Castlevania Dominus Collection

These games are a blast still, though there was a strange flickering bug that I got rid of by forcing the game to use my nvidea card, apparently it was using integrated graphics by default. All three of the DS titles hold up great, and I overall prefer them to the GBA entries. Portrait of Ruin may not match the usual serious gothic look the series goes for in art style and tone, but it, alongside with Order of Ecclesia are my two favorites among all of the handheld entries. Dracula's castle has yet to be topped after Symphony of The Night, but these titles both have fun gameplay, while allowing for unique locations you don't normally see in these game, namely the portrait world, and the lands around Dracula's castle. Dawn of Sorrow is still pretty great, even if I prefer the other two.

Honestly Castlevania as a whole across all platforms is a subpar series. Lots of duds mixed in with amazing games. There was truly just one "golden age" for the series - If you had a GBA and/or DS in the 2000's, Castlevania was just an unbroken chain of bangers. Every release was a must play and some of the best games each platform had to offer. The 3 DS titles here were part of that and hold up so so well. I dumped a lot of time in these back in the day (especially grinding skills in Portrait) and I had just as much fun with the core gameplay 15 years later. This 2D, high speed, detailed sprites, and deep item and skill pool style ages like wine. Older clunkier ones aren't as exciting, and newer 3D ones age real fast. This collection is the perfect middle and will continue to lap most of the games on either side of it as time moves on (no disrespect to Symphony of the Night, which btw please can we get a Steam release?) Platformer fans, absolutely play this collection. Then also go play the GBA collection if you haven't either.

Hands down 10/10, and my favourite in the Collection. I bought this one solely for Haunted Castle and Haunted Castle-Revisited, because Haunted Castle was the first Castlevania I ever played as a kid. It got me hooked to the franchise. The only thing I wish the developers could add to this game is fixing the LUCK stat bug in Dawn of Sorrow, add option scanlines to all the games, and add the secret blue glowing level with harpies from Haunted Castle, to Haunted Castle Re-Visited. That one was so magical! Oh, and also ability to toggle Timer on and off on Haunted Castle Re-Visited.