Review: CASTLEVANIA DOMINUS COLLECTION is a solid package of beloved games

Last week, Konami surprised gamers with the stealth launch of Castlevania Dominus CollectionThis collection features three Castle of Valencia titles that were originally released on the Nintendo DS plus some bonus games. The games included are Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Castlevania: Order of the Ecclesia, Haunted CastleAND The Haunted Castle Revisited. The last two are the original arcade game and a redesigned and rebalanced version. Konami was kind enough to provide me with a PC code to review, but all thoughts are my own. If you decide to pick it up, it’s available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S for about $25.

A quick preface: I have never played any of these games before. In fact, I have only played Castle of Valencia for about 20-30 minutes before. I don’t hate the game or the gameplay, I just get distracted by other things. I’ve been playing each of the DS titles for at least an hour, although I’ve spent more time on Order of the Ecclesia because that’s what I started with.

From what I can tell, these are very faithful ports of DS games that I’ve heard great praise for in the past. In my time with these games, I’ve legitimately enjoyed each one. I really like that each one feels very much on its own, but is part of the same franchise. I feel like Dawn of Pain is the closest in terms of gameplay to the original titles, even though it is set in the distant future. It seems a bit strange to me that most, if not all, of the weapons look medieval and not futuristic, but it is Castle of Valencia so what will you do? I also like how you can combine monster souls with weapons to power them up. In the meantime, Portrait of Ruin It stands out because you have two protagonists that you control at the same time, which is fun but takes some getting used to. I played Order of the Ecclesia more so because it was listed at the top of the list in the main menu and it’s interesting because you don’t collect weapons, but rather glyphs that allow you to manifest weapons. It’s an interesting system and I’m really enjoying the game if I’m honest. At the end of the day, if you’ve ever wanted to play DS games on modern platforms, now’s your chance!

Now let’s talk about the quality of life updates these games have received. First, you have a rewind feature. This is helpful when you make a stupid mistake and don’t want to go back to your last save. Of course, the introduction of save states is awesome in my opinion. Now you can save whenever you want or need to and then reload from there instead of from your last save point. Third, you can view and customize your in-game controls to make them more comfortable for you. You can also access the compendium/bestiary for each game from the pause menu. From the main menu, there is a gallery mode to view awesome unreleased artwork, packaging, instruction booklets, and more. Additionally, there is a music player to listen to your favorite tunes. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that from the main menu settings, you can change the regional version you want to play: American, European, or Japanese. I have no idea if there are any differences other than languages, but I think it’s a cool feature.

Another interesting aspect is how they decided to incorporate the DS’s second screen. Instead of just eliminating it, they have a few layout options for you. The default layout (and a few others) have the game screen take up a good chunk of your screen, but then the map takes up a quadrant with character and enemy information just below. There are layouts that eliminate the third pane of information, but I found the default one to be more than sufficient.

As for performance, the Castlevania Dominus Collection For me it was smooth. I played it exclusively on my Steam Deck and it ran at 60fps with no issues and I also saw online that you can significantly lower the TDP to get more battery life while playing and still maintain 60fps. I played it in portable mode for a bit but also took the opportunity to use my dock to connect it to my TV and use the Retro-Bit Tribute16 controller which was a bit more comfortable for this type of game.

I don’t feel comfortable reviewing this collection in terms of whether the individual games are good or bad. Because of that, I’ll say that on Metacritic, these games are all in the mid-to-high 80s for critics and in the mid-to-high 80s for users on the original DS versions. They seem to be really good games. In terms of a collection of ports, I think the Castlevania Dominus Collection it’s really good. Now, I haven’t really messed with the doors of Haunted Castlewhich I honestly don’t care much for, but I know it adds value for a fair amount of fans. Considering the price tag of around $25, the fact that they are highly rated by fans, and that there are some nice extras included, I think this is a fantastic purchase if you’ve ever wanted to play these games or want to revisit them. This is definitely a recommendation I would give to friends.