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GBA

Castlevania Double-Pack Released

by Michael Cole - January 10, 2006, 1:33 pm EST
Total comments: 12

If you can't get enough of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, perhaps this will quench your thirst.

KONAMI SHIPS CASTLEVANIA DOUBLE PACK TO RETAIL STORES NATIONWIDE

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance and Castlevania: Aria Of Sorrow Combine Onto One GBA Game Pak For The Ultimate Dracula Adventure

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – January 10, 2006 – Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc., announced today Castlevania Double Pack for the Nintendo Game Boy® Advance handheld video game system has shipped to retail stores nationwide. The legendary titles Castlevania®: Harmony of Dissonance™ and Castlevania®: Aria of Sorrow™ are combined onto the same GBA cartridge, letting Castlevania fans experience twice the amount of evil and adventure in one convenient game package. Both chapters are among the most highly acclaimed games in the long running Castlevania franchise and will provide hours of portable gaming fun.

In Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, players take the role of Juste Belmont, a descendant of Simon Belmont. It has been nearly fifty years since Simon Belmont rescued the land from the curse of Dracula. Now, it’s Juste Belmont’s turn as he must acquire the relics of Dracula left behind from the past in order to unravel the mysterious disappearance of his friend Lydie Erlanger. With a trusty whip at their side, players explore Dracula’s castle under the cover of night collecting relics and learning powerful magic spells in their journey to find and rescue Lydie.

In Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, players take the role of Soma Cruz, a young man who has been chosen as the next incarnation of the dark lord Dracula. The year is 2035 and Soma Cruz is about to witness the first solar eclipse of the 21st century when he suddenly blacks out – only to awaken inside a mysterious castle. Players discover that they are destined to become the dark lord and the only way to escape from this evil fate is to escape the castle. As Soma, players will be able to wield a great variety of weapons in their quest to escape Dracula’s castle. Along the way, players discover the ability to collect and use the souls of vanquished enemies to make themselves more powerful or enable them to perform special skills. In addition, there is an RPG element of Aria of Sorrow which adds another level of depth to the game.

Created by Koji Igarashi and the creative team behind the critically acclaimed game Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Castlevania Double Pack is rated “T” for Teen by the ESRB and has an SRP of $29.99. For more information on Castlevania Double Pack, please visit: www.konami.com/gs.

Talkback

KnowsNothingJanuary 10, 2006

Hawt. DoS is my first Castlevania game, and it's gotten me VERY interested in the series. Of course, now I'm going to have to view the map the old-fashioned way face-icon-small-frown.gif

Nosferat2January 10, 2006

Now if only we could have gotten this on GC....

NinGurl69 *hugglesJanuary 10, 2006

It's called a Game Boy Player.

Nosferat2January 10, 2006

DOH!

Its obvious to see that i never owned a handheld. I forgot that there was even such a thing.

Thanks for reminding me that i can spend 80 or so bucks to play two old Gameboy games on my GC. Does that not irritate you as much as it does me? 50 for the player and 30 or so for the game. Gameboy games at that. They can put those games on a disk just as easy. It just saddens me i have to resort to your suggested route in order to play a game,series actually, which i fell in love with on a company's console were it, the series, started.

anyway i could just buy a gameboy, but i refuse to support nintendos handheld business as it detracts from their console efforts. I suspect thats why Castlvania is on the GB because of good sales. I cant support that cause i fear, however irrational it may be, that my helping those sales will make it that much more unlikely that Castlevania will not come back to Nintendos console. Thats the same reason why i never committed blasphamy and bought a PS2 to play Castlevania. I just prayed that it would have came to the GC. Well it didnt. I guess heres hoping that it will come to the Rev.

KnowsNothingJanuary 10, 2006

You complain about the most retarded things.

Infernal MonkeyJanuary 10, 2006

Quote

anyway i could just buy a gameboy, but i refuse to support fun.


Haha okay dude. I also hate the GBA (the original, SP and Micro all seem quite horrible) but I got a GBP for the very few GBA games that appeal to me.

And there's now like, DS.

I can't believe that the GameBoy Player is still $50. I mean, come on. There can't be anybody buying it any more.

As for the Double-Pack? AWESOME. These are the only two Castlevania games I don't own. Dawn of Sorrow is my father.

NinGurl69 *hugglesJanuary 10, 2006

- I bought my Game Boy Player less than a month ago. I traded in my old-school GBA and a DVD for $15 worth of in-store credit to soften the GB-Player's price.

- I bought Castlevania: Circle of the Moon off ebay a couple months ago, new, cuz it was rare. Only $30 spent there. I didn't start playing it till i got the GB Player, cuz it's virtually unplayable on the non-lit GBA.

- I've played thru Castlevania: Lament of Innocence/PS2. You're not missing anything. That Igarashi guy is nuts. The game's not memorable, nor addicting, the camera is irritable, the CV legend was re-written into trash, and the platforming is a disgrace to the 2D legacy. Circle of the Moon was a worthy, fullfilling addition to the series (in fact, my favorite so far; i've yet to play Dawn of Sorrow). This game is not. I like the N64 Castlevanias more than this game. The PS2 "sequel" is apparently an attempt to "fix" the shortcomings of LoI, but again falls into the spikey platforming pit of "meh."

Math:
Spend $80 for (GB Player + Circle of the Moon) = Quality CV gaming

OR

Spend $80 for (GB Player + Aria/Harmony 2-pack) = Quality CV gaming

OR

Spend $SOMETHING for (PS2 + CV junk) = CV Mediocrity (or from another perspective, a product with obviously good production values but a horrible interest-killing aftertaste that gives you the conclusion you'll never look back on it fondly or ever play it again)

Funny how the GBA CV's originated from the N64 CV team, while the "Symphony of the Night dream team" brought Lament of Innocence, a CV game I stopped caring about after 1 week.

~~~~~

I NEED MORE JAPANESE ANIME RPGs LIKE TALES AND MANA AND STUFF (and 2D handheld Castlevania counts as RPG, to a degree)

cuz the battle systems, not to mention gritty/dusty art styles, in those "western" RPGs just don't cut it for me.

KDR_11kJanuary 10, 2006

They can put those games on a disk just as easy.

No because then it wouldn't work on the GBA, genius.

Ian SaneJanuary 11, 2006

"Thanks for reminding me that i can spend 80 or so bucks to play two old Gameboy games on my GC. Does that not irritate you as much as it does me? 50 for the player and 30 or so for the game. Gameboy games at that. They can put those games on a disk just as easy. It just saddens me i have to resort to your suggested route in order to play a game,series actually, which i fell in love with on a company's console were it, the series, started."

The GB Player is awesome. It's probably one of the best game related purchases I've ever made. Don't think of it as $50 for Castlevania. Think of it as $50 for another system altogether because that's what it is. For the price of a game you get access to 16 years of games. Now I think the price of the player should go down as the GBA itself gets cheaper but it's still worth it.

Even if Castlevania was on the Cube you wouldn't like it anyway. Castlevania is only worth a damn in 2D and sadly 2D games are largely limited to portables now.

Plus from a business standpoint it makes no sense to release the games on a Gamecube disc when the games were originally released on the GBA and Cube owners already can play GBA games on the Cube. The only reason to release the games on Cube disc is to please Cube owners who utterly refuse to buy a GBA of any kind and I'm pretty sure you're probably the only one like that.

nitsu niflheimJanuary 11, 2006

I buy Castlevania games when they come out so I don't have to worry about a month later when it gets discontiued and have to wait a million years before it becomes available again.

KnoxxvilleJanuary 11, 2006

I bought Chronicles for the PSX for that very reason.

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