Quite dissapointing to be honest, Aria of Sorrow is usually regarded as one of the best Castlevanias out there, and since I had only played classicvania part of the franchise so far, I was excited... But this game reminds me of Chasm.
I think the metroidvania genre has gotten so popular, and evolved so much through the indie industry these recent years, that this game feels almost outdated; movement is sooo clunky (and I don't care if this is how the franchise works by default), map layout is forgettable (with an incredibly generic UI), and even ambiences all look the same, there are just too many enemies, and none of them feel like they belong in their respectives areas; story is... the best they could do for the GBA I guess, characters are as charismatic as a door, and Soma is almost edgy (he got the drip tho).
I think that's it, I still wanna try SotN and CotM, but if this is the pattern, I might as well stick with classicvanias.