Still working on the game for review, but the experience thus far has been exciting enough that I couldn't help but post a quick something about it, especially seeing as every review I've read of the game has been at least a little off base. I'm going to do this in bullet-point mode, as to (hopefully) keep me from rambling on too long.

OK, here we go!

1) There are not that many new enemies in the game, not as many as most reivews would lead you to believe. It's been about 50-50 so far (I'm about 6 hours in), and although I've seen a few cool new sprites, I've seen plenty of old ones as well. Also, the new sprites are generally not as well done as the older, SotN era ones, but some of them are so cool in concept that it doesn't matter.

Demon with a Hammerhead shark's head?

AWESOME.

2) So far, the Metroid-vania format has been completely ditched. A couple of levels have had branching paths, but none have been that much bigger than the branches found in Rond of Blood's stages. So if the past games frustrated you because it was too big of a pain to to find out where to go next, this game will be right up your alley. OoE retains enough of the SotN/DoS RPG style that fans of those games wont be completely dissappointed with it, but it's clear this one was made more for the NES/SNES era Castlevania fans than for the PS1/GBA/DS era fans.

3) The battle system is pretty different than past Castlevainas. It's actually a lot like Mega Man, in that if you find the right weapon for the right enemy/boss, they'll go down pretty quick (by Castlevania-boss standards, that means 2-3 minutes). Unlike the weapons from past Castlevanias, none of the Glyphs affect your characters Strength stat, but they all have different elemental porperties. It's like Pokemon. Lightning is strong against water enemies, light is strong against ghost enemies, etc, etc. It's a nice change for the series, as it allows for weapons you got at the very beginning of the game to remain usefull for the entire trip.

4) The game is not that hard, especially if you learn an enemies weakness. There is a save point before each and every boss I've fought so far, so it's totally not a big deal to be killed by one a few times.

5) The music is pretty great.

6) The story aint that bad either.

Ok, that's it for now. Expect a full review soon.