Castlevania Dominus Collection Review

Castlevania Dominus Collection

Release: August 27, 2024
Publisher: Konami
Developer: M2
Genre: Action, Adventure, Genres, Horror, Nintendo Switch Categories, Retro, Switch Reviews
PEGI: 12
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Castlevania Dominus Collection brings three DS Castlevania games to the Nintendo Switch. It also has a remake of a lesser known title in the franchise. Is this collection worth getting? Here’s our review!

The Castlevania Dominus Collection includes three DS games from the franchise plus Haunted Castle and its remake Haunted Castle Revisited. The addition of Haunted Castle, especially its remake, is pretty neat.

The remake is old school Castlevania fun, but, without a doubt, the three DS Castlevania games are the meat and potatoes of the collection.

ORDER OF ECCLESIA

In Order of Ecclesia, you play as Shanoa, a vampire hunter who is sent off to retrieve a glyph that will let you defeat the ultimate enemy once and for all. The glyph has been taken by another student of her master. Shanoa goes off to retrieve it and along the way gathers other glyphs too.

The glyphs in the game give you different weapons and different powers. Shanoa will explore various places to find the glyphs and defeat enemies. The game can sometimes be a bit tough, enemy wise and finding your way. There is a lot of backtracking in the game.

Overall, its pretty fun though and controls well on the Switch. There isn’t many touch screen controls on this one. That changes with the next two games though. Order of Ecclessia has the best graphics of the three games but all of them look good and play well.

PORTRAIT OF RUIN

In Portrait of Ruin, you have two characters, Jonathan Morris a vampire hunter and Charlotte Aulin a sorceress who are trying to stop the forces of evil from rebuilding Dracula’s castle. You’ll switch between them and can use or the other and use them at the same time for puzzles. There are some touch screen controls in this one that were on the DS and you can use them if you play the game in portable mode. You can also totally ignore the touch screen controls and just analogue controls.

Portrait of Ruin is a really fun game and the switching mechanic works well. There’s a lot to do. The story and the gameplay are good and the graphics hold up well.

DAWN OF SORROW

In Dawn of Sorrow, you play as Soma Cruz, who has inherited Dracula’s powers. A cult wants to kill him and bring back Dracula. Soma will set out to try and stop them from bringing back the famous vampire. Dawn of Sorrow is a good-looking game but not as much as the other two games. It’s a sequel to Aria of Sorrow a GBA game and looks a little bit more like a game from that system.

Still Dawn of Sorrow is a fun game and even has some touch screen mechanics like drawing symbols to unlock special doors. You can use analog controls for this but the touch screen controls do work well in handheld mode. All of these games are pretty great and the extras are cool.

CONCLUSION

Not only are there great games but there’s a lot of behind the scenes art for each game and you can listen to all the music. Plus you can the various overseas versions of the three main games. You can also adjust the DS’s “second screen” info the way you want. With these games, plus Haunted Castle and Haunted Castle Revisited, this collection offers a ton of great content.

If you’re a Castlevania fan and you love these games, then you’ll enjoy this collection, If you’re a fan of the series and you’ve never played these games before, you are in for treat. The three main games are fantastic. Haunted Castle Revisited is a neat remake. This collection is a must have for any Castlevania fan.

Thanks to BCW Global for providing a digital copy of this game for review. Castlevania Dominus Collection is available for the Nintendo Switch right now.

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