Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is the latest iteration of Konami's decades-old franchise and the first to appear on the Nintendo DS. Don't let the title fool you; this really isn't the dawn of anything, except maybe a bunch more Castlevania games on the DS. And the subtitle here is simply a workable way to include the letters D and S in the title of the game, as seems to be the requirement for the platform at this point. Dawn of Sorrow actually takes place a year after the events in Aria of Sorrow, which came out in 2003 on the Game Boy Advance. If you've played that game--or if you've played just about any recent Castlevania game actually--you'll be right at home with Dawn of Sorrow, because it's basically the same game repackaged to fit the DS. That isn't a bad thing though, because the Castlevania games have long carried the torch for good, old-fashioned 2D side-scrolling gameplay, and Dawn of Sorrow keeps that flame burning as bright as ever.

Soma Cruz returns to thwart the plans of a strange new cult that is hoping to resurrect Dracula.

The star of Dawn of Sorrow is Soma Cruz, the young adventurer who narrowly avoided becoming the next Dracula in Aria of Sorrow. Soma has the ability to collect the souls of monsters he kills, thus inheriting their powers. A year after Soma escaped Dracula's castle, a mysterious woman named Celia shows up and attacks him. Celia is a priestess of a new cult that is attempting to resurrect Dracula. Since Soma already proved once before that he's capable of foiling the resurrection of the dark lord, the cult decides to eliminate him before he can mess up their plans as well. Soma survives the attack quite easily and Celia is forced to retreat. Apparently Soma doesn't take kindly to people who try to kill him, so he sets out to find Celia and prevent her from reviving Dracula.

The entire game takes place at the cult's base, which is a replica of Dracula's castle. In true Castlevania form you'll start off relatively weak, with only a knife and some mediocre armor. As you progress through areas of the castle, you'll fight monsters and search the mazelike hallways where you'll gain experience, as well as find new and better equipment. As you gain experience, you'll level up and your stats will increase in attack, defense, strength, constitution, intelligence, and luck.

Throughout the game you'll also collect the souls of monsters you kill. These souls can be equipped to give Soma new abilities. There are three types of souls you can equip, as well as ability-type souls that grant you special powers without having to equip them. Ability souls are collected when you defeat bosses, and these abilities are usually required to progress through the game. By using these ability souls Soma can learn how to double-jump, move underwater, and break crystal blocks--all of which are required to access certain areas of the castle.

The other three types of souls have to be equipped. Bullet-type souls give you a special attack, usually involving projectiles of some sort. If you have the axe armor soul equipped, you can throw axes at your foes. However, each toss of the axe consumes a little magic. Guardian souls have a wide range of effects, and when activated they continuously consume your magic points. These souls let you summon familiars and perform special abilities, like turning into a bat. Finally, there are enchant-type souls, which have to be equipped but don't cost any magic points. These souls grant passive stat or ability bonuses. For example, you can equip the golem soul to get a bonus to your strength, or the skelerang soul to improve your throwing ability. Since there are more than 100 different enemies in the game, the combinations are almost endless. Not all monsters give up their souls that easily, though. You'll usually have to defeat the same monster several times in order to collect its soul, and since some monsters appear very rarely, it can take quite awhile to collect every type of soul in the game.

Just as in other Castlevanias, you'll spend lots of time collecting power-ups, fighting bosses…and trying to figure out where to go next.

The souls also play a role in customizing your equipment. As you play you'll collect all kinds of weapons, armor, and accessories. Soma is skilled with a variety of monster-killing implements like swords, spears, axes, and guns. Each weapon can be fused with a soul to create a new, more powerful weapon. Once you fuse a soul with a weapon, you can no longer use that soul unless you release it from the weapon. The fused weapons are much stronger than the regular weapons you find, which gives you all the more reason to keep collecting souls. Once you have your weapons and gear in order, you can set up two different equipment and soul configurations to meet specific needs. While playing, you can simply hit the X button to quickly switch between the two configurations. This doesn't quite eliminate the need for you to access your equipment menu altogether, but it does help keep the breaks in the action to a minimum.

The castle is split up into several interconnected areas, each with a different theme. You'll explore a clock tower, a garden, a chapel, an underground cavern, and more. If you've played previous Castlevania games, you won't find many surprises in the level design here. The game is fairly linear, since certain abilities are required to access certain areas. But there's no handholding going on here. You'll have to figure out the path for yourself, and other than the frequent dead ends, there are no clues to point you in the right direction. You'll rely on the map (conveniently displayed on the top screen) to tell you where you need to go, but even with that you'll spend a lot of time aimlessly roaming the halls trying to figure out where to go to move the game along. The enemies reappear every time you enter a room, so even when you're just wandering around, you still have plenty of monsters to keep you busy. You'll grow stronger as you continue to defeat the monsters.