Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

The Good
There's always a way. If you're not good with buttons, just kill some enemies, level up a bit, and make some money in order to purchase potions and items. Eventually you'll be strong enough to defeat whatever that seems to block you. In Super Metroid you may have learnt to avoid enemies as much as possible, here you'll want to kill them all, since with every enemy you kill, you gain experience points and become stronger.

If you set out to achieve 100% collection rate, you'll likely only want to kill enemies that you have not yet collected. So you will want to leave and enter rooms repeatedly to kill the same enemies over and over, while ignoring other enemies. There are very few things in life that hit a man harder than this feeling, this desire, to collect an enemy's soul. Aria of Sorrow provides this feeling.

Cool characters. Soma looks like Sephiroth, and the girl Mina is his childhood best friend and she's attractive. You play as Soma, so that's an immediate motivation to start playing (assuming you're a guy).

The environments are full of symbolism. Paintings and sculptures of angels, demons, and all those religion and prophecy stuff.

The whole "gain new powers to unlock new areas" thing is delightfully similar to Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night. You can only jump this high at first, so there will be rooms that are out of reach. In later stages, you gain an incredibly awesome ability that shoots you straight up towards the ceiling. This is by far the coolest move in any platform game ever, that even outshines Super Metroid's Shinespark. You're no longer walking or running through rooms, you'll be jumping around in rooms. You're always jumping, it's ridiculous.

Most of the time the path is clear and you'll know where to go next. You won't feel frustration with this game. You're always leveling up and collecting stuff. Satisfaction is ALWAYS there in your heart and soul.

The Bad
Some weapons and armors are useless (If you have played Diablo 2, this is like picking up a level 2 leather jacket when you're at level 30.) For example you'll see a sword quite early in the game, but won't be able to acquire it until much, much later. You'll naturally want that sword to be worth the wait, since you'll move through that room frequently, and everytime you enter that room, you see that sword, and wonder "when am I going to be able to get THERE? What ability is required for it? What special attribute does this sword have?" But by the time you get the sword, you already have a weapon that's better in every aspect. You'll want to sell this lame, newly acquired sword for money, in order to buy the Soul Eater Ring.

But seriously, this isn't even nitpicking. It's less than a nitpick. There isn't anything in Aria of Sorrow that I don't like.

The Bottom Line
100% soul collection rate may seem hard at first. After the main quest is completed, you'll probably be at only 20% or less. You'll wonder how long 100% takes. Actually, the process doesn't feel long, because it's filled with satisfaction. Everytime you collect a soul, it becomes a new spell that you can cast, but I don't even care about that very much. I collect it because I wanna collect it, not because I wanna use the spell. Every time you add 1% to the grand total, you're like "OH YEAH" "THAT's what I'm talking about". You'll want to dance. So, basically, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow invites you to dance, to celebrate 80 joyful moments in your life.