It is safe to say that the Castlevania franchise is a series that has marked the gaming industry in a way that has had ripples throughout almost every genre. Konami has been doing a great job of preserving the history of the franchise by releasing collections over the past few years. The Castlevania Dominus Collection carries that forward while also making one particular game available for the first time internationally.

The Castlevania Dominus Collection contains Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia, 3 DS classics in the Castlevania franchise. However, it also allows you to play Haunted Castle Revisited, which is a reimagined version of the original Castlevania arcade game from Japan. Not only can you play Haunted Castle Revisited, you can play the original version of Haunted Castle in full Japanese.

The gameplay is fairly simple to control in each game. The right joystick acts as a pointer for things that would be done on the touch screen, and information from both “screens” is available in a variety of configurations that can be set in the options menu. Additionally, you can save the game anywhere, instead of just doing a “suspend” save if you need to stop playing but haven’t found a save room yet.

Each of the games included play very well, and as someone who has seen terrible ports of DS-era games, I’m glad that these three have gotten better attention. I’m not going to go into the details of mechanics and whatnot, but I can say that the touch-screen mechanics are easy to use, and the gameplay overall translates surprisingly well.

If you haven’t played any of the games in the Castlevania Dominus Collection, now is a perfect time. The art style is fantastic, the music is great, the gameplay is top-notch, and the ports overall are wonderfully made. If you’re a fan of the franchise and you have played the whole set, this port is still worth getting, if only so you can play these classic games all over again. Metroidvania fans who haven’t dipped their toes into Castlevania will feel right at home here too.

A PC Review copy of Castlevania Dominus Collection was provided by Konami for the purposes of this review.

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Castlevania Dominus Collection

$24.99 USD

10

Score

10.0/10

Pros

• 3 Great Portable classics with 30+ hours of gameplay
• Simple Controls
• A Re-imagined arcade classic
• Nostalgic Pixel Art
• Great Value and Game Preservation