always HATED the fact Pan was the villain especially since the reason for it was so painfully forced in my opinion, and frankly even before I saw the show was just SOOO vehemently tired of this STUPID “evil Peter Pan” conspiracy (whether they he’s creepy serial killer or the Angel of Death). I mean if you read the original story, you know he wouldn’t usually react by killing any children that were implied to start growing up. Granted he certainly had SOME blood on his hands but I it’s a stretch to say that he’d do something that extreme to the Lost Boys or any kids he brought to the island. Basically Pan in the show was Rumplestiltskin’s father who he literally just abandoned for eternal youth. And throughout the whole storyline, I was constantly asking why he essentially needed the heart of the truest believer to stay alive. I kept asking why he needed the heart in his body to survive, like wasn’t the kid’s belief enough? But they LITERALLY state that him and his son couldn’t possibly live without the other. These two statements DIRECTLY contradict themselves. I would’ve MUCH preferred if there were two Peter Pans with one being a good guy and the other was the villainous father impersonating him, and maybe the real Pan would reunite Henry with his family and they’d team up to save Neverland.
@@Raphaelus13 Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls. Unfortunately, it’s not as fun as it looks. It was a mobile gacha game and I don’t think it’s even available for download anymore…
I wonder if we will get a 3D collection anytime. Castlevania 64, Legacy of Darkness, Lament of Innocence, Curse of Darkness, Lords of Shadow, and Lords of Shadow 2.
I doubt it would contain all of those in one lol. More likely the N64 titles would be bundled together, then PS2, then Lords of Shadow. I'd love to see all of them though!
i want it to be on physical badly but man! on limited run? like, cu,mthef🎉ckon Konami!? sorry, just a physical collector ranting fear of digital erasures in the near future
Despite the changes to Portrait of ruin I still find DRAWING the Seals to KILL bosses with the 4 buttons just as hard as using the Pen from the original DS version of the game to kill them.
@@veghesther3204 Lol it’s a different kind of challenge. I think the important thing is that it removes the imprecision that comes from the game needing to interpret gestures, and the clumsiness that comes from needing to shift your hands from buttons to stylus (or alternatively, playing the entire boss fight with stylus at the ready to avoid that rapid transition).
To be honest, mastering a weapon is easy than you said. Some enemies give more mastery points than others (a LOT more). And you only need to damage the enemy once with the sub weapon, then just kill it however you like, you will still get the mastery points towards the sub-weapon. You can level the javelin in like 30 minutes top.
@@zuljaras Fair enough, but that’s 30 minutes of deliberate grinding against the highest yield enemies in the game. If a player just plays through the game organically without deliberate grinding like this, they really ARE unlikely to master more than 1 or 2 subweapons, and that’s assuming they’re the only ones they’re using.
@ThrillingDuck it is the equivalent of Dawn's level up souls by getting more or Ecclesia's use weapons more and getting those elemental drops. In both cases PoR is a little faster.
@@zuljaras Okay…? What’s your point? My issue with the mechanic was never that it existed, but with the execution, and more importantly with the way it ties into the side quests in PoR. In DoS and OoE, variations of weapon mastery generally just offer a nice little incidental bonus to your damage. PoR actively holds nice rewards hostage behind it. That was always the point.
@@ThrillingDuck Ah nothing :) just my 2 cents that it is not as excruciating as it sounds. Nothing more. It is a bigger issue that they did not explain the mastery mechanic in full anywhere in the game.
@@JorguinTorpedo-ff5vk Imo this one by a country mile. I am admittedly biased, but I say this one. Of all the Igavanias, these are the closest in overall quality to Symphony of the Night.
Tbh I hadn't really thought about it - not because I don't love those games to death, but because when I first produced these videos, the impetus was a relative lack of appreciation for the DS trilogy on youtube - something which Aria and Symphony just didn't suffer from in the same way prior to the release of the Dominus Collection. I'd never say never though!
Back then I loved DoS and PoR so much, unfortunately while I got to play OoE a bit my NDS just dies and somehow didn't get to play it again since and I didn't even finish the game, once I get this collection this sin will be rectify.
@@Telos_CH Do you mean how do you unlock them or how do they play? Both are unlocked simply by completing one playthrough of their respective main games :) Very simple unlock requirements - they basically just want to make sure you play through the main mode first.
@@Telos_CH I’m still not sure I understand the question. Broadly speaking the alt character modes play exactly like the main modes, just with alternate characters and by extension alternate move sets. You explore the same maps too, but since you start out with all abilities you can sequence break to your heart’s content. Aside from that, the only other difference is that you can’t collect or use items (equipment or consumables) in the alt modes. Honestly this collection would be well worth the price of admission even without the alt modes in my opinion, but with them they’re an absolute steal.
@@ThrillingDuck ok, sorry I'm not really explaining myself well. How do I control Albus and the Sisters with no touch screen? As in, how to teleport with albus, or the special actions of the sisters using the touch screen? Thanks for your previous answers too.
@@Telos_CH Gotcha! So my understanding within the Collection is that they added a usable computer mouse basically to interacti with touch screen elements. The Switch version more than likely has touch screen controls for when you’re undocked, which will definitely be the better way to go when relevant. Most of the time the games aren’t touch screen reliant though. Outside of Sisters Mode which is totally built around it, you basically only use the touch screen during Soma’s magic seals and to access Albus’s teleport ability, which you can basically do without most of the time (although it is quite helpful). Long story short, if you get the Switch version I’m pretty sure you can use touch screen features when undocked. Otherwise it’s via “mouse.” Not ideal, but about 95% of the package doesn’t need touch at all.
As for whether or not this is relevant for you to rerelease these videos, I was recommended this video by UA-cam so I think it at east somewhat worked.
Dominus Collection will suck ass; they couldn't be bothered giving their Penultimate games the Dream Drop Distant PS4 port treatment, instead putting an horrible screen cut... How hard could it have been to just make some Botton pop-up the map/information screens? Man, I just hate Konami
As someone who has Aria as their favorite game in the series, I feel so mixed on Dawn, I liked it at first and thought it was overhated, but the more time passes the more I feel like it didn’t really add much beyond better sprite work. There was only like two good bosses, it’s story is shit, and I really don’t remember much of its music. Honestly looking back, it feels more like a high budget fangame, than it does a full on sequel to me. I think they should’ve either made a game about 1999 or put some more time into Julius mode. As is, Dawn’s Julius mode is probably the best alternate mode in serious, but I still feel like they could’ve done more. Just keep it as an alternate reality and I’m sure no one would’ve complained.
