The latest Castlevania collection is truly excellent

For anyone looking to explore the best Castlevania has to offer, the just-launched Castlevania Dominus Collection is pretty much a no-brainer. It includes a trilogy of games from the Nintendo DS era that show designer Koji Igarashi arguably at the height of his powers: the experiences combine smooth, satisfying action with worlds that are intricate labyrinths to be mastered slowly over time. Bringing that experience to modern platforms alone makes the collection worth it. But the Dominus Collection also goes a step further and includes some smart options for porting over a dual-screen game. Then, it throws in an unexpectedly excellent remaster just for fun.

Part of what made Castlevania such a good fit for the DS was how much information could be displayed at once. While the side-scrolling action took place on one screen, the other could show character information or, more crucially, the map. For a game that’s all about traversing a complex castle, with lots of backtracking and blocked entrances to contend with, having that map always on is incredibly helpful. And not only is that option still present in this modern rerelease but Konami has also given players a few choices for how they want their info displayed.

By default, the Dominus Collection — which includes Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia and is available on PlayStation, Switch, Xbox, and PC — displays the games as shown in the screenshot above. The action is largest on the left side of the screen, while both the map and character info are displayed beside it. There are a few other options, though, which really let you customize the experience. For two examples: you can have just the action and the map side by side, or you can have it top and bottom to mimic an actual DS, like this:

I’ve been playing through Portrait of Ruin mostly using the side-by-side option, but the fact that there’s so much choice here is important. It’s a thoughtful approach to porting games from a distinct piece of hardware and means that these excellent titles are available in a way that both feels native to modern platforms and honors the original releases.

There’s also an added bonus included in the Dominus Collection. While Castlevania is a series with some beloved highs, it has also had some notable duds over the years. And while the arcade spinoff Haunted Mansion always looked good, it plays like, well, a game that’s trying to suck up all of your quarters. It’s hard and tedious and missing that Castlevania oomph. Including it in this collection is therefore a surprising choice but also one that is very welcome because, in addition to the stodgy original, you also get a full-on remake that spruces up the graphics and tweaks the design and difficulty to make it actually fun to play. It turns an inaccessible arcade release into a decidedly old-school Castlevania, from before the series shifted to an exploration focus.

It’s also the kind of oddity that’s perfect for a retro bundle like this. In the absence of a playable documentary, the Dominus Collection is about as good as it gets.