Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Castlevania made its grand debut on the NES and quickly became a favorite with fans of action and adventure games. The gothic settings, the challenging gameplay, and the continuing story of the struggle between Dracula and those that fight to keep humanity safe from him have kept the series popular for several generations of consoles and handhelds. With Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Konami is cranking up the difficulty, changing up some of the old conventions in the series, and bringing back familiar foes for one more chapter in the ongoing series.

Order of Ecclesia plays out a little differently than the past few Castlevania titles have. Often called "Metroidvanias" for their Metroid-like design, recent Castlevania titles, on the DS and GBA, have all shared a similar format where you've been placed in a single large level where you progress and backtrack in a mostly non-linear fashion. Order of Ecclesia still has backtracking as an integral part of the gameplay, but the game is broken up into smaller levels until the latter part of the game. The effect of this design choice makes Order of Ecclesia feel both fresh and familiar at the same time.

What's Hot
Over the years, the 2D iterations of Castlevania have always been known for their strong gameplay and attention to a tight and responsive control scheme. Order of Ecclesia not only continues that tradition, but it builds upon it with some new innovations and twists. For starters, you don't collect weapons, but rather glyphs, which allow your character to do attacks that resemble both conventional weaponry or magic. You can equip two at a time (each mapped to their own button) and each time you use an attack, it drains your MP a little. The game also uses a simple combo system where if you alternate between your glyphs the attack speed of your character increases. Some glyphs use more MP than others, and while the MP regenerates quickly, some glyphs force you to moderate your rate of attack a bit.

The enemies and bosses in the game are simply brutal, but they're challenging in a fun way. You'll need to recognize how individual enemies attack so that you can minimize the damage you take with each encounter. Doing so is the key to surviving all that the game throws at you. As for the bosses, you won't find yourself winning any wars of attrition with them. If you're going to be successful against the bosses in Order of Ecclesia, you'll need to find out which of your glyphs are the most effective at dealing out damage while finding safe spots from their punishing attacks.

Order of Ecclesia simplifies the magic and weapons system through the glyphs to the point where the game has a distinct old school flavor to it. Yes, the presentation and graphical aspects of the game are on par with current technology, but the scaled back gameplay systems keep the game from getting mired down in complex magic or weapon leveling up. In Order of Ecclesia, the majority of your time is spent focusing on dealing with enemy encounters rather than level management.

In addition to the main quest, there are a variety of mini-quests that the villagers will give you. These are entirely optional, but they are beneficial as well. These quests will extend the game for those that are hoping to get a little more out of the game than what the main quest provides.

What's Not
There isn't much to complain about with Order of Ecclesia, but if you're looking for a game that you can breeze through casually, you'll be best served looking elsewhere. While most gamers will be able to find satisfaction in the challenges the game provides, there will be a significant group out there that will find the boss fights frustrating.

It's interesting that by taking the series back to its roots a bit that it feels like the game has taken a leap forward. What seems to be happening is that gamers are realizing that while the recent Castlevania games have been fun, they've been stuck in a formulaic design that was getting a little stale. It is nice to see Order of Ecclesia breaking from recent molds, but it would have been a little more encouraging to have seen a more genuine forward step. Yes, the glyph system is nice in the way it simplifies things, but it still feels like there's another way in which the series can continue to evolve that might make a more satisfying impact.

Final Word
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is a must buy for any fan of the 2D Castlevania games or for anybody looking for a solid action/adventure experience. There will be many who believe it to be the best of the handheld Castlevania games, and they have a solid and sound argument. Yes, the game is very difficult, but if you're up for a challenge you'll find it one of the more satisfying titles to hit the DS for quite some time.