Having determined the best early, late and overall souls in Aria of Sorrow, we’ve decided to commit some time to consider the absolute worst, completely useless, bottom of the barrel souls that we could find. Some of these originate in the early game, so you cannot really expect them to be incredible, but even then they’re considered ‘filler’ and should be avoided as much as possible, mainly because their uses seem severely limited by their mechanics. Anyway, let’s get into our short list of souls that we consider to be absolutely useless…
Arachne
- Throws a web at your enemies.
In a game replete with bullet souls, which are essentially projectiles or spells that are activated by pressing up and the attack button, there are bound to be some that perform better than others. Whilst it’s not necessarily quite as egregious as our next choice, there are two things wrong with the Arachne soul; it doesn’t actually snare your opponents, despite the description displaying this, and it suffers from a very strange arc of movement in its projectile. We could accept such things were it to deal a great deal of damage, but this is middling at best, and it’s outclassed by better, easier to aim options that are available around the same time.
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Skeleton
- Throws a bone in an (awful) arc.
Speaking of weak projectiles, our next choice is the Skeleton soul. Now, we don’t want you to think that we’re ragging on a soul for being weak, because the Skeleton soul is available so early that you would expect it to deal a tiny amount of damage, but who on earth thought that the throwing arc was a good idea? It might as well be a vertical attack for all the good it’ll do you when facing an enemy, and if anything could only be used versus enemies standing on a ledge above. Something like a Javelin is a much better option in the early game to be honest; throw this one into the depths of your soul menu and forget it ever existed.
Persephone
- Skeletal Hoover attacks enemies, stealing health.
Look, we’re all for comedy in our games, so we can fully appreciate that having a possessed skeletal hoover is a fun idea in and of itself, but when it comes to something actually being powerful, the Persephone soul is very underwhelming. It doesn’t do a great deal of damage for a start, but we could accept this if it healed for a great deal, but it’ll only restore +5 HP no matter what. Yes, you can hold the button down to keep it active, but the proximity to your target that’s required will make it’s usage a risk, and the constant MP requirement will ensure that it doesn’t last a long time. If it sucked enemies towards you perhaps, or dealt a percentage of health in damage and restored a similar amount, then we might give it the benefit of the doubt. As it is, this soul is thematic, unusual and quite fun to play with, but it’s ultimately rather useless when it comes to usage in battle.
Bat
- Attack in a circle surrounding Soma.
Yes, we’re attacking another early game soul, but come on now, who thought this was a good idea? Shockwaves aren’t an unusual power up in games, and they’re often used to deal damage or disorientate an enemy, particularly in RPG games, but the Aria of Sorrow version is a very poor example. Technically speaking, a damage aura of sorts can be useful in these titles, of which there are some great examples in this particular game, but a bullet soul version that doesn’t persist, and only deals damage in a radius dangerously close to Soma? This is worse than useless to be honest. Ironically the only use we could find for it is to deal with swarms of the enemy that provided it – bats. You know them right? The weakest enemy in the game?
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Big Golem
- Huge golem arm attacks behind Soma.
Fairly certain that the developers were just trolling when they made this soul, which is essentially a massive stone arm that protrudes from behind Soma, because it completely embodies our article title today by being positively, absolutely useless. It does technically deal a reasonable amount of damage, and there are some very niche use cases against enemies that don’t like you facing them, but it only tends to react when Soma is attacking, and even then it’s inconsistent in its timing. This essentially leaves you floating around a screen, whiffing deliberately in the wrong direction, hoping to avoid attacks whilst you line up this ridiculous thing. The only real saving grace here is that it can be used to limited effect against the true end boss, but only for a portion of it, and even then you’d be sacrificing a soul slot that could be used for something much more powerful, which is pretty much all of them.
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Categories: Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow