I had a hard time getting back into Castlevania after SotN, but Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow were pretty good, and Order of Ecclesia actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Also Lament of Innocence was good too, but it was a bit... off. I just don't feel like Castlevania needs to be 3D for some reason. But it was still good, even if it destroyed the canon a bit by actual spoilers, don't read if you hope to be enthralled by the awkward story line while you playreplacing the previously established backstory of Dracula and replacing it with some dude named Mathias that was actually a friend of Leon Belmont and used Leon to kill Walter (a random powerful vampire with his own castle in the forest) and steal his soul with some weird Philosopher's Stone knock-off. So Mathias becomes Dracula and apparently he isn't the original vampire But aside from that it's great. And the soundtrack is awesome. I never played the other 3D one on PS2 though.

Aria and Dawn of Sorrow (I don't remember which one comes first) are about this kid named Soma Cruz (not Belmont? ) who suddenly ends up outside Dracula's Castle (iirc he's on the moon or something) and has nowhere to go but inside. He learns he has the power to steal monsters' abilities, so he does that. The story's a bit strange compared to previous entries, but there's a great game underneath, even if it's a bit clunky.

Order of Ecclesia I actually just started like a month ago. I haven't been playing it much, but I'm pretty sure I'm almost at the end. It's a similar mechanic to AoS and DoS in that you get to absorb monster abilities and stuff, except you have to actually work to get them. After you kill a monster you have to stand there and hold a button until the power is absorbed, which gets annoying when there are other enemies around and you have to get rid of them first, since any interruption causes you to stop absorbing it and have to start all over. Plus, if you accidentally hit the ability (it's floating in a glyph) with your weapon, it disappears. But aside from that minor annoyance it's a great game. I would highly recommend it.

Also, SotN is the most fun game ever. Especially with all the little glitches and things you can do to mess up the game I have 262.7% explored on one save file. :freak: