Castlevania Dominus Collection shadow drops today

Following the release of the Castlevania Advance Collection three years ago, many wondered when or if we were likely to see the rest of the celebrated handheld Castlevania titles which later released on the Nintendo DS. We now have an answer with the reveal of the Castlevania Dominus Collection during Nintendo’s most recent Partner Showcase, featuring the three main DS entries as well as a remake of Haunted Castle, the arcade version of Castlevania released in 1988.

The Castlevania Dominus Collection includes ports of Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia, along with the aforementioned Haunted Castle. What with the Nintendo Switch having one fewer screen than the DS had, these ports had to come up with some sort of solution for conveying the same information that the previous games did with the DS’ additional screen. The solution found is…a little atypical, with the information which was previously on the additional screen, such as a map and stat layout, jammed into the right third of the screen, leaving only about 66% of the remaining screen real estate for the actual gameplay. There is some degree of control over how large the map screen is, including an option to layer the screens on top of one another like a DS emulator, but no option seemingly to get rid of it entirely. Not the solution I’d probably have gone with, but it will remain to be seen if that is distracting or not.

The Castlevania Dominus Collection has also had to find workarounds for the DS games’ touch screen mechanics, particularly Shanoa’s glyphs in Order of Ecclesia. If you are playing the game on Nintendo Switch in handheld mode, you can still use the touch screen for those actions. However, if you’re playing on docked mode or on a platform without touch screen controls, there is now the option to use controller inputs for those actions as well. Furthermore, these ports will include some quality of life improvements, such as a rewind feature and quicksaves. There is also an art and music gallery, which is always a nice addition.

This collection notably puts nearly every mainline Castlevania game on Nintendo Switch, save for Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, two of the series’ most celebrated entries. Perhaps we will see another shadow drop in the near future? At any rate, the Castlevania Dominus Collection is available to purchase now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam.