NOTE: This (first impression) review is about the quality of the emulation/package of this collection - not the Castlevania games themselves. Feel free to correct me on details I might've missed about the games themselves - then I will correct them in this review. --- Castlevania Dominus Collection is the latest collection from KONAMI. Developed once more by M2 ((recently) known as a Japanese emulation powerhouse, for their previous works such as the "Anniversary" and Castlevania Collections for KONAMI and the "mini" emulation consoles for both SEGA (SEGA Mega Drive Mini and Mega Drive 2 Mini) and Konami (PC Engine (CoreGrafx)/TurboGrafx-16 Mini)). HOWEVER (contrary to earlier collections), this collection seems to be partial ports of the original DS games to PC (and the other console platforms it has been released on). This collection contains the three Nintendo DS games of the Castlevania franchise (Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia). These were not re-released on any platform, Two other games are included - the arcade game Haunted Castle (already been re-released under KONAMI's Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection also available on Steam), alongside a new "revisited" version of the game (it being a new pixel art based remake). Now since this has been released on Steam (PC) and other home consoles, it is probably the last Castlevania related re-release out that Konami will work on in the nearby future as most notable games have been re-released through M2's emulation suites (excluding the MSX title Vampire Killer). Knowing M2 for their quality emulation, the emulation of the DS games is definitely nice. The audio seems to be clear (most likely using audio files over the DS' original sound capabilities, as done with their previous GBA-rooted collection for Castlevania). Compared to the previous GBA emulated release (Castlevania Advance Collection), there is no toggle between "normal" and "high quality" sound. Their result of using audio files over the handheld's own sound results into letting the player choose between Japanese and English voices, along with setting the volume for Background Music (BGM), Sound Effects (SE) and the Voices. For the DS games, there is a "third screen" added for visualising maps during gameplay. This was not present in the original (or VC re-release0 before. You can switch between the visible screens (on the side) with the Select/View button of your controller. You can choose several different arrangements between the three screens - including only showing two like the original DS games. You can also show a background colour in the menu (out of black, white and several coloured gradients. You can check the settings by holding the A button on your controller to temporarily hide the menu screen. For Haunted Castle (both the arcade as the revisited version), you can choose for pixel filtering ("No filter", "Smoothing", "Scanlines" and "Scanlines & Smoothing"). The Controller/Keyboard settings are per game, binded by "action" basis, although the keyboard settings can not be changed in-game, requiring a third party tool. Only Xbox controller button prompts are shown in this Steam version - no keyboard button prompts will be shown despite using a keyboard to control the game. The touch screen controls of the DS games are handled (by default) with your right controller stick. Clicking the touch screen controlling stick changes between three speed sensitivities. You can also use a mouse to control the touch screen. At last, every game allows using Save States (through the Load and Save menus), and the DS games include a full compendium to help you read up on moves, equipment, items and enemies. Other settings for the entire collection include the ROM/Game version (American/Japanese/European, also Korean for Order of Ecclesia), swapping the OK/Cancel actions from A/B to the "Western" and "Japanese/Nintendo" orientation, using either the left stick for touch screen controls or regular controlling the character (similar to the D-Pad), swapping the screen refresh timing by V-Sync or an in-game/emulator timer. While this is a very well presented collection with FMVs in the menu, full artwork galleries for the DS games and a music player for all the games (loose .m4a files are also easily present for off-game listening): the lack of UI refinement for PC is still an annoying trait most M2 games share. You can not easily enter full screen mode through any in-game binding - only with using the (left) Alt and Enter button to switch between four screen modes (windowed, full screen, a second full screen option and possibly borderless). And the fact the button prompts do not swap between Xbox controller and keyboard is also a nuisance for the PC port. Otherwise - this seems like another solid collection for those craving to (re)play the Castlevania classics along with its newest title being a remake of the arcade original. This game does work on Linux as well through Valve's Proton (tested on an Arch Linux PC - should yield the same result on the Steam Deck systems), although the full screen modes do show a white border. I'd personally recommend this emulation compilation as another one to add to your Steam library!
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