The Castlevania franchise is getting a handheld blast from the past in the form the Castlevania Advance Collection, which brings back the franchise's Game Boy Advance entries. These games are considered some of the best titles that Castlevania has to offer. Unfortunately, some other handheld games in the series are still inaccessible -- and they'll likely remain that way.

The Castlevania games on the Nintendo DS were well-received, but their dependency on that system's gimmicks make them way harder to port. This has been an issue with bringing other games that originated on less traditional Nintendo consoles to new hardware, with systems like the DS inspiring unique adventures that simply don't work on other consoles.

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Dawn of the DS Era Castlevania Games

Charlotte Aulin and Jonathan Morris in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

The first DS Castlevania game was 2005's Dawn of Sorrow. The sequel to the GBA's Aria of Sorrow, the title reflected the "DS" naming pun of many early games on the system. A great success both financially and critically, Dawn of Sorrow was one of the first real gems on the burgeoning handheld system, helping catapult it to its eventual success.

It was followed by Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia, which were both also successful. This made the DS titles the face of the franchise for half of a decade or so, while the 3D spinoff series Lords of Shadow attempted to reboot the continuity. Sadly, despite being the entry point for a generation of Castlevania fans, they've sadly gone untouched, not even receiving upgraded ports on the 3DS. That system may have been the last place to rerelease these games in their original forms considering how dependent they were on the DS hardware.

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Why the DS Castlevania Games May Never Be Remade

Order of Ecclesia representative Shanoa in Castlevania

Dawn of SorrowPortrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia all included features that utilized the DS' dual screens and touchscreen, which were vital to the gameplay mechanics. For instance, Dawn of Sorrow had magical seals that would appear during boss fights. Players would need to drawn over them on the second screen after a boss was weakened to truly finish them off, lest they begin regaining health.

This was somewhat criticized upon released, and Portrait of Ruin was noted as implementing touch screen features far more organically and effectively. Order of Ecclesia, on the other hand, essentially did away with the gimmick. Still, these games were designed specifically to be played on a console with two screens, so bringing them to modern consoles would take far more than a simple port.

Last year's port of the Wii U game The Wonderful 101 is an example of a game that tried to translate its original's unique capabilities for a console that lacked its gimmicks. PlatinumGames tried to retain The Wonderful 101's touch screen features on the Nintendo Switch despite the system have capacitive instead of resistive touch screen technology. With that in mind, the odds of seeing these 2000s classic Castlevania titles receive the same treatment as the games that came before them are slim.

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