How would you guys rank the 3 DS titles from favorite to least favorite?

[Ereson]

I played this games nearly 20 years ago, and have fond memories of a simpler time in gaming.

Just curious how you guys would rank these games, and why that order?

My order from favorite to least favorite would be:

1. Castlevania Dawn of Sorrows- The follow up to Aria of Sorrow didn't disappoint me at all. I love the upgraded soul system, it kinda reminded me of the Megaman Battle Network games where you can customize your playstyle to your hearts content. My favorite red soul was the Disc Armor, the only soul that you can only gets one advanced upgrade, to a bigger disc!

2. Castlevania Order of Ecclesia- A fairly good game overall, although I think a lot of people hate the crab boss for obvious reasons. The bosses were great outside that one, and the glyph system was unique take on the franchise.

3. Castlevania Portrait of Ruin- Not a bad game by any means, but I was annoyed at the amount of recycled enemies here, I think the level layout was a bit wonky too, like the carnival level. I didn't particularly care for the pairing system either, although it was a unique idea I admit.

[toughnails]

Order > Portrait > Dawn

Dawn is just too grindy (the Luck bug doesn't help) and a lazy retread of Aria. Also, it's the only one with forced touchscreen gimmicks.

Order has the best mechanics and balance, Portrait has the most content and length.

[Ereson]

Any others wanna rank these games?

[Soren]

Order of Ecclesia > Dawn of Sorrow > Portrait of Ruin for me personally.

Order of Ecclesia being the best because hardmode is just that good in it. Playing hardmode on a fresh save is the way to go.

I love Soma as a character. I used him the most in Castlevania HD, and still would have done so even if he wasn't OP. But the more anime approach of the sequel and the touch controls are minor gripes I have with the game. If they had stuck more to the original art style or the gothic concept art it would have helped, as the gothic art style makes Order of Ecclesia look the best of the three. Difficulty is why it's not my most favourite though. Even on hardmode it's too easy if you grind for souls/items. Which I love grinding.

Potrait of Ruin I never really played all the way through I must confess. I mean too eventually. My only superficial criticism of it is the anime art style that is similar to Dawn of Sorrow.

[Zeo]

Portrait: the amount of content and replayability is no joke! There's tons of stuff to do ingame, maps to discover, builds to use and multiple endings, the fact that you can main Julius or Charlote already is a plus, as none of them are boring, people criticize way too hard the anime aesthetic but this wasn't the first time that the series tried that.
Also the legendary Yuzo Koshiro participed to create some songs, 10 out 10!

Dawn of Sorrow: f-king gorgeous game, to me it's the definitive looks of a 2D Castlevania, have all the perks of the game above (less Yuzo Koshiro lol) and it's a shorter game, for this only reason I rank it below Portrait, but it's good equally.

Ecclesia: insanely hard game to play casually, in some ways was a more rushed production with many maps just being recolored, the ramped difficulty may not please some but boy, the story is dark! It's like going back to it's roots, Shanoa is one of the most badass protagonists that unfortunately we don't see on tier lists due how obscure this game is.
The stamina bar can be a plus or cons depending of how you look at it and it's the shortest game of all, but it's unique in it own way and honestly it's unfair to compare with both two.

You didn't asked but for the others: Aria of Sorrow > Symphony of the Night (too overrated, almost all the other games took the formula and improved).

[sere]

Order, Portrait, Dawn. I like Order for characters, aesthetic, and glyphs! plus a couple of tracks. It is my least favorite for exploration. If Aria did not exist then I might have put Dawn above Portrait. Aria will always look down upon Dawn, not because Dawn is a bad game in any way, but because Aria is just that good.

[PÖIЙ† βLΛЙK]

Portrait>Dawn>Order

Portrait had my favorite, soundtrack, environments, and story of the bunch. I like how it integrated the whip as a subset of weapons under the equipment system introduced in Symphony and reintroduced in the Sorrow games.

Dawn is good but flawed, I feel it's a significantly grindy version of Aria, and has a pretty mediocre story. It probably has my favorite bosses in the collection though.

Through modding, if you remove the touchscreen gimmick entirely and alleviate the terrible drop rates, Dawn jumps to being almost as good as Portrait to me.

I think Order has some crushing difficulty issues when playing casually, specifically with the bosses, whereas the previous three games felt more fair across the board. I also felt the glyph system was a little undercooked. Unique, but easily my least favorite gimmick of the DS games.