@@dailydoseofvitaminc6565 I disagree with most of this, but I respect your opinion. It’s mostly just personal taste stuff anyway. I do think you should check out Dawn’s soundtrack again though if nothing else - it’s genuinely excellent and thoroughly memorable across the board. If you prefer Aria that’s fine, but ain’t nobody can slander Dawn’s soundtrack lol.
@@markhavick7115 Lol out of curiosity what do you dislike about the original? Nocturne had much more vitriolic fan response and I didn’t like it nearly as much, but I’m quite fond of the original overall.
@@ThrillingDuck There are several big things but honestly the biggest is the demeanor and characterization of Alucard. He use to be a very noble and regal character, who carried himself with dignity and poise. They took him and made him a bratty goth edgelord , with immature mannerisms and motives completely unbecoming of how he has vastly been portrayed in the franchise proper. To me that was this most glaring thing. The whole nearly fetishistic power fantasy approach to the dynamics between the Hector and his female captors at the complete expense of his dynamic with Issac (who they totally changed for some slave/race iconography that they seem to be all too fond of) and his wife. I can go on and on but the Alucard thing is the biggest. It seriously makes me lose all respect for the animated Netflix series. I don't even canonize it.
@@markhavick7115 Gotcha, I see. I don’t really feel the same way, but I expected to see considerable liberties taken given how little the source material gave them to work with regarding narrative detail and character building. In fact I actually thought they handled Alucard quite well, considering he’s supposed to be quite young at this point and he still contrasted Trevor quite nicely imo, but that’s just my personal take.
Love me some Aria also, even if I prefer Dawn overall. Honestly, all these games are pretty neck and neck for me, with my preferences being extremely marginal.
@@ThrillingDuck it was another shitty fan fic/shipping…thing with the skin of castlevania. Written by tumblr writers, masking all the bad points by revealing Alucard at the end. I could go on lmao Your video on the other hand was good, I’m looking forward to playing these on the switch once I get my paycheck
Dissent: Not including Symphony of the Night in this collection makes me not want to buy it. These games are all awesome, but I want all the Castlevania. I don't want to buy a new collection every year that re-releases just a couple titles, when there's a huge catalog out there. I want the crappy MS-DOS Castlevania. I want Lords of Shadow. And most of all, I wanted Symphony of the Night. Konami doesn't deserve to own such a magnificent franchise with how they treat it.
@@Skelthane Symphony still not being on the Switch at this point is absolutely disgusting, but this is still the first and only re-release of this particular trilogy, and it seems silly to me not to support it on the grounds of it not including Symphony alone, since that title actually HAS seen prior re-releases. Obviously it’s your decision to make though. And I hard agree about Konami not deserving to own this magnificent franchise.
@@unsungzero6122 How the hell did you come to that conclusion when i'm litteraly asking for the games to look like they did on the original hardware ? I already can play all 3 games, of course i'm not gonna settle like someone who doesn't have access to the original material.
Yep... i also refuse to play with the second DS screen crammed to the side...they could have made proper ports or done a button press to bring the second screen info up. Ultimately...on DS...On emulator...on a pimped wiiu remains superior!
@@seeker2657 That's exactly how it works even on free custom firware for retro handhelds. You can switch between the main and second screen with a button press when you want to. So, no excuse for a game collection i'm supposed to pay for.
@@billyk3632 I’m sure it is lol, but the fact that Konami even bothered to do this is a small miracle. If we don’t support official releases, we truly will have no hope for any future titles. Besides, Dominus runs great.
@@sapphireglaceon I love how you had to both completely forget the video’s intro and scroll past the pinned comment without reading it in order to write this.
Technically this is just a review of the DS trilogy itself and not the Dominus Collection proper, but I worked hard on these videos that almost nobody saw, and the games in question are essentially untouched within the Collection. Plus, these games are most likely never going to be immediately relevant again before the sun explodes, so please indulge me lol. Hope you enjoy!
Neat!
Fair, I liked the reviews.
i am almost no one.
Im down for castlevania reviews any day
Awesome thanks
The fact I genuinely get to play Order of Ecclesia again on the Switch was honestly the perfect ending to summer. We got the good ending
@@cynthiasoolihua2410 Couldn’t be happier to finally see Shanoa on the big screen in an official capacity (aside from Harmony of Despair).
@@ThrillingDuck I agree wholeheartedly! Shanoa is my favourite video game character of all time and I'm glad she's front and center in this collection.
I bought the collection on release, I was surprised to see that we even got concept art! The game runs perfectly too, no visual artefacts or oddities or bugs.
I think there are some dialogue tweaks? I don't think it's regional differences but I could be wrong.
@@cynthiasoolihua2410
Yeah, there's actually quite a lot of dialogue tweaks and some of it even has typos or words missing.
I haven't played Ecclesia on here yet, but I've been checking the originals against the collection and I think ~1/5 dialogue boxes are altered.
It's definitely going to need an update to clean up stuff, I really hope we can make a big enough stink on social media about it because it's clearly first draft work or possibly done by a non-native English speaker?
At the very least most of the changes were pretty rushed.
W pfp
@@silviokek ty shanoa is the G.O.A.T
Little bonus for the "duo" theming in Portrait of Ruin was the main composer of the series, Michiru Yamane, collaborating with another composer, Yuzo Koshiro, of Streets of Rage fame, to work on Portrait of Ruin's OST.
@@HarbingerYT That’s so cool!
14:38 Just to be clear, the last time Death had dialogue (other than the intro monologue in 'Lament of Innocence') was not 'Symphony of the Night' but instead 'Harmony of Dissonance'... albeit many forget HoD's existence.
Edit: Soon reminded by unknownuser494 in the comments that before 'Portrait of Ruin', Death had spoken dialogue within the entry 'Curse of Darkness' released the year before.
@@mcihay246 I cannot tell you how happy I am that somebody finally caught that mistake lol. I’ve been sitting on it in the original video for like 9 months and not enough people even saw it for anyone to bring it up.
