Beware of unmarked spoilers further down the page.
Best Boss Ever: The penultimate boss of the game's Golden Ending is none other than Julius Belmont himself, the vampire hunter who managed to kill Dracula permanently. He more than lives up to his family's legendary reputation, as Julius makes full use of his whip and the sub-weapons of his predecessors. The duel with him is frequently cited as one of the game's most memorable moments.
Fan Nickname: Soma Cruz was given the nickname Somacula, since he is the reincarnation of Dracula. This is mostly prominent when people talk about the Bad Ending of both Sorrow games.
Despite no specifics given, it's generally accepted among the fans that Soma's date of birth is August 21st, 2017, which also happened to be the date of a solar eclipse over the United States. This fits very well with the theme of solar eclipses being tied to Dracula's defeat and the English translation making Soma a transfer student, even if the game claims that there were no solar eclipses in the 21st century prior to the 2035 one (in real life, the two eclipses are even in the same eclipse cycle). However, it does allow his stated age to add up properly, meaning his birth date would have to be within a few months of it anyway.
The idea of Mina Hakuba, Soma's childhood friend, being the reincarnation of Elisabetha Cronqvist and Lisa, though one that certainly falls within the realm of possibility given Soma himself, has no actual in-game evidence. The reason that most of the fandom has latched on to this line of thought is because, along with Soma's possible Face–Heel Turn in Dawn of Sorrow being facilitated by Mina's death not unlike Dracula twice before, Mina's name is clearly derived from Mina Harker, who just so happens to be the reincarnation of Drac's previous wife Elisabeta in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The Giant Ghost's effect is to deflect incoming projectiles. This includes Manticore's fireballs and Death's mini sickles, trivializing many of the enemies that you will face.
The Alura Une/Arc Demon combo allows you to "recycle" your health at a 110% percent efficiency, rendering you nearly invincible.
Lightning Doll is acquired midgame, covers a wide range and has awesome damage for a moderate price tag.
The Mimic soul has no combat purposes, but allows you to jump into spikes and gain 500 to 1000 money in one hit. Since there happens to be a suitable spot right next to a save room in the clock tower, the player can do this for a while to farm money.
The Red Minotaur soul swings a giant axe that takes up almost the entire screen, and deals devastating damage to every enemy it hits. Against bosses, turning your back to them allows it to strike twice, making even the True Final Boss trivial by abusing it. It does use a lot of MP, but that cost can be easily offset by buying as many Mana-restoring potions as your inventory will allow from Hammer, which is very easy to do by the time you can get that soul.
The Manticore, Curly and Devil souls turn Soma into a big monster that rushes forward, dealing a lot of damage to everything in its way, all while being invincible. Either of these is required to access the Forbidden Area anyway, so it's likely you'll have them in your arsenal.
Game-Breaking Bug: Both Intelligence and Luck stat is broken and doesn't function properly, which makes hunting for souls and items an even more tedious task and makes mana regeneration a hassle unless you've been actively collecting hearts on your way through. A fanmade patch that fixes the bug exist and can be downloaded here.
Genius Bonus: Other than Konami's research into future events that include the Solar Eclipse in 2035 over Japan, this information can be used to pinpoint when the game takes place during the event and its precise location in Japan: Sunday, September 2nd, at 1:00-1:03 AM JST at its earliest in Kyoto and 1:10-1:13 AM JST at the latest in Tokyo.
Good Bad Bugs: One of the most time-consuming 100% Completion tasks of Aria of Sorrow is acquiring every soul in the game. After you've beaten Death, you'll find a new item in Hammer's shop: the Soul Eater Ring, which boosts the abysmally low soul drop rates. However, it costs a whopping 300,000 G, by far and away the most expensive item. Many gamers have spent hours late in the game just farming for money. But eventually, someone stumbled across an infinite money glitch that turns the grind into a total farce. Basically, you have to sell everything but exactly two items in your inventory, and then scroll up to access a glitched selling screen. This nets you 255 potions (the normal limit is 9), which can then be sold back to him. This racks up tens of thousands of gold in mere minutes. Exit and repeat as much as you want. This can be done as early as when you visit Hammer's shop for the first time, which means you can have enough money for the Soul Eater Ring and some other high-end gear when you're barely an hour into the game.
