Here's one we missed in our roundup of this week's releases, perhaps because Konami doesn't seem to have given it any promotion: the Castlevania Dominus Collection, a four-game bundle featuring the PC ports of three beloved DS Castlevania games, plus a redesigned version of Castlevania Haunted Castle, the first Castlevania game to hit an arcade. It'll set you back $25, £20, or €25, and my quick analysis of the trailer below is that they seem to have done a decent job with the ports.
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The DS games in question are Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow, in which you can combine souls to create weapons; Castlevania: Portrait Of Ruin, in which you switch between two protagonists with different abilities; and Castlevania Order of Ecclesia, in which you travel through Dracula's castle in search of magical glyphs. All have naturally been reorganized to fit on a single screen, with the inventory and map on the right. In the case of more delicate DS-specific flourishes, like Dawn Of Sorrow's drawing mechanic, they've found… simple solutions. The Haunted Castle port, meanwhile, includes both a redesigned version with more elaborate pixel art and a direct port of the original.
Oh wait, I get why we didn't see this in the recap. They dropped it backstage during one of those Nintendo Directs the folks at Silksong keep talking about, which also brought the news that Konami's HD remasters of Suikoden 1 and 2 are coming in March. Konami is doing a brisk business in revivals of all kinds right now, with a new version of Silent Hill 2 and a new version of Metal Gear Solid 3 in the works.
My thoughts naturally turn to the future of the Castlevania series. Our friends the Belmonts and old Dracula are doing quite well on Netflix, but it’s been a while since the last real new Castlevania game, the disappointing Lords Of Shadow 2. Konami seems content for now to lend its various vampires and vampire slayers to games like V Rising. I’d really love to play a 2D reboot of the series in the style of Sonic Mania. In the meantime, you can check out the Dominus Collection on Steam.