Gaming off the Beaten Path

It's been a long time coming, but we've finally reached the end of our GBA Metroidvania mini series. Well, I guess it hasn't really been that long, it's been less than a year since I started this whole thing. I usually  take a lot longer to finish stuff like this, if I finish it at all. It certainly helps that almost all of these games have been vey good, but the Quintet Trilogy games were all really good and it took me damn near two years to finish all of those. Sometimes, I don't finish these mini-series at all. But I've successfully worked my way through the Metroid and non-linear Castlevania games on the GBA and it's time to wrap it up with the third and final 'Vania title on my list. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow was released for the GBA in May or 2003, a rare example of a title that actually hit the shelves in North America before it did in Japan. It wasn't by much, but it was still a rarity. Even though it's the last game I'm covering ...

It's time to keep the GBA Metroidvania train rolling. We started with Castlevania, then moved on to Metroid, and now it's time to make our way back to Dracula's castle. I was pleasantly surprised last year when I, sort of on a whim, decided to take a shot at Castlevania: Circle of the Moon on the Game Boy Advance. I had heard good things about the handheld titles in the series, but never actually took the time to play any of them. And that's a shame, because Circle of the Moon was outstanding. It was truly an exceptional example of just what the tiny but mighty GBA was capable of. It got me excited to dig into the other games in the genre I had missed from that console, both Metroid and Castlevania alike. I moved right along to Metroid: Zero Mission and while I wasn't as high on it as I was COTM, it was still a solid experience that was incredibly well designed and polished. So naturally, the next step in the progression was back to 'Vania with the next in that...