The second "Metroidvania" Castlevania game I touched, and boy howdy was it a good one. The map design was good, exploration was fun, and the wide variety of souls you got to augment your combat experience always kept things interesting. The bonus modes with more traditional Castlevania characters were a nice treat on top.

The only real marks against the game was the obligatory touchscreen gimmick with scrawling enemy seals, and the fact that with a game like this there's always going to be a pre-requisite amount of grinding for souls, and good golly are the droprates in this game at times outright terrible.

Play Aria first before jumping into this. Both are fantastic though.