You don’t have the touch…
Konami has been on a roll as of late with their classic collections. Castlevania alone has seen a hefty number of compilations outside of one glaring omission, no idea how we are in 2024 and Symphony of the Night is not on Switch. Their latest compilation is easily the most interesting as it includes three games designed for unique hardware. The Dominus Collection packs the three Nintendo DS games and one classic arcade game into one succinct package. Translating these games to a traditional console is certainly interesting, and they managed to pull it off. It is great to finally be able to revisit these games on a larger screen with some solid quality of life updates.
So, what is in this package? The Dominus Collection packs the three DS games which include Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia. Oddly on the title screen they are presented in reverse chronological order. That aside, each game has its own unique playable characters and gameplay hooks.
MSRP: $24.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $24.99
Dawn of Sorrow was the first released, and it focused much more on the touch screen controls than the titles that followed it. This game focuses on Soma Cruz, who is the reincarnation of Dracula. Dawn of Sorrow leaned heavily into the touch screen as Soma uses various magical spells that are drawn out using the second screen. This method is still available for things like the Steam Deck, but when playing on a console like Xbox, I had to pull the trigger and draw with the analog stick. It can feel cumbersome at first, but it works.
Next up is Portrait of Ruin which includes two playable characters, Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin. Jonathan is the son of John Morris from Bloodlines and Charlotte is a witch who has been friends with Jonathan since childhood. The hook in this game is that both characters can be swapped between to solve puzzles within the game.
Then, we have Order of Ecclesia which has players taking on the role of Shanoa. This game focuses on a glyph system which gives the main character new abilities and attacks as they are obtained from enemies. Similar to the more recent Bloodstained. This was the last of these types of games and is widely considered the weakest of the trilogy, but I still really enjoy it. Especially the music.
Finally, we have a remake of the original Haunted Castle from 1987. For those that don’t know, this was an arcade game that eventually morphed into the Castlevania series. It is a novelty to include and actually looks really good in this remake. It is still clunky to play though and is included mostly as a cool nod than anything else.
As for the new features of this package, things are a little different this time around. There are no visual filters for the game. This isn’t a huge deal as they look good, even on a big screen. What I could do though, was change the layout of the view. I could slot it exactly like the DS with the screens stacked or other options that added extra information to the site while the gameplay remained at the proper aspect ratio. It is a neat idea, and I could swap it on-the-fly. It does also have the standard rewind features and save states that are specific to each game.
The Dominus Collection is a welcome addition to the Konami classics. Revisiting these games gave me a new appreciation for them. They all three hold up well and the music continues to be timeless. Yet another stellar package of classics, now Konami needs to sort out the Symphony of the Night issues and perhaps add them to the 64 and PS2-era games for one final collection. That would be epic.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
