I've played through what the status screen tells me is a little over 50 percent of the map now.  There are still plenty of mysteries, plenty of souls to steal, and I have to say after a slow start I'm damn happy with Aria of Sorrow.  What I think really works is that the equipment system and the soul system are separate, allowing for a lot of different combinations of equipment.  Yes, please!
 
I DID run into a sequence breaker in the Clock Tower area which was surprisingly easy that wound up trapping me, forcing a reset.  Other than that, it doesn't seem to mind when I go exploring in places I probably shouldn't be; like any good nonlinear sequence it'll punish me for going out of order by making the encounters tougher, but I also get rewarded well if I can tough it out.  Nice.  
 
Now that I bought a particularly powerful sword I'm basically chucking most of what I find, but I still have room for a misc. item and armor, as well as all the different souls (favorite soul so far is the lightning doll.  Now that's proper lightning!).  
 
I still feel like I'll probably have to look the game up when I'm done to figure out a few things, but I don't mind too much.  I still feel like Circle of the Moon managed a consistent horror tone better, but the variety of enemies and gameplay in Aria feels more densely packed, promising some replays in the future.

I've played through what the status screen tells me is a little over 50 percent of the map now.  There are still plenty of mysteries, plenty of souls to steal, and I have to say after a slow start I'm damn happy with Aria of Sorrow.  What I think really works is that the equipment system and the soul system are separate, allowing for a lot of different combinations of equipment.  Yes, please!
 
I DID run into a sequence breaker in the Clock Tower area which was surprisingly easy that wound up trapping me, forcing a reset.  Other than that, it doesn't seem to mind when I go exploring in places I probably shouldn't be; like any good nonlinear sequence it'll punish me for going out of order by making the encounters tougher, but I also get rewarded well if I can tough it out.  Nice.  
 
Now that I bought a particularly powerful sword I'm basically chucking most of what I find, but I still have room for a misc. item and armor, as well as all the different souls (favorite soul so far is the lightning doll.  Now that's proper lightning!).  
 
I still feel like I'll probably have to look the game up when I'm done to figure out a few things, but I don't mind too much.  I still feel like Circle of the Moon managed a consistent horror tone better, but the variety of enemies and gameplay in Aria feels more densely packed, promising some replays in the future.

I loved the game too. So much so in fact that I found every soul and got the Chaos Ring! It's pretty awesome. I have yet to try the sequel, I'm looking for it in stores now.

I have Dawn of Sorrow for my DS.  It's a pretty neat game but for some reason these series never really click for me.  The wandering just doesn't have the same appeal to me as it does in Fallout 3 for some reason.  I guess I just like digging in trash cans for bullets.

Awesome game, played both Sorrow games and loved them.

Along with Order of Ecclesia and Castlevania II, Aria of Sorrow is one of the few Castlevania games I've not played. I'm sure I will at some point, and although your blog post has got me quite keen to hunt the title down, I know as soon as I do I'll fall into Phase One of The Castlevania Cycle all over again. Dammit, Konami.