ESRB SITE REVEALS NEW CASTLEVANIA DS TITLE
Would you believe it has a 'noun - preposition - noun' subtitle?
By Kris Pigna, 04/14/2008

Remember back in 1999, when Konami followed Symphony of the Night with Castlevania for the Nintendo 64, and we all despaired at ever seeing another 2D Castlevania again? Boy, we were stupid. And after taking 2007 off so the PSP could get a 2D Castlevania of its own, it appears producer Koji Igarashi is readying yet another round of handheld vampire slaying for the Nintendo DS this year. Thanks to the ESRB (via Shacknews), we even know the title -- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.

A new DS Castlevania was actually confirmed last September, when Igarashi slipped the news to Game Informer during an interview. The title also shows up in the United States Patent and Trademark database, complete with its own logo. No word on when the game is planned for release, but based on the many, many past Castlevania titles, we wouldn't be surprised to see it planned for this fall.

Ecclesia, by the way, is totally not a made up word:

Ecclesia
n. pl. ec-cle-si-ae
1. The political assembly of citizens of an ancient Greek state.
2. A church or congregation.

So, while it sounds cool, this basically means the new DS Castlevania has the somewhat drab subtitle of "Order of a Church Congregation". I don't know about you, but I really hope this means we'll be slaying ancient Greek citizens and/or church parishioners.

Konami is showing off Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia at the Interactive & Digital Entertainment Festival in Cannes, leading one Jeuxvideo.tv contributor to show off his ability to hold a camera steady on the DS screen while simultaneously playing. Or he brought a friend. The point is: hey, look!

The backgrounds look more layered and detailed than the last couple of games, and the enemy sprites appear to be a mix of old and new. The skeleton hasn't changed since at least Symphony of the Night, but that new floating shade (or witch, or whatever the girl in the dress is) is pretty amazing. Of course, we're more than willing to look past the reused sprites because there's a different world map! With non-castle locations!

This segment provides a better look at the Magnes glyph (which creates a powerful magnetic field, allowing Shanoa to pull herself up to certain metallic platforms, then slingshot herself offward) and its in-game tutorial. The glyph will act as a sort of high jump, to allow access to previously inaccessible areas of the castle.

There's a lot of truth to the complaints many have made about producer Koji Igarashi's direction with the Castlevania series -- mainly that every new entry seems like a slight update to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night's (1997) template -- but we've never let that get in the way of us taking in every bit of vampire-slaying media each new Castlevania title.

As a team focused on digging up news on Nintendo DS games, we sift through dozens of videos and screenshots, glossing over most of them. With IGN's hands-on impressions and direct-feed clips for Order of Ecclesia, however, we took in every word, every second of animation. They're all embedded past the post break for you to do the same, of course!

And, for those of you who are still grumpy about Order of Ecclesia possibly feeling too much like previous installments, you'll be happy to hear this bit from IGN's preview: "Between the glyph system's reliance on magic, the 'out of the castle' feel of the game, and the all new enemies, this is the first time since Symphony of the Night that a free-roaming version of the game hasn't felt like a direct clone of Symphony of the Night."

New trailer from DS Fanboy:

http://www.dsfanboy.com/2008/07/22/castlev...-a-new-trailer/

The only thing that kind of concerns me is that they are doing that separate areas in the same way that POR did it. Still that game was a hell of a lot fun, and this looks like it will be too.

Which one was that? I probably never played it.