Over the last week, two listings have been found for a Castlevania Advance Collection on separate game rating databases in Australia and South Korea. This obviously has fans pretty excited, and I have to admit, I’m also cautiously optimistic that it will actually be a thing at some point.
Read More: Circle Of The Moon Is Secretly The Best Castlevania Game
While Konami has yet to confirm these details — we reached out and they weren’t feeling chatty — Castlevania Advance Collection is apparently being handled by M2, a studio that’s worked with Konami in the past on similar Castlevania and Contra anniversary bundles and is renowned for its commitment to accuracy in emulated classic collections. Australia’s classification website notes that Castlevania Advance Collection will be multi-platform, whereas South Korea’s (filed by regional publisher H2 Interactive) only mentions a PC release.
Castlevania first arrived on the Game Boy Advance with 2001’s KCEK-developed Circle of the Moon. The popular franchise soon spawned two more handheld releases, 2002’s oddball Harmony of Dissonance and 2003’s Aria of Sorrow, the latter of which is considered one of the best games of the series’ Metroidvania era. The trio was eventually re-released separately on the Wii U in 2014, but they remain some of the few Castlevania games that have yet to be ported or remastered by Konami for modern platforms.
Not only would a new, easy-to-access collection be a big deal for fans of these excellent Game Boy Advance games, it could also lead to similar re-releases for the Nintendo DS Castlevania trilogy. Imagine being able to play Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia on a console released within the last decade. Castlevania may have had its ups and downs on home platforms, but its largely good Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS outings have more than maintained the legacy of this iconic franchise.
Konami, take a break from pumping out soul-crushing pachinko machines to give us more portable Dracula-slaying, even if it’s just a return to these old handheld adventures.
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