I choose to forget HoD existence every time i can i assure you
@@alescano3504 the you sir are a scrub literally one of the best Castlevania ever made
@@LimitedEye You LIE, sir, I am WOUNDED
I remember death having dialogue in curse of darkness.
I like that one of the best releases this year were originally DS games
Additional Fun Fact: Each of the three playable characters in Julius Mode has different, unique dialogue if they happen to be the character that you're playing as when you confront Soma.
This is my favorite trilogy of castlevania and I’m so glad more people get to experience it 🖤
@@ImAkira.. Absolutely same.
@@ThrillingDuck GBA is a close second but the ds collection is a 10 back to back to back
Johnathan and Charlotte may have been the first Vampire Hunters with access to Nuclear Weaponry, but Nathan Graves has a speedrun named after it.
Portrait of Ruin is a true masterpiece. So rich. Full of eastern eggs and things to do. The best of all, only matched by Symphony of the Night.
I played these games so much. I long for the day when Castlevania gets a proper comeback. It's a shame that new 2d games are seen now as "side-games", not worth to be it's own thing, but that have to be put into a collection just to be a little extra thing, like the new Rebirth one.
@@Rihcterwilker Couldn’t agree more.
Dude I’m with you!
A note on Ecclesia glyph combos: pairing a Melee weapon with a Spell tends to make an elemental weapon strike of some kind. With the three glyph sleeve system, you can keep one on the back burner to pull out, and avoid using it during normal gameplay where the weapon/spell combo would be awkward, and use it in a pinch. The Death Ring combos well with the 'Lightsaber' combo (Nitesco + Sword) and is one of the preferred speedrun combos for Dracula.
You got this one out so fast I can see the digital skidmarks on the page lol.
@@trenthoward6800 Lmao
😂😂🤣🤣
😂😂
They somehow made the Dominus Collection ports even better than the originals - and that says a lot. The triple screen setup, the high resolution music and sound effects along with controls that somehow have been made even more responsive. ❤ It’s a 10/10 for me. The new way to do the magic seals is perfect.
Portrait of Ruin is so underrated. The extra modes are off the chart! Ecclesia is my personal least favorite of the trio, but still a fantastic game on its own.
I looked for a thorough review for the Dominus Collection and the video I clicked on is the 42+ minute one. This is exactly what I’m looking for. I don’t care if you’re not reviewing the actual collection. Even better, you review the individual games.
I never played the DS games but dig the Advance Collection and SotN. This is a must-buy for me.
This is great work! Thank you for compiling these. Big Ups!
Great in-depth reviews.
Dawn of Sorrow was my introduction to the series as well. Loved the GBA trilogy and DS trilogy the most.
@@nightmarishcompositions4536 If we could just get Symphony of the Night on Switch now it would be the definitive Castlevania machine as far as I’m concerned.
OoE is my favorite, PoR second Dawn last... That being said great video thanks for making it
Awesome video! Julius mode is my favorite in the entire series!
@@lucaslease4571 Thank you! And YES Dawn’s Julius mode is basically the gold standard for alt modes in this series!
I never played any of these before this collection came out. I had so much fun playing them. Portrait of Ruin was definitely my favorite. The boss fights and abilities were definitely the best to me out of this trilogy.
Cannot wait to play these during october for halloween
@@Fernando-t8g Practically a yearly tradition for me!
As an old man (early 40's lol) who's been a big fan of the series since the beginning (well, I guess since Simon's Quest, I never owned the first game, and never beat it before emulators became a thing due to the Death fight BS; IV is my personal favorite for a combination of nostalgic and aesthetic reasons), this was great to watch. Your familiarity with the whole series is impressive for someone who started with these games... it always warms my heart to see a person who started playing games around when the "big Western shift" in gaming culture happened (aka, when non-Japanese developers finally started making games that weren't complete trash lol, aside from the, uh... Rare exceptions to that early rule, and the average Western player could latch onto things more culturally in tune with themselves), but not only kept playing Japanese games, but looked back into the history they had missed out on. Subscribed, and yeah I'd love to hear what you have to say about the Netflix anime series!
@@jedgrahek1426 Thanks a lot man! Got a few requests for the anime talk, so that’ll most likely happen at some point. And yeah, I have a great passion for delving backwards through storied franchises that I originally get into later in their lifespans :) My interest in gaming started during the N64/GBC era, but somehow I only really came to Castlevania during the DS era for whatever reason haha.
This should have been called the DominuS collection
Dominus selection
Have I already watched your series on all three of these games before you put out this Dominant collection? Yes. Did that stop me from watching this again after you laid out the terms in the beginning? No. I feel your pain on the view count front and your right, these games will more than likely never be talked about on a main stage like this ever again, but hey at least we get to experience them again. Should you play these again sometime down the line, in the collection or not, I hope you have fun with them.
Lmao thanks a lot man! And I certainly will be, don't you worry. Definitely supporting this release.
@@ThrillingDuck I'll be doing much the same.
@@LeonKiske Now if we could just…get…Symphony on the Switch HOW IS SYMPHONY STILL NOT ON THE SWITCH
@ThrillingDuck that is THE million dollar question, isn't it? It's a tragedy that it's not on that system at all, and it's not like they don't have an in for it. Call it the Dracula X collection or something. Easy win.
@@LeonKiske Or even this very collection! It would have fit right in.
POR > OOE > DOS
@@kg21bestpf94 I’d flip the latter 2 myself, but honestly they’re so neck and neck it hardly matters imo.
@@ThrillingDuck it's like a 3 way tie I'm glad they took away the touch screen boss spell nonsense from the DS...Also Mandragora was broken in Dawn along with the weapon/souls combining feeling a little unpolished IMO...It's still a great game but it's hard not comparing it to Aria which was a superior game
@@kg21bestpf94 Legit, automating magic seals will single-handedly give Dawn a new lease on life. Easily the extra feature I’m most excited about in this collection lol.
For me too
castlevania isn't dead, it just moved to a different country and took on a new identity and calls itself bloodstained now
For some reason, nothing on the handhelds can top Harmony of Dissonance for me, but im so glad i got to finally play these games.
Fun Fact: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow released in 2005.
Demon's Souls released in 2009.
