Castlevania fans who may be experiencing franchise fatigue after a steady stream of portable games—starting with 2001's Circle of the Moon on the GameBoy Advance—should take notice, as the latest entry in the series is the game you wished Portrait of Ruin would've been. With Order of Ecclesia, series producer Koji Igarashi has finally switched up the formula that reinvented the franchise in Symphony of the Night. The game will still feel very familiar to Castlevania veterans, but there is enough new stuff to make it worthwhile.

Like all Castlevania games, Ecclesia tasks players with stopping yet another coming of Dracula. But instead of playing one of the vampire-hunting Belmont clan, players take on the role of a new character, Shanoa. As a member of the titular vampire-hunting organization, Shanoa has been training to fight the dark lord since a very young age, and thus has a multitude of skills and powers at her disposal. Unfortunately, an accident at the beginning of the game erases her memory so that she essentially becomes a blank slate, having to relearn all of her old abilities.

This is achieved through the new glyph system. Glyphs represent different weapons and magical abilities, and can be recovered from fallen enemies and at other specific points in the game—much in the way souls were acquired in Dawn of Sorrow. Two glyphs can be equipped at a time, giving Shanoa the ability to dual-wield different weapons. However, there is a trick to choosing different combinations of weapons, as certain pairings can create powerful special attacks. This allows for a bit of strategy when selecting weapons, and requires some experimenting. Unfortunately, these attacks—while cool and very useful—consume way too many hearts, so they have to be used sparingly.

But while the glyph system helps make the combat feel fresh, the biggest change in Ecclesia is how levels are set up. Instead of one large, sprawling castle—though the end game does include just that—the game is divided into much shorter levels, which can be accessed using a world map. This significantly changes the pacing of the game, and is perfect on the portable platform, as it allows for quick run-throughs in addition to long play sessions. The new set-up also makes backtracking much easier and quicker, thus eliminating some of the frustrations of past games.

The world map also brings with it a fresh feature: a town filled with NPCs to talk to. Well, it will be full once you get around to saving all of the kidnapped villagers. This process slowly fills up the village with new characters, starting with the most useful. This includes both a shop owner and a healer who will agree to make different kinds of medicine if you bring him the right items. Though there is relatively little to do in Wygol Village, it helps break up the action and provides an excellent place to return to after quick bouts of level grinding.

And you will have to grind. Unlike a number of its predecessors, Ecclesia is a very difficult game. You will die a number of times throughout the game, and, surprisingly, a lot of the time it will be at the hands of regular enemies. There are a number of tough foes littered throughout the game, but more often than not, a little bit of grinding will help you get through a tough spot. The bosses, however, can be even more frustrating, and require some difficult pattern memorization to defeat. The game even tries to throw you off sometimes by presenting a boss at the beginning of a level. Thankfully, save and warp rooms are fairly plentiful, so it's possible to run away from a fight you're not quite ready for.

Like most action games, the difficulty helps make any success all the more gratifying, even if it does produce more than one intensely frustrating experience. And by combining this classic difficulty with interesting new game mechanics and vintage Castlevania visuals and sounds, Igarashi and his team have crafted what could be the best game in the series since Symphony on the PlayStation. Hopefully, fans aren't too burnt out on the series to notice.

Verdict: Buy

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

Platform: Nintendo DS

Price: $29.99

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