All great games regardless, and some of my favorite games of all time. Also the anime art style for the first two DS games never really bothered me. I think it fits the tone of those games' stories and characters, somewhat.


For the IGAvania games in general (excluding HD), the whole list would be:

Symphony>Aria>Portrait=Bloodstained>Dawn=Order>>Harmony>>>Circle

[Kate Hikes]

They are like my children and I love them all equally.

Buuuut....

If I had to, I guess I'd go...

Nevermind, I can't bring myself to rank them.

[Tsuki Zero]

PoR > OoE > J2ME DoS > DoS

Reasons?
PoR was the more inspired one, borrowing ideas from Maze of Galious and referencing King's Valley alongside typical Castlevania references, it also offered more in gameplay variety and modes.

OoE had high difficulty, but at least farming stuff wasn't so bad and the quest system kind of made things interesting... It lost points because Hard Mode is absurd, the variety was lacking, and the shop had things a bit TOO expensive while not giving enough value for what you sell. Also Dracula was cool.

DoS may have had huge variety, good music... But it was held back by forced touch screen interaction, awful drop rates (not helped by Luck having no impact) and TERRIBLE navigation (screw Gergoth's tower). The J2ME version made the Magic Seals good, even if it came at the cost of variety.

[prudenut]

Ecclesia > PoR >> DoS

Dawn = forgettable, portrait too easy and too meh (heard it’s a lot better on hard mode tho, gonna try that first when i get the collection), and ecclesia is the the most difficult and well rounded, but I do admit balance is completely broken once you get the laser glyph. Dawn would be better if they would just fix the luck bug tho.

[Ereson]

Never knew people disliked the DOS anime aesthetic so much, I always thought it was a massive upgrade over the gothic aesthetics from AOS honestly. But to each their own.

[Ancient Toaster]

PoR > DoS > > > > > > > > > OoE

Order of Ecclesia is horrendous. I genuinely believe that people say they love it are just doing it for the meme's.

Worst bosses, level design and exploration in the entire Metroidvania series. Even more lackluster level design than the old NES games.

[Tsuki Zero]

Originally posted by Ancient Toaster:

PoR > DoS > > > > > > > > > OoE

Order of Ecclesia is horrendous. I genuinely believe that people say they love it are just doing it for the meme's.

Worst bosses, level design and exploration in the entire Metroidvania series. Even more lackluster level design than the old NES games.

OoE has Brachiura, your argument is invalid.

[Soren]

Originally posted by Tsuki Zero:

OoE has Brachiura, your argument is invalid.

Honestly, coolest thing about Order of Ecclesia is the right eye of the devil. You're basically unstoppable with the altered perception of time. Even the most difficult rooms in hardmode become easy in slow motion.

If anyone had the right eye of the devil in real life. They'd be aimbot tier player at shooters.

[Zeo]

Originally posted by Ancient Toaster:

PoR > DoS > > > > > > > > > OoE

Order of Ecclesia is horrendous. I genuinely believe that people say they love it are just doing it for the meme's.

Worst bosses, level design and exploration in the entire Metroidvania series. Even more lackluster level design than the old NES games.

I thought the same when I played using emulator and didn't buyed the physical copy because of it (I own the physical copy of all the others), then I regret immensely because I didn't understood the game purpose and the game itself grew on me with the time, to the point that now it's one of my favourites of all time.

But I won't gloss over the fact that the stamina system is love or hate.

[Sorceress]

They're all pretty much masterpieces imo, I find it very difficult to choose. Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin sticks to the Symphony of the Night formula where as Order of Ecclesia is a little bit more linear but still a fantastic game.

1. Order of Ecclesia first because Shanoa is my favourite Castlevania protagonist I also like how elemental glyphs were implemented.

2. Dawn of Sorrow objectively is the superior of the 3 because it rivals Symphony of the Night for sheer depth, you could get lost in this game indefinitely. However I'm going to place it number 2 because the tactical soul leveling could have been have been implemented a little bit better, I have the same gripe with Bloodstained.

3. Portrait of Ruin in 3rd place, an absolute masterpiece of gaming but the only one of the 3 that I never managed to complete, I think I got stuck on one of the levels after Brauner I remember not knowing what to do next and then never picked the game back up.