Dawn of Sorrow did Boss Soul Weapons before even Demon's Souls did.
There weren't boss souls in Aria of Sorrow?
I got this set of games yesterday, and I beat Dawn of Sorrow today. I played a little bit of the other two via emulators, but I absolutely LOVE Dawn of Sorrow and the soul system is just magnifique. (Fun fact: you can squash Abbadon with the Quetzalcoatl and Malachi souls alone)
I realized even though I activated the bell icon youtube had not recommended me your videos...
Well I got two noew vids too watch :3
@@ghosty2548 Hope you like them!
Portrait of Ruin is my favorite Castlevania game and it’s not even close.
You are spot on about grinding for Alucard Spear, I hated this javelin quest so much 😆
@@TheAleosha Even getting it on the damn quest list was half the battle lol.
This was a blast to see, especially since I'm fairly green with Castlevania. I didn't know this trilogy existed.
@@DemonKingCozar Collectively these 3 titles are basically the peak of the series for me personally, with honorable mention going to fan favorites Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow. Those 2 titles are still extremely worth your time, but if you’re just dipping your toes into the series for the first time anyway, then the Dominus Collection will give you by far the most bang for your buck at the most consistent quality.
Symphony of the Night doesn’t come bundled in any currently existing collection, and Aria of Sorrow comes with the Advance Collection, which is still great, but Dominus’s titles are total bangers of a much higher average quality imo.
@@ThrillingDuck I'll make note of that because I'm not aware of half of the games in the series. Thanks
Just don't use melee weapons in Ecclesia after the first few stages. The spells are more than viable and what you lose in DPS you gain in range, which'll keep you alive longer.
I can agree with a good amount of this!
Until we get to Ecclesia
Player expression is fine. Sure there'll be two resistances on an enemy so you shouldn't use those, but there's 11 other damage types (or so) that you can choose from. I promise, the game still isn't a bear even if you use a neutral damage glyph.
I'm not familiar with your other reviews. Is music generally not discussed? It came up shortly with Ecclesia, but otherwise was absent from the others.
@@loscadu I generally don’t do traditional reviews, no. But if you want my opinion, then obviously all 3 of these games have 10/10 soundtracks. Honestly I don’t think music needs much discussion in a review besides “it’s great” or “it’s not that memorable” anyway.
Regarding Ecclesia tankiness I’d say agree to disagree, but that’s fine! My reverse preference for it is only by a tiny margin anyway. But to elaborate on my opinion a little, regardless of how many or few resistances an enemy has, you’re going to have to switch loadouts, which is a massive pain before you get the Glyph Sleeve. As for why I went with melee weapons in most cases, I explained that in the video (high DPS, low mana cost). 11 other damage types are great, but until you have Nitesco, they’re rarely an efficient option.
I've basically been playing this collection since it dropped and nothing else. Love these games.
@@obeserob5027 I never need an excuse to revisit these, but I’ll happily take any that falls into my lap lol.
I feel like your analysis of the combat of Ecclesia is a bit lacking since you seem to not be aware of the more advanced mechanics of the DS Igavanias specifically. I don't mean this as a critique of your video, it very much encapsulates a casual player's perspective, but I wanted to give my 2 cents on this.
Right off the bat saying you only used the backdash in this one already weirded me out as it's pretty much an essential movement tool in... every Igavaiana. Literally every single one. Backdash jumping or backdash canceling by crouching to eliminate the endlag are great ways to move around, and in the DS games specifically, it enables a super easy attack cancel by repeating Attack > Backdash > Crouch. With the right rhythm you barely move backwards, and can absolutely keep an onsalught of attacks going. Character swapping in Portrait also functions similarly, as changing characters to eliminate endlag also allows you to chain backdashes extremely fast
The specifics for this in Ecclesia are even cooler, as using the Magnes glyph also lets you cancel your backdash even faster than crouch cancelling it, providing this cool tradeoff of extremely fast movement at the cost of the MP for activating Magnes on every single backdash, which you might not be able to use to defend yourself.
Another great thing about this in Ecclesia is that it completely eliminates the need to equip 2 of the same glyph, as attack canceling just 1 of them is just as fast as alternating the 2 attacks.
This totally bypasses the need to use the rapid fire alternate attacks and lets you carry more damage types on your 3 sets, of which there are way more than 3, as spell elements are also damage types!
The various spells and their function does make a huge mechanical difference, and I usually run my glyph sets with 1 melee glyph and 1 spell glyph to cover as many bases as possible. One critique I have towards this system is that there is also a "Mastery" for each damage type (melee and elemental) that is one of your main stats, and just like in Portrait the only way to increase this Mastery is to use that damage type to land the killing blow on an enemy. Since the game has far more enemies weak to slashing damage than, say, blunt, due to this Master system, blunt glyphs fall off really hard at endgame.
Now of course all is fine, I'm sure most people who play these games don't know this stuff, it's not really easy to figure out, but playing with these techniques has greatly enhanced my enjoyment of all three titles, and especially Ecclesia with its deep combat.
This is really interesting stuff! And yeah, I'm a casual as you can see lol. I'm not into high level tech stuff like this (in general, animation canceling is one of my least favorite things about game design honestly - I think it's uncanny and weird af), and I will never play a Castlevania game by backdashing everywhere because I'm not a speedrunner and I think moonwalking all over the place just looks stupid af to be brutally honest, but I admire the depth and the fact that it offers different types of players different ways to engage with the same games.
All that said, I will genuinely try out some of the tech you recommended for Ecclesia on my next playthrough, simply because I desperately want to experience it with more versatile builds that aren't hamstrung by doubling up on boring melee Glyphs. Thanks for sharing :)
I thought the separate re-visitable stages in Ecclesia was actually an interesting mid-point between the older games that told a story of how the protagonist got to the castle and the newer explorable castles.
been playing through the collection, I only got a chance to play through dawn as a kid, which is still my favorite, so its great to have a chance to finally play the other two! Funnily enough, I think Ecclesia is my second favorite, though maybe that'll change once I get further into portrait since I've mostly been speeding through OoE. I actually think I disagree about the glyphs though, near the end of the game and magic has pretty much entirely replaced weapon glyphs for me, and I've only been struggling a bit with the bosses (and one of the secret levels)! But yeah, great videos!
