Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

• A good trick to getting a lot of money (for buying the Soul Eater ring, for instance) is to equip a Mimic soul and go to the save point in the clock tower that has spikes right outside. Remove your defensive equipment and run back and forth on the spikes grabbing the gold bags that pop out. When you are close to dying jump out and save to heal. You can easily get enough for the Soul Eater ring in around 30 minutes.

• You don't really need to worry about grinding souls, there are plenty of common, moderately powerful ones that can last through the game, unless you want some of the end game weapons (in DoS, you combine souls with weak weapons to make better ones, destroying the souls and previous weapon in the process), in which case you'll have to go out of your way on occasion. Note that some souls you can only receive once per playthrough, and two weapons might need the same soul, so you can't get everything in the game at once.

• Also, before starting a game of Dawn of Sorrow, put Aria of Sorrow in the DS, put DoS in, and then start. You get a free Rare Ring for it, increasing your luck.

• Magic Seals suck. As soon as you get one, go to the menu and practice it a couple times until you can draw it quickly under pressure.

• If you can pick up a Mandragora soul the first time you head through the Garden of Madness, you've pretty much gotten the best Bullet soul in the game.