Castlevania: Curse of Darkness
4 out of 5. All of the fat has been trimmed off the previous 3D Castlevania title, leaving strong combat and a new addictive monster raising system to keep it interesting for multiple playthroughs.
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
3 out of 5. Competent crunchy action and addictive exploration are marred by fixed camera angles and awkward story presentation, creating an enjoyable but somewhat flawed Belmont Origin story.
Metroid
2 out of 5. Metroid, we love you for what you started, but you’re really hard to play today.
Blaster Master Zero
3.5 out of 5. A magnificent remake of the 1988 classic bringing its unique dual-genre gameplay to the modern generation with accessibility and new surprises. It’s not perfect, but a great launch point.
Castlevania Order of Ecclesia
4 out of 5. A more linear approach allows Order of Ecclesia to straddle the line between Igavania and its Classic-vania roots, making it a challenging swan-song for the DS Castlevania titles
Castlevania Anniversary Collection
4 out of 5. Its only “Metroidvania” game, Simon’s Quest, may be skippable for most players, but the rest of these games are must have hard-but-fair classics. Save states help with accessibility.
Castlevania Portrait of Ruin
4 out of 5. The Portrait levels add variety – as well as fluff – to the Castle formula, but the most fun comes from the host of powers and weapons to try out between the two characters you play.
Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow
4 out of 5 – An excellent follow up to Aria of Sorrow with improvements and additional RPG elements. Some new features could have used a little more thought, but overall meets the Castlevania standard
Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
5 out of 5. Even with the limitations of the GBA hardware, Aria of Sorrow is packed with variety and flavor, and is perhaps the best work Koji Igarashi has ever been a part of.
Robot Wants It All
4 out of 5. Join Robot in six challenging games with twelve remixes. A compilation of some of the best Mini Metroidvania games, with a wide variety of modifications that up the replay value to 11.
Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance
3 out of 5. Highly ambitious considering the Gameboy Advance limitations, but its attempt to expand on what Symphony of the Night accomplished resulted in a lot of content that feels like padding.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
5 out of 5. To this day, Symphony of the Night oozes with the passion of a group of artists doing what they love. Down to the tiniest detail it’s hard not to appreciate everything this game is.