aria of sorrow
Aria seems to be the favorite of the three GBA games, and I've got to say that I agree. The difficulty in Circle is just a little too much for me, leaving me stuck unless I put serious time into levelling. And Harmony really pissed me off with that "dual castle, but guess what, you've already been in both without even realizing it!" crap. So Soma it is. Everyone's tired of all those goody-goody 100% pure heroes anyway. Gimme a man (okay, boy) who's the reincarnation of a dark lord any day! Hey, he was popular enough to get a sequel: who else in CV has done that? That's right. NO ONE.
PS - Soma is NOT an exchange student. He is Japanese. I have no idea why they changed this in the English translation of the game, I mean, enough of us can accept that Sailor Moon is Japanese, so why did the translators think we'd even bat an eye at some pale as hell albino Japanese boy?
Aria of Sorrow preorder artbook
Ah, the infamous Aria of Sorrow artbook. How does one obtain such a treasure? These days, buying it from a Japanese auction site is the only answer, but this book was originally given out as a standard preorder bonus.
portrait of ruin artbook
Mini artbook! It's nice and fat but kinda small, like the size of a DVD case.
guide book
More character design pages. Pretty sure you've seen these all before, but I still like them.
promotional items
The first is a postcard, and the other two are autograph boards, signed by Kojima Ayami and IGA. I'm assuming these were from an event held to promote the game (a friend in Japan went to a similar event for Curse of Darkness). The scans of the autograph boards are purposely small (100dpi) and watermarked to prevent misuse.
phonecards
These are scans of authentic telephone cards from Japan. They're made of thin plastic with the image on the frontside and information on using the card on the back. Almost all of the Castlevania phonecards I've seen are promotional items, usually obtained by preordering a game from a specific store or something like that. You'll notice that most of these have a little box that says NOT FOR SALE; these are the promo cards.
cd booklet
A double-sided mini poster came with the combined Aria/Dawn of Sorrow soundtrack. Since this illustration features Soma with a badass fur collar, I'm putting this in the Aria section.
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