@@thehatman7051 Thanks a lot! And yeah, once you get to Dracula’s Castle, the viable non-weapon Glyphs start getting much more fun and interesting (Nitesco, the rock golem punches, and three Cerberus heads spring to mind)! And again, all 3 of these titles are so neck and neck for me that my preference order is almost completely inconsequential haha.
Dawn of Sorrow seems to have benefitted the most from the collection due to the change in how Magic Seals work. A QTE that doesn't force the player to use a completely different control scheme and then punish them by immediately switching back to the normal controls on a failure? Please and thank you, Konami.
Currently playing through Portrait of Ruin for the first time via this collection and the amount of grinding to get 1500 Mastery Points to Master 4 subweapons (Knife 300, Axe 1000, Cream Pie 100 and Paper Plane 100) has been quite low, currently on 832 for the Steel Ball which I've been using to grind item drops more than the weapon itself. You only need to hit an enemy once with it and then the Skill Points are all yours when that enemy is finished off. I'm aiming to get 100% of Subweapons mastered, finish all the Missions and 100% every map first run. Luckily I'm the type of player who has difficulty managing my inventory in Bethesda games due to being a hoarder who is against using consumables.
Order of Ecclesia Glyph Symbols on the pause screen are as follows.
Bludgeoning Weapons (including Lapiste).
Slashing/Piercing Weapons (including Pneuma).
Fire Spells.
Ice Spells.
Lightning Spells.
Light Spells.
Darkness Spells.
And oh my god why? You're using Nitesco+Nitesco at the cost of 20 Hearts and additional Fire+Light damage when literally any Weapon Glyph is right there for the Nitesco Sword for Slashing+Fire+Light damage that has the best screen coverage and damage outside of the Light+Dark and Dominus Unions. And costs a mere 15 hearts instead of 50 or Shanoa's soul.
In terms of grinding up Shanoa's Affinity points to that whopping 65535 points, it is better to use the Nitesco Sword as often as possible to get up three at once for triple the efficiency, do it while wearing two Master Rings for 12x the efficiency. Acerbatus stolen from Albus does Lightning+Dark, so that's 2x the efficiency without the Master Rings, 8x with.
The Nitesco Sword isn't unique among Spell+Weapon Glyphs, it's just so good you'll want to exclusively use it for its quarter screen coverage and three damage types all for the lower cost of 15 Hearts or 7 Hearts with the Queen of Hearts.
My problem with Order of Ecclesia is how until you beat the crab, Shanoa has low DPS against most enemies. Which for a glass cannon, is pretty horrible. Once you get past that hurdle, the difficulty curve for the rest of the game sort of just levels out. Whereas the difficulty for Portrait of Ruin is at its worst at the first boss, after that it levels out. Dawn of Sorrow on the other hand, there is no similar early game nightmare, unless you count grinding Ouija Board and The Creature for easy healing.
If you wanna worry about skill points much later then I suggest the final desert painting world where a bunch if fire demons spawn and clone themselves. A few hours there and we'll over 3 skills maxed. Also play the US portrait as there is a glitch to duplicate reward items for easy money to get the masters ring and more. I hadnt used it way back then and my current copy is the EU version but I decided to try it out and the ports are faithful to their region
Aria of Sorrow is how i got into Castlevania, and damn it was good
For me OoE was the most satisfying in trilogy to 100%. Grind for whole compendium was not that bad.
I even completed lvl.1 mode, but on NG+, both for Shanoa and Albus... Albus one was a pure hell, but I really loved his mode. Like where else in Castlevania series you can see man with the gun, who can actually oppose forces of Dracula with ridiculously high efficiency of bullets?
There is still one Castlevaina game that we'd like to see. Julius Belmont's fight against Dracula in the year 1999. Remember: that year was mentioned in Castlevainia Portrait of Ruin and Aria of Sorrow.
@@Maelael Oh 100%. I’m in the camp that’s keeping fingers crossed for that to be the next entry if Konami ever decides to stop sitting its fat ass on the IP.
The Magic Seal element was used to exploit the DS touch screen mechanic. It was hated and Konami wisely dropped it in Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia.
I was taken by surprise because I was playing OoE like only few days ago before the nintendo direct
24:14 me too
I wish this mode was a little more fun(idk how else I can describe it)
I view Miriam more as Shaona if she kept her memories and emotions
I like Portrait and Ritual better than Symphony.
I suck, so I don't care for Order of Ecclesia.
Great video I'm definitely going to scoop up the game. Just wondering about the title of the video... Reminded me of an anime lol
@@curtisholland16 You won’t regret it! Regarding the video’s title, it’s simply a reference to the titles of the original videos that comprised it (they were all called Gushing About [insert game]).
Is it really that good? I’ve been thinking about getting it for my switch, but with my only option for a collector’s edition of Sonic X Shadow Generations being the Limited Run version, costing me $340, and needing to get both physical and Digital Deluxe versions on both Switch and PS5, I have been hesitant to buy any games this year, even Epic Mickey, which was originally one of the games I wanted to buy.
@@Hynotama I mean, they’re your resources to allocate. I think they’re that good, but if you’re willing to get Dominus digital, you can always wait for a sale.
I know DS games are difficult to port, so this was such an amazing surprise
Dude I couldn’t believe my eyes the other day when I saw this on the eshop. I still have the originals but still! To play them on my switch is great!
I was growing up during these days, i remember playing PoR in like early highschool, it was so fun, i vouldnt put it down
Out of the 3, Dawn of Sorrow remains my top pick while Portrait of Ruin is a comfortable second. I'm finally getting around to playing Order of Ecclesia thanks to the Dominus Collection, and it's good but way harder than the other two. Dawn gets a lot right, but my favorite part has to be the final battle against Soma in Julius mode. From the setting and battle itself to the epic Dracula theme, it's one of the best in the series
Absolutely, Dawn and Julius Mode are just legendary.
14:39 didn't Death have some dialogue in Harmony of Dissonance?
@@lukascoleman2328 He did - somebody else here brought this up as well :)
I loved this cover of some of the Ignvania titles that I missed out on and would love your take on the animated series.
