castlevania advance collection

Castlevania Advance Collection is a remastered compilation of four of the released Castlevania games for the Gameboy Advance. Castlevania: Circle of Blood, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, and Dracula X. The games focuses on the usual plot, defeat Dracula, explore his castle and defeat the bosses about sums it up.

 The games follow the typical Metroidvania format that was set by Symphony Of The Night, where you have to explore and backtrack around the castle, once you get new abilities after defeating bosses. The remastered games maintain the original gameplay and add some new features.  

Each area like in the games is unique and interesting. Each game has its own unique system like the dual card system in Circle of Blood, the magic system in Harmony of Dissonance and also copying enemy abilities in Aria of Sorrow. 

Just like before, you can find and equip a lot of different items based on how you think you should proceed. The music throughout the games is excellent. The pixel graphics looks decent for the most part depending on the games, some of them can be a bit difficult to look at. The platforming can be awkward from time to time and the maps in the game can be confusing too as well. 

In Circle Of Blood, it does get grindy while looking for items like healing potions and cards. The card combination was interesting where you mix and match cards for special bonuses for combat and exploration. Circle of Blood had the ability to continue after your last save.  Both Aria Of Sorrow and Harmony Of Dissonance had free full health drop after you beat a boss so there are some perks exclusive to each game.  

The games included save states and rewind features so you can save at any point. The games as always are challenging. This comes from the artificial difficulty like the stiffness in animation for certain games like Circle of Blood, Enemy spam attacks and never ending respawns and also being bounced back into places you aren't going to especially with platforming. 

Theres other extras too like the in game encyclopedia and gallery of artwork.  

The best game I recommend out of the entire collection would be Aria Of Sorrow. It was enjoyable and fast paced it is and even better, it does not have the infamous finicky drawing system of the sequel. 

Overall, it was a solid remastered compilation.  

It gets 5 out of 5 stars.