DS! Castlevania! YEAH!

We all knew it was coming, but that didn't taint the experience one bit. The third Castlevania DS has arrived, and it's just as beautiful, innovative, yet classically grounded as we'd hoped. It didn't matter that Konami limited the game to eyes-on only (well, it did, but we'll take what we can get), and it's apparent that we weren't the only people out there that thought the Castlevania series needed a gentle nudge in the butt to move away from its all-too familiar footing. The series isn't in need of a total redesign, but Order of Ecclesia may be exactly what the doctored ordered to complete the DS trilogy, as it mixes just enough old with a lot of new.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia takes place in a time after the great Richter Belmont has vanished from the lands. With the once-mighty clan of vampire hunters extinct, the world has been thrown into chaos. Dracula and his armies still thrive, so it's up to mere mortals to face off against the legendary vampire on their own. Thus, the Order of Ecclesia was born.

Made up of the most proficient magic users in the world, the Order of Ecclesia harnesses magical elements in the world known as "glyphs." These glyphs – taken from random power in the world, the souls of monsters, and other mysterious sources not yet revealed – can be controlled and transformed by only the most powerful humans, and at the top of the list is Shanoa, a girl so adept and magically enhanced that she is assumed to be the one final hope of the world. With the aid of her order, she takes up arms and wages war on the now cursed land around the legendary Castlevania.

It seems like a lot of back story to go through, and with Castlevania not being the most story-driven franchise out there, you may wonder why we (or Konami) went to so much trouble detailing it. The reason is that this glyph system ties the entire world of Order of Ecclesia together, as all weapons and magic have a tie to the unnatural powers that lie within the bones of Shanoa. The general Symphony of the Night-inspired gameplay runs per usual, including two hands for attacks (X and Y), a skills button assigned to R, large sprawling worlds charted by a top screen map system, double jumps, health and magic point meters to watch, and never-ending hoards of monsters to smash through as you grind though an action/adventure 2D quest to Dracula's door. It looks, acts, and truly feels like a Castlevania sequel.

That's where familiarity ends though, as the glyph system has serious depth to it not found in the majority of Castlevania titles thus far – with noted exception to the soul system in the "Sorrow" games, which was both deep and imaginative. By holding up on the d-pad Shanoa sucks in glyphs from around the world, which then unlock new skills that can apparently be upgraded or used from there on out as players see fit. A few examples of these include sword glyphs, bow & arrow glyphs, dark and light glyphs, and dozens upon dozens more. If it was a weapon, spell, or skill in the world of Castlevania, chances are it's a glyph that can be found within the world of Order of Ecclesia. As another interesting example, one glyph known as the "magnes" sends out a circular zone of magic around Shanoa. If it comes in contact with metal gears or posts, Shanoa will be instantly sucked to it, and with a combination of d-pad and properly timed R button work can be used to slingshot her in any direction via the magnetic force. During the on-stage demo, project producer and authority on all things Castlevania, Koji Igarashi, strung a half dozen of these slingshot maneuvers together via some quick trigger work, essentially scaling a giant clock tower in just a few seconds.

Glyphs also have another unique ability in this game which drastically set them apart from conventional weapons. For starters, all attacks now take up magic (Iga did infer that some "non-glyph" items would be an exception, but the demo included only magic-based attacks, all of which hacked away at an ever-replenishing MP meter), and while MP is brought back nearly instantly after combat is halted, it's still enough time to make a novice player look stupid as they button-mash at a foe, only to keep their magic points stuck at zero with no attacks registering whatsoever.

For those that take the time to master them, however, glyphs will prove to be more useful than any other conventional weapons in Castlevania history. While any attack glyph can be added to either the right or left hand, you can also do what we've grown to call "doubling up." Assigning the same weapon to both hands, the double up technique allows players to quickly tap from button to button, actually cutting the repeat rate down considerably. A sword may take half a second to swing over and over again with one button, but double up that same glyph in both right and left hands and you can attack much faster, or even unleash custom combos specific to that weapon by feathering your thumb from X to Y over and over.

As a final upgrade, pressing both Y and X (both hands) at the same time will initiate an "item crush" of sorts similar to previous Castlevania games. The main sword turned into a huge crashing blade, the bow & arrow called in a steady rain of arrows that cascaded across the screen, and – unlike the others, where a single glyph was added to both slots – the combination of a light and dark glyph on neighboring slots allowed for a huge special attack that first washed the screen in white light, and then detonated like a supernova. Not only do you need to find out where and how to obtain the glyphs, but there's also added depth in discovering which combine with each other or themselves to create devastating custom combos and magic attacks.

There are other bits and pieces to the story that aren't totally lining up yet after such a short gameplay demo, but they're worth noting. During the gameplay demo we saw a gigantic crab boss that chased us up a huge tower floor by floor, a heated battle between Shanoa and the classic Frankenstein boss, and a fight with a gigantic skeleton. The game is also level-based to a certain extent, with training and supporting characters existing at the Ecclesia fort, with sections of an overworld map opening up more than 20 locales for area-based navigation. Just select a section of the world map, and Shanoa will enter into haunted wooded, outskirt villages bordering Dracula's castle, haunted monasteries, or our personal favorite, an open seas level that featured a gigantic 3D pirate ship crashing against waves and morphing in and out of view directly behind our player as she desperately fought through pouring rain and raging wind.

It may not be a gigantic leap graphically from the last two games, but areas like these certainly give Order of Ecclesia a look all its own. Portrait of Ruin stepped outside the castle for a brief moment or two, but DS's third Castlevania looks to spend more time outside it than in. It has a – dare we say it – Simon's Quest feel to it, if the NES classic was actually fun for more than just the top 1% of masochistically hardcore gamers.

Gamers looking for a more serious trek down memory lane with Castlevania are in for a treat as well, as the anime style from the first two games is nowhere to be seen, with Order of Ecclesia instead embracing a beautiful line art, almost tapestry-looking design. We still got a brief look at an intro video, showing our femme fatal harnessing glyphs and ripping through endless hoards of monsters, but this time it felt more like a game geared towards the older crowd, with beautiful brush strokes and strong lines making up an impressive graphical showcase. Normally a drastic change in visuals is enough to set fans spiraling in different directions all at once, but everyone in our general vicinity had great things to say about it once the video was finished. It's clearly a step in the right direction, and the fact that this art is also used in-game for character portraits gives us a great feeling. A few other supporting characters such as the old, book-toting man Barlowe, and a younger, pistol-wielding hero were seen in-game and during the animated sequence, so while Iga himself confirmed that players would only be trekking through the adventure with Shanoa this time around with no character swapping (too much of anything can get dry, apparently), there's certainly a supporting cast to keep you company as you explore the lay and land around the legendary Castlevania.

Konami has also confirmed that the game will feature online head-to-head, as well as a returning shop mode. There will also be multiple endings available for those that dare seek them out, but any self-respecting Castlevania fan already knew that long before Konami made mention. We'll have more details on the game shortly, including information on the hinted at Wii connectivity.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is tentatively scheduled for a late 2008 release, though Iga himself made mention that the team will be putting in extra hours to attempt that release, so a potential delay into 2009 is always a slim possibility.