As a personal note, I disagree a bit on your take about the sprites in Dawn being better than Aria. For me the Aria sprites don't need as much detail because they just radiate so much style. Like, the walk cycle in Aria is somethibg that dramatically increases my enjoyment, whereas Dawn tunes it down.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 Fair point! I love the spritework in Aria too for the same reasons, and Dawn absolutely nerfed Soma’s pimp jacket. That said, I do prefer Dawn’s higher detail overall and I’m pretty sure most fans at least appreciate the genuine improvement of Soma’s swinging animations for the heavy weapons. The awkward looking single handed super speed swing arcs in Aria were bonkers and pretty jank looking lol.
Not controlling the monsters, it says controlling the monster souls. Sure, they respawn so presumably there are more monsters, we aren't taking them all. But in Dawn, we're levelling the souls up, so that's tangibly up to 9 souls stolen, per enemy type. Which adds up to around a thousand enemies straight up eaten by Soma.
@@ingvarsuigin609 Gotcha, interesting distinction! But Graham and his complaint are only in Aria, and I don’t think souls stack in that one? Either way, it comes across quite petty on his part lol.
How are drawing seals dealt with in the PS4/5 console version?
It's done with buttons! They correspond with different points on the circle, so you basically just input a short button combo.
I feel like Order of Ecclesia is the Metroid Fusion of Castlevania, a sort of "black sheep" of the series that in reality is pretty much just as good as the other games.
@@nathanblackburn1193 Is OoE even a black sheep lol?
@@ThrillingDuck Kinda or at least it was seen that way around its release
@@nathanblackburn1193 Interesting, gotcha
I'm going to "um actually" you only a little bit, and I don't blame you for not knowing or not remembering. I don't even blame you if you remembered, but decided not to mention it in the video for sake of time or video flow. Anywho:
Puppet Master does have a short default range, yes - but if you equip a specific support/passive soul (I think it's Skeleton Farmer, but it's been years and I am too lazy to double-check, if I got this right I will be a little surprised,) Soma will throw it much farther and faster... because that support soul specifically makes you _better at throwing stuff._
Granted, it probably would have felt better if the boosted range was its default range, but I guess that'd take away from the "wait, this soul works with that one?!" feeling of discovery.
@@magetsalive5162 Omg that clears up so much. I never used that combo myself but I knew I’d seen footage of the puppet being thrown farther at some point, and I was confused at why I couldn’t seem to make it happen on that playthrough lol. I was like “am I just not understanding the physics?” And then assumed I had just misremembered. Thanks for clearing that up!
Still a pretty specific combo to dedicate an entire Doppelganger setup to though, yeah. Really should have just been the default throw imo.
@@ThrillingDuck
Yeah, I'd only use it if I was ever going to be moving through an area where I'd need the soul for traversal. The passive works on other "thrown" souls, though - like Mandragora.
Edit: It's Skeleton Ape. I got off my butt and looked it up. Farmer boosts plant-type souls, Skeleton Ape throws things farther (because it carries the explosive barrel it throws at you.)
I never got to play the DS games, cuz I never had one. And these were the games that made me second guess getting one so frequently.
The 3GBA titles blew me away. And circle of the Moon is the first in the franchise that I played. The only reason I picked it up was just because I grabbed a Game boy at launch day and that was THE game that the critics said was the must-have out of all of the launch titles
Fell in love with it. I've since played my share of others but, those Game boy advance titles hold a certain place in my heart that not even symphony of the night could overtake when I finally played it
I had some hope when they released the advanced collection that they might release these, but I was also afraid that there might be complexities integrating the screens and touchpad of the DS and maybe it would never happen
So this was like the coolest shadow drop that's ever shadow dropped for me. Finally getting to play these, and then the unexpectedly great little remake of haunted castle alongside it
Castlevania is going to be the theme for me this fall for sure
I know that this is kinda irrelevant to the rest of video but between your Miraculous Ladybug video and a potential future video about the Netflix Castlevania series, this actually makes me VERY interested to see a potential video about Once Upon A Time if you have anything to say about the series. I’ve become a huge fan of the series and have heard people loosely describe it as Kingdom Hearts if the franchise was a live action show. I also have a few hot takes about it that I’d like share, particularly regarding Peter Pan story arc which I don’t want to spoil if you haven’t seen yet.
@@Master-Fawful958 I never finished it, but I made it many seasons in many years ago. And I remember the Peter Pan arc also! I thought it was cool at the time, but I don’t recall all the details or have strong feelings about it.
I personally really liked that arc but I always HATED the fact Pan was the villain especially since the reason for it was so painfully forced in my opinion, and frankly even before I saw the show was just SOOO vehemently tired of this STUPID “evil Peter Pan” conspiracy (whether they he’s creepy serial killer or the Angel of Death). I mean if you read the original story, you know he wouldn’t usually react by killing any children that were implied to start growing up. Granted he certainly had SOME blood on his hands but I it’s a stretch to say that he’d do something that extreme to the Lost Boys or any kids he brought to the island. Basically Pan in the show was Rumplestiltskin’s father who he literally just abandoned for eternal youth. And throughout the whole storyline, I was constantly asking why he essentially needed the heart of the truest believer to stay alive. I kept asking why he needed the heart in his body to survive, like wasn’t the kid’s belief enough? But they LITERALLY state that him and his son couldn’t possibly live without the other. These two statements DIRECTLY contradict themselves. I would’ve MUCH preferred if there were two Peter Pans with one being a good guy and the other was the villainous father impersonating him, and maybe the real Pan would reunite Henry with his family and they’d team up to save Neverland.
I genuinely hope they make a Julius Belmont game set in 1999 it would be the coolest gave ever Julius is my favorite by far
@@sheepyshawny5493 100% if Konami ever produces another official title, it should be Juliu’s battle of 1999.
My favourite Belmont is Richter
Duality makes him special
Shanoa and Loretta are 2 of my fav characters.
Halp. Which are the titles showed here?
0:57 , 1:18
@@Raphaelus13 Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls. Unfortunately, it’s not as fun as it looks. It was a mobile gacha game and I don’t think it’s even available for download anymore…
Now if we can get Dracula Chronicles X out with the remaster of SOTN and more with that Richter 3d drip ill die a happy man.
@@TonyTama SotN somehow still not being on Switch after all this time is an actual war crime.
@ThrillingDuck agreed. It's such a corner stone in the franchise that all games followed suit on (save for other spin-offs) I is a war crime even.
Played OOE and DoS and I loved them. I got fatigued when I tried PoR tho.
Great games overall
I wonder if we will get a 3D collection anytime. Castlevania 64, Legacy of Darkness, Lament of Innocence, Curse of Darkness, Lords of Shadow, and Lords of Shadow 2.
I doubt it would contain all of those in one lol. More likely the N64 titles would be bundled together, then PS2, then Lords of Shadow. I'd love to see all of them though!
i want it to be on physical badly but man! on limited run? like, cu,mthef🎉ckon Konami!? sorry, just a physical collector ranting fear of digital erasures in the near future
@@NivraNabru Lol fair enough.
Dude, are you using some kind of mod?
The sprites are so smooth...
Some of the footage may have been using smoothing filters. Pretty sure Dominus Collection has those filters as well!
Is there anyway to hide the second screen and just display the primary one?
@@EdgedShadow I don’t think Dominus has any settings to display only the main screen unfortunately, but having the map always visible is REALLY handy.
Despite the changes to Portrait of ruin I still find DRAWING the Seals to KILL bosses with the 4 buttons just as hard as using the Pen from the original DS version of the game to kill them.
@@veghesther3204 Lol it’s a different kind of challenge. I think the important thing is that it removes the imprecision that comes from the game needing to interpret gestures, and the clumsiness that comes from needing to shift your hands from buttons to stylus (or alternatively, playing the entire boss fight with stylus at the ready to avoid that rapid transition).
To be honest, mastering a weapon is easy than you said. Some enemies give more mastery points than others (a LOT more). And you only need to damage the enemy once with the sub weapon, then just kill it however you like, you will still get the mastery points towards the sub-weapon. You can level the javelin in like 30 minutes top.
@@zuljaras Fair enough, but that’s 30 minutes of deliberate grinding against the highest yield enemies in the game. If a player just plays through the game organically without deliberate grinding like this, they really ARE unlikely to master more than 1 or 2 subweapons, and that’s assuming they’re the only ones they’re using.
@ThrillingDuck it is the equivalent of Dawn's level up souls by getting more or Ecclesia's use weapons more and getting those elemental drops. In both cases PoR is a little faster.
@@zuljaras Okay…? What’s your point? My issue with the mechanic was never that it existed, but with the execution, and more importantly with the way it ties into the side quests in PoR.
In DoS and OoE, variations of weapon mastery generally just offer a nice little incidental bonus to your damage. PoR actively holds nice rewards hostage behind it. That was always the point.
@@ThrillingDuck Ah nothing :) just my 2 cents that it is not as excruciating as it sounds. Nothing more. It is a bigger issue that they did not explain the mastery mechanic in full anywhere in the game.
@ Fair ‘nuff
So, anyone knows if they fixed Luck in Dawn of Sorrow?
Not sure about Luck, but they did fix magic seals by automating them with a single button press :)
I wait a patch for a screen (and centre) and résolution for a mods développer,,i know Konami do not do that
Want to like The Collection but i keep remember about the other 3 Collections with absurd prices keeping me asking; Which should i buy?
@@JorguinTorpedo-ff5vk Imo this one by a country mile. I am admittedly biased, but I say this one. Of all the Igavanias, these are the closest in overall quality to Symphony of the Night.
This one have a new game in it in the extra menu if you want something well, new.
Wait for Black Friday then
Ooe amd PoR are neck and neck the are both my best ones
Portrait of Ruin is besides SotN my second favorite Castlevania.
When are you gonna gush about Symphony of the night and Aria of sorrow if ever
Tbh I hadn't really thought about it - not because I don't love those games to death, but because when I first produced these videos, the impetus was a relative lack of appreciation for the DS trilogy on youtube - something which Aria and Symphony just didn't suffer from in the same way prior to the release of the Dominus Collection.
I'd never say never though!
@@ThrillingDuck btw which is your favourite Castlevania game (dawn?)
@@akhandtripathipyz9888 Overall I’d say Dawn by a hair, yeah :) But Portrait and Symphony are so close they’re like breathing down its neck lol.
Back then I loved DoS and PoR so much, unfortunately while I got to play OoE a bit my NDS just dies and somehow didn't get to play it again since and I didn't even finish the game, once I get this collection this sin will be rectify.
I have a question that is keeping me from buying the game, how does Albus mode from OoE and the Sisters mode from PoR work?
@@Telos_CH Do you mean how do you unlock them or how do they play? Both are unlocked simply by completing one playthrough of their respective main games :) Very simple unlock requirements - they basically just want to make sure you play through the main mode first.
@@ThrillingDuck I meant how do you play them, I've completed the ds games multiple times, this is really the only thing stopping me rn
@@Telos_CH I’m still not sure I understand the question. Broadly speaking the alt character modes play exactly like the main modes, just with alternate characters and by extension alternate move sets. You explore the same maps too, but since you start out with all abilities you can sequence break to your heart’s content. Aside from that, the only other difference is that you can’t collect or use items (equipment or consumables) in the alt modes.
Honestly this collection would be well worth the price of admission even without the alt modes in my opinion, but with them they’re an absolute steal.
@@ThrillingDuck ok, sorry I'm not really explaining myself well.
How do I control Albus and the Sisters with no touch screen? As in, how to teleport with albus, or the special actions of the sisters using the touch screen? Thanks for your previous answers too.
@@Telos_CH Gotcha! So my understanding within the Collection is that they added a usable computer mouse basically to interacti with touch screen elements. The Switch version more than likely has touch screen controls for when you’re undocked, which will definitely be the better way to go when relevant. Most of the time the games aren’t touch screen reliant though. Outside of Sisters Mode which is totally built around it, you basically only use the touch screen during Soma’s magic seals and to access Albus’s teleport ability, which you can basically do without most of the time (although it is quite helpful).
Long story short, if you get the Switch version I’m pretty sure you can use touch screen features when undocked. Otherwise it’s via “mouse.” Not ideal, but about 95% of the package doesn’t need touch at all.
Please make videos about the Netflix series as well!
Just started playing dawn of sorrow :)
Death also had lines in Circle of the moon and harmony of dissonance, just sayin
@@tequilafeline6552 This has come up a couple times lol. You right!
