finished playing Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
Though designed around GBA's limitations, the brighter and more vivid color palette compared to SotN really matches the optimism of the early 2000s when, despite all the problems in the world, the new millennium came with a promise of a brighter future. AoS is set in the future and tries to find humanity in the series' trademark villain and put an end to the bleakness of the seemingly endless struggle of reincarnating evil that preceded. The main battle here is the battle within. The soul system with its replenishable mana seems to match that endless blue expanse of the Bliss wallpaper of Windows XP that was so emblematic of the era and symbolized a new beginning.

In retrospect, this is probably my favorite Castlevania.