Hi everyone (woot first post eva lol) Recently i've been looking for a new game to play on my 3ds other than the abailable 3ds games. So I took to the DS archives to look for something and came across Castlevania:DoS. Im not the biggest fan of platformers, but i dont necessarily hate them ethier. I'm also not too fond of too long games as I find most of them are drawn out for too long than needed and get repetitive fast. From what i've seen so far it looks good and review says its great but i wanna hear from you guys. So my questions are

A. Is it a good deal for $20?
B. How much playtime can I expect from it? and
C. Is it fair to compare it to Metroid Fusion? From what I can tell its seems to have to same gameplay vibe which is a good thing
Thnx in advance

Dawn of Sorrow is okay for me, not the best, but certainly far from bad and its easily worth the $20. I've spent less than 8 hours on the story mode and it's currently taking me 15 so far in completing the whole game. Yes it is comparable to metroid as it shares the core gameplay(ie non linear level design that encourages exploration). Most of the portable CV's are essentially Metroid games with a mix of RPG grinding elements. If you ask me though since it's your first CV game, Portrait of Ruin is better suited for new comers and if you find it in a similar pricing, get that instead.

Oh and one more thing, post here on the DS Recommendations thread to avoid cluttering the boards http://www.nintendolife.com/forums/ds/ds_recommendations_thread

um its good but it all comes to you if its ur type of game like mine is jrpg's but i still love otheer games like hack an slash some shooters platformers(sonic all the way)
racing fighter (smash bros)

A. Definitely.
B. 15 hours on your first playthrough is probably a safe estimate, but I could see it lasting as few as 12 hours or as many as 20 depending on how good you are and on how much exploring & soul collecting you want to do and whether you feel like you need to level grind before bosses. After that, there are multiple endings to discover and multiple characters to play as. There's a lot of meat on this game.
C. The term "Metroidvania" didn't come out of nowhere. All of the GBA/DS Castlevanias share many gameplay elements with Metroid games, although I'd say Dawn of Sorrow allows for much more non-linear exploration than Metroid Fusion does.

Oh, and I feel obligated to point out that posts like this should go in the DS Recommendations Thread from now on, although it looks like someone already beat me to the punch there.

Thanks everyone. I've decided to go ahead and get Castlevania: DoS ^_^. Thanks again for the advice. Oh and next time I'll be sure to post in the right place, sorry about that.