Order of Ecclesia Soulsvania
As for whether or not this is relevant for you to rerelease these videos, I was recommended this video by UA-cam so I think it at east somewhat worked.
I really want to like Dawn of Sorrow, but something in that game caught me off guard...
Did you ever gush about the Netflix show?
@@kennethchia4194 Not yet! I’ll get to it eventually :)
Castlevania Circle of the Moon and Castlevania Order of Ecclesia hardest vanias...
Dominus Collection will suck ass; they couldn't be bothered giving their Penultimate games the Dream Drop Distant PS4 port treatment, instead putting an horrible screen cut...
How hard could it have been to just make some Botton pop-up the map/information screens? Man, I just hate Konami
As someone who has Aria as their favorite game in the series, I feel so mixed on Dawn, I liked it at first and thought it was overhated, but the more time passes the more I feel like it didn’t really add much beyond better sprite work. There was only like two good bosses, it’s story is shit, and I really don’t remember much of its music.
Honestly looking back, it feels more like a high budget fangame, than it does a full on sequel to me. I think they should’ve either made a game about 1999 or put some more time into Julius mode. As is, Dawn’s Julius mode is probably the best alternate mode in serious, but I still feel like they could’ve done more. Just keep it as an alternate reality and I’m sure no one would’ve complained.
@@dailydoseofvitaminc6565 I disagree with most of this, but I respect your opinion. It’s mostly just personal taste stuff anyway. I do think you should check out Dawn’s soundtrack again though if nothing else - it’s genuinely excellent and thoroughly memorable across the board. If you prefer Aria that’s fine, but ain’t nobody can slander Dawn’s soundtrack lol.
Now PS2 collection
@@otakunemesis34 Gimme Lament of Innocence, gimme Curse of Darkness, and for the love of god gimme Symphony of the Night on Switch!!
That Netflix series is a travesty that spits on the legacy of they Castlevania games so no I do not want to watch you gush about it...
@@markhavick7115 Lol out of curiosity what do you dislike about the original? Nocturne had much more vitriolic fan response and I didn’t like it nearly as much, but I’m quite fond of the original overall.
@@ThrillingDuck There are several big things but honestly the biggest is the demeanor and characterization of Alucard. He use to be a very noble and regal character, who carried himself with dignity and poise. They took him and made him a bratty goth edgelord , with immature mannerisms and motives completely unbecoming of how he has vastly been portrayed in the franchise proper. To me that was this most glaring thing. The whole nearly fetishistic power fantasy approach to the dynamics between the Hector and his female captors at the complete expense of his dynamic with Issac (who they totally changed for some slave/race iconography that they seem to be all too fond of) and his wife.
I can go on and on but the Alucard thing is the biggest. It seriously makes me lose all respect for the animated Netflix series. I don't even canonize it.
@@markhavick7115 Gotcha, I see. I don’t really feel the same way, but I expected to see considerable liberties taken given how little the source material gave them to work with regarding narrative detail and character building. In fact I actually thought they handled Alucard quite well, considering he’s supposed to be quite young at this point and he still contrasted Trevor quite nicely imo, but that’s just my personal take.
Aria Of Sorrow beats Portrait Of Ruin, but Dawn Of Sorrow does not.
Love me some Aria also, even if I prefer Dawn overall. Honestly, all these games are pretty neck and neck for me, with my preferences being extremely marginal.
Im getting this just based on the lack of stylus bs controls. That was the most annoying thing ever.
@@randallgoeswhere Instant no-fuss magic seals probably elevate Dawn a whole point up all on their own lol.
Emudeck!! anyone lol
Nocturne sucked, but this ought to be really good
@@firebirdstark I didn’t hate it lol, but I did prefer the original Netflix series for sure.
@@ThrillingDuck it was another shitty fan fic/shipping…thing with the skin of castlevania. Written by tumblr writers, masking all the bad points by revealing Alucard at the end. I could go on lmao
Your video on the other hand was good, I’m looking forward to playing these on the switch once I get my paycheck
Dissent: Not including Symphony of the Night in this collection makes me not want to buy it. These games are all awesome, but I want all the Castlevania. I don't want to buy a new collection every year that re-releases just a couple titles, when there's a huge catalog out there. I want the crappy MS-DOS Castlevania. I want Lords of Shadow. And most of all, I wanted Symphony of the Night. Konami doesn't deserve to own such a magnificent franchise with how they treat it.
@@Skelthane Symphony still not being on the Switch at this point is absolutely disgusting, but this is still the first and only re-release of this particular trilogy, and it seems silly to me not to support it on the grounds of it not including Symphony alone, since that title actually HAS seen prior re-releases. Obviously it’s your decision to make though.
And I hard agree about Konami not deserving to own this magnificent franchise.
I don't want Mexican food unless it comes with a churro, horchata and a stain on my shirt.
Don't be a SOTN simp, don't sleep on these amazing games.
@@ThrillingDuckyeah, SOTN is on android
- No LCD/Scanlines filter
- No possibility to display only the main screen
That's a skip for me.
That was the dealbreaker for you? Then I dare say, you probably never that big of a Castlevania fan in the first place.
@@unsungzero6122 How the hell did you come to that conclusion when i'm litteraly asking for the games to look like they did on the original hardware ? I already can play all 3 games, of course i'm not gonna settle like someone who doesn't have access to the original material.
Yep... i also refuse to play with the second DS screen crammed to the side...they could have made proper ports or done a button press to bring the second screen info up.
Ultimately...on DS...On emulator...on a pimped wiiu remains superior!
@@seeker2657 That's exactly how it works even on free custom firware for retro handhelds. You can switch between the main and second screen with a button press when you want to. So, no excuse for a game collection i'm supposed to pay for.
@@yagami999913Then why are you even here?
Nintendo Switch with emulator are better
@@billyk3632 I’m sure it is lol, but the fact that Konami even bothered to do this is a small miracle. If we don’t support official releases, we truly will have no hope for any future titles. Besides, Dominus runs great.
this doesn't cover anything about the collection you just talked about the games nothing about features or anything. FAILURE
@@sapphireglaceon I love how you had to both completely forget the video’s intro and scroll past the pinned comment without reading it in order to write this.