Is it important to have played C:AOS before C:DS?

[WiseSalesman]

Simple enough question: a friend was telling me that I should really play Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow before I play Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrows. I currently own neither, but I wanted to buy DS. How important is it really?

[njiska]

I haven't played Aria, but i've heard less inspiring things about Aria.

I just went straight to Dawn and i didn't feel like i had missed a thing.

[Needle]

You can safely play Dawn of Sorrow without missing a beat. The two use similar soul collection systems, however the two stories seem pretty disjointed, despite following the same character and timeline. I'd say dive into Dawn of Sorrow - and if you like it as much as everyone else does (myself included) then chances are you'll want to pick up the two-pack coming out for GBA next week!

[Ed Oscuro]

Yes, it seems that as time goes on more and more people decide irrationally that they dislike Aria of Sorrow and love Harmony of Dissonance. To be sure, Aria doesn't seem as spectacular now as it used to, but it's still quite fun, sounds great, looks beautiful. The main problem with it, I think, is the relatively undynamic combat. Old-style Castlevania combat needs no introduction; but replace that with simple sword stabs and a button that lets you dash back and forth.

[AKay]

you dont need to play it to play dawn of sorrow.
But aria is an awesome game, you should play it either way!
AKay

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Yes, it seems that as time goes on more and more people decide irrationally that they dislike Aria of Sorrow and love Harmony of Dissonance.


I was like that from the beginning. Horrible music or not, I still think Harmony was the better game. Not that Aria's bad, it's still a solid Castlevania game, I just personally thought it felt rushed.

Anyways, to answer the original question.. no. No you don't need to play Aria first to fully enjoy Dawn of Sorrow. Though it wouldn't hurt.

[Lothars]

I've never played aria of sorrow but I really like dawn of sorrow it's an awesome game.

[Ed Oscuro]

I was like that from the beginning. Horrible music or not, I still think Harmony was the better game. Not that Aria's bad, it's still a solid Castlevania game, I just personally thought it felt rushed.
Odd...as I see it, Harmony is like this:

Classic GB/NES style synth music, "cleaner" sounding, but only a few compositions as nice as those in AoS (Successor of Fate, Offense and Defense, and the walkway theme (remixed on the soundtrack release) are the three that come to mind as being outstanding).

Neon color scheme...the game was made with brighter colors as the only GBA available at the time was the original one. It doesn't look horrible on a backlit system, but at best the brightness detracts from the mood, and at worst it looks simply ugly (Castle Treasury, which is a crystal cavern). That said, areas in the game tend to look less alike than places in Aria.

Larger graphics at time than Aria...there are lots of details thrown about (sometimes references to past Castlevania games) that were bigger than any details from Aria, but there are large spaces without much in the background.

Worse tile work (overall) than Aria. Wholly subjective, but once you're outside the Entrance Hall, the castle starts looking pretty ugly. Take the two caverns (Luminous Cavern and...well, the other one; one has crystals and the other's got regular cave walls). Horrible to look at. The area in the center with all the elevators isn't anything to look at, especially in the parts where the light red shows through. To see what I mean, look at the CV Dungeon's pages on the two games' stages:

HoD (http://castlevania.classicgaming.gamespy.com/Games/hodstages.html)
AoS (http://castlevania.classicgaming.gamespy.com/Games/ariastages.html)

Reused enemies. Sure, the classic Rondo of Blood enemies work, but I loved the fact that they finally drew some new enemies for Aria - and they look great, too.

Different attack scheme. This one tried to be more like classic CV, but with a long attack time (one whip hit can do damage to the enemy multiple times, and it seems quite artificial to me with the iron ball ticking off damage a few times a second by just hanging there). Of course, if you're underpowered, it takes an eternity to kill enemies.

Finally: HoD doesn't have a ghost ship.

Aria does have its faults - nobody really likes the Dance Hall - but it has a wide variety of areas that look as if they belong in a Castle. Of course the storyline in both games is outlandish, but I liked the characters in Aria more.

I'd highly recommend either game...after playing Dawn of Sorrow, though, either of the other two will doubtlessly feel a little flat by comparision.