Play order?

[MobiusFun]

I never played these games before. I assumed the way they were arranged in the menu was from first at the top and last at the bottom but I just looked up their release dates and they're in the opposite order. So... starting with Order of Ecclesia was a bad idea?

Does play order matter for this series? I have no idea, what would you recommend?

[benjymlewis]

Play order doesn't really matter at all. Though you should be aware that Dawn of Sorrow from this collection is a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow from the previous Castlevania Advance Collection. So if you want to play those two chronologically, you might want to get the Advance Collection too.

Aside from this, it really doesn't matter. The games are very self-contained.
Starting with Order of Ecclesia is perfectly valid.

[Zeo]

Ecclesia is a standalone game, I'm not sure of the historical time but it's before Portrait and Dawn.

Portrait is a sequel of the Sega Genesis Castlevania: Bloodlines, where's the protagonist isn't a Belmont, since it's a fast gameplay you can play it first, or just watch a gameplay video, the protagonist is Jonathan's father and Eric Lecarde have a bigger role in Portrait but I won't will spoil.

Aria of Sorrow comes before Dawn and it's considered the last Castlevania chronologically, Aria of Sorrow is a wonderful game and I totally recommend the gameplay.

[ViewtifulGene]

You can play them in any order. I'm not sure why the menu sorts them newest to oldest, rather than by story chronology or release order.

Note that Order is the most weird of the trilogy and Dawn is the most normal.

[MobiusFun]

Thanks everyone! I'll keep going with Ecclesia then.

[benjymlewis]

Originally posted by ViewtifulGene:

I'm not sure why the menu sorts them newest to oldest, rather than by story chronology or release order.

I mean, if you want to get into the whole story chronology thing, then... they kind of ARE sorted by that? Ecclesia takes place in the 1800s, Portrait takes place in 1944, and Dawn is in 2036.

[Bucciarati]

Ecclesia is the hardest of the 6 games (GBA/DS) and is very differents (Mechanics wise) from the others games. (It's like starting Megaman with Megaman Zero 1.)
I highly advice you to not start with Order of Ecclesia if you never played any GBA/DS Castlevania games before.

Start with Portrait of Ruin wich is the easiest to play and the easiest to discover the games genre, then do Dawn of Sorrow

[Redblaze27]

Dawn of sorrow aside, the order really doesnt matter.

[1337Dude]

I'd play them in order of release simply because there is an evolution of gameplay between the games. Castlevania aren't story games, so the story isn't important. What is important is that between each game, they purposefully took the previous game and tweaked it in a certain way. Then the next title tweaks the previous game - so on, so forth. For example, Aria of Sorrow and Symphony of the Next have little to do with each other in terms of story so there isn't much of a reason to play one before the other, but if you consider than Aria of Sorrow is built upon SoTN, it's pretty easy to recommend SoTN first.