Aria of Sorrow

I've played through what the status screen tells me is a little over 50 percent of the map now.  There are still plenty of mysteries, plenty of souls to steal, and I have to say after a slow start I'm damn happy with Aria of Sorrow.  What I think really works is that the equipment system and the soul system are separate, allowing for a lot of different combinations of equipment.  Yes, please!
 
I DID run into a sequence breaker in the Clock Tower area which was surprisingly easy that wound up trapping me, forcing a reset.  Other than that, it doesn't seem to mind when I go exploring in places I probably shouldn't be; like any good nonlinear sequence it'll punish me for going out of order by making the encounters tougher, but I also get rewarded well if I can tough it out.  Nice.  
 
Now that I bought a particularly powerful sword I'm basically chucking most of what I find, but I still have room for a misc. item and armor, as well as all the different souls (favorite soul so far is the lightning doll.  Now that's proper lightning!).  
 
I still feel like I'll probably have to look the game up when I'm done to figure out a few things, but I don't mind too much.  I still feel like Circle of the Moon managed a consistent horror tone better, but the variety of enemies and gameplay in Aria feels more densely packed, promising some replays in the future.