Good Bad Translation: Some of the monster and inventory name translations leave much to be desired, for example "Kali" (a Hindu goddess of destruction) was incorrectly rendered into "Curly" (one of The Three Stooges) and "Rubicante" (one of the demons from Dante's Inferno) became "Lubicant".
Also the amnesiac "J" being a Belmont, real name Julius, and "Genya Arikado" being Alucard (Paper-Thin Disguise aside). The Dawn of Sorrow intro also has Soma meet them before going into the castle.
Memetic Mutation: Julius kiais when dive kicking; thanks to attack cancelling, this can be spammed rapidly and is Julius' most efficient method of travel, so any given speedrun of Julius mode (both this game and the sequel) is filled with machine-gun cries of "dueh-dueh-dueh" (or "urle-urle-urle" for the Japanese fans).
Most Wonderful Sound: The sound of Soma absorbing an enemy soul, especially one the player may have been grinding for a good while.
Scrappy Weapon: This game makes the first return of the famed Crissaegrim, now called Valmanway, to the franchise. Unfortunately you can only get one by completing the Boss Rush in under 4 minutes, which to give it credit, is much easier to get than the original Crissaegrim, but completing a gauntlet of tough (or annoying) boss fights in a strict time limit means that you had to immediately pull out to the next boss and not take the healing orb since waiting for them to appear takes your time, or use the Rubicante + Spoiled Milk trick and pray you didn't take hit on your way there. So what did you get after beating the mode in less than 4 minutes? It's possibly the weakest incarnation of the sword, only having +2 attack power and much shorter range, and it's only hitting up to 3 times instead of 4, lowering it's destructive power even more, which is insulting considering what you had to do to obtain in in the first place. You better off fighting through the entire game barehanded. The Valmanway would eventually return in Dawn of Sorrow, now bearing the usual +36 attack power and hitting up to 4 times like the original, though getting it requires you to beat the game's penultimate boss firsthand and get it's soul for the crafting material (which is guaranteed drop at least).
Balore is extremely tough, giving you little room to dodge his fists in the first half and then constantly spamming sweeping eye lasers in the second half. This is stark contrast to Dawn of Sorrow, where Balore is a pretty huge pushover even with the eye beam equivalent of a Wave-Motion Gun in his arsenal. (Perhapsit's because ofinjuries sustainedin the previous game?)
Julius Belmont. He's fast, he's unpredictable, and he laughs at your Infinity +1 Sword due to his resistance to Holy. You basically need an alternate weapon and Flash Step to beat him. Plus, after the fight, Soma states that Julius was stronger than that, and he admits to not giving it his all. So the narrative is saying that you fought him when he was holding back!
Death is no slouch, either. His first form isn't so bad if you have the Witch soul, letting you bounce his mini-scythes back at him for massive damage, but the second form becomes extremely tricky to avoid, especially when he starts rolling his scythe all over the walls and floor.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Death is present as a boss fight, but has no character or dialogue outside of that. Since he's served under Dracula for so long, it feels like a lost opportunity that he didn't react in some way to his master's soul being re-incarnated as Soma. (The Watsonian explanation for his silence could be that the developers wanted to save The Reveal after Graham is defeated, for maximal Player Punch points, but if that's the case then it's a shame Death still has nothing to say to Soma in Dawn of Sorrow.)
over the United States. This fits very well with the theme of solar eclipses being tied to Dracula's defeat and the English translation making Soma a transfer student, even if the game claims that there were no solar eclipses in the 21st century prior to the 2035 one (in real life, the two eclipses are even in the same eclipse cycle