Our woman in the field, the lovely .tiff, has just come from the Konami Gamer's Night with some delicious details of the new Castlevania DS game, Order of Ecclesia. You saw some scans yesterday; now have some more clear screens by way of Konami.
In this latest title, the Belmont family has disappeared, but Dracula himself remains as real a threat as ever. With the Belmont clan's departure, many organizations have risen up to tackle the threat of Dracula, all without success — save for the Order of Ecclesia. This new Castlevania will put you in the shoes of a female heroine as she battles to save the world from horror's most charismatic parasite.
How will she do this? All is revealed after the jump.
You will be using a "Glyph Magic" system to attack Dracula and his buddies this time around, which Konami showed brief glimpses of. It would seem that Glyphs will be utilized in environmental puzzles as well as attacks, with the Fire Glyph attack used to melt a block of ice in one portion of the game.
As well as fire, the new heroine was also shown using ice and electric powers, arrows and some good ol' swordplay. The swords seem to be linked to Glyphs as well: the main character was shown absorbing a Glyph into her body -- the rapier Glyph -- which seems to use magic to create the weapon, rather than giving you a physical blade to use.
You can attach a Glyph to each of your arms, along with one on your back, and these are assigned to the Y (right arm), X (left arm) and R (back) buttons. You double your attack speed by assigning Glyphs to both arms, and can combine your arms to create special attacks.
Another Glyph example was shown -- a magnetic ball shield that you can use to increase your movement by slingshotting yourself around a level (Mario Galaxy meets Bust-A-Move, as .tiff describes it).
This new system is going to be a heavy feature of Ecclesia, with many different types (Dark Glyphs and Light Glyphs were also shown). Enemies will also have Glyphs of their own that can be absorbed upon defeat.
Outside of the new feature, other details discussed pertained to the map. There will be a world map that you use to travel to various locations. Once you enter a location, the familiar 2D gameplay will start up. It seems that this new Castlevania will feel a lot more expansive and vast than previous games, and this world map system plays into that.
And that's that. Sounds like
Castlevania fans have a lot to be getting on with in this new chapter of a series that has just entered its twenty-second year.
RSS 
MORE IN OUR 
More from this author: 
Sounds just like soma's abilities in the sorrow games.
Not that I'm disappointed ill buy it anyways cause its more castlevania.
Wow, travelling by world map in a Castlevania game sounds interesting. And the Glyph system sounds awesome.
Sweet! The DS Castlevania's have been awesome so far.
Yep. I'm sold. Sorry to everyone who wanted something less Metroidvania, but these games are too good.
Looks a little bit like Crocomire there.
Yay! Sounds good.
This sounds interesting, specially the expansive world. The Glyph system sounds kinda like the Sorrow games, but as Jim explained, it sounds really cool.
Also, is it me or the graphics doesn't looks a bit ifnerior compared to Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin? I hope it's just the snapshot.
I like that Glyph Magic
I hid my blog because I didn't realize I posted after this, so it was dumb. But I had someone translate yesterday's screens...
First pic
New weird monsters will try to stop you
Shanoa can use "Grief (Glyph? - JD) Magic" to attack the monsters
Second pic
The newest game in the Castlevania series
The main character Shanoa has been chosen by a group called The Eclesia to kill Dracula. She uses her whip and magic to attack him.
Hope that gives some more info.
Shanoa?
-Jd
Sounds great.
I'm not too worried about the screens. They look fantastic, to be honest.
notice that big 3D ship in the back of the first one? Imagine it spasming around as it looks like it's been capsized, based on all the debris.
and that big sword? awesome.
I don't need anything more than this. Konami, I'm sold, hurry up and make this.
I'm not worried about the screens since the pictures are about three times the size of the DS screen. More than likely it'll come out just a beautiful as the other two.
I really hope its good, Portrait of Ruin reeked of lazy design, hopefully this one will kick ass.
I just came.
Makes me wanna go home and dust of PoR. I might just do that.
I need to beat Dawn of Sorrow.
This is exactly what they should have done to Banjo Threeie (I'm calling it that, fuck you). Add some new mechanic, but keep the core gameplay the same.
Do want! I love the look of that new girl's sprite, I just want to know where this is in the timeline. I'm guessing post-Dawn of Sorrow?
Awesome! Now can i PLEAAASE get a 2d castlevania for PS3. i heard the one they're working on is 3d. That's great and all, i hope they finally nail a 3d castlevania, but my heart lies in the SotN model that has only gone to gba/ds for the past 10 years
Thank goodness they dropped the horribly uber-anime art style!
This looks good, Konami day looks like a resounding success (I choose to pretend they didn't announce cookie cutter revolution)
A friend and I were actually discussing Castlevania characters the other night and we noticed that there's a gap between Portrait of Ruin which takes place in 1944 and Aria/Dawn of Sorrow, which take place in 2035/2036 respecyively. That leaves almost 100 years of story to fill, not to mention the fact that the Belmonts aren't in PoR. Like Jim said, they've only disappeared. Doesn't mean they're all dead.
damn that is so teh seck
Glad to see they're mixing it up a bit. Can't wait to play this one. I wonder what the pre-order goodies will be?
no no no, itīs fake!!!!!! donīt you see it,please???
Itīs made from both ripped background and characters from olders castlevania games like dawn of sorrow or portrait of ruin. The characters have changed palette colors to make them look like brand new characters, even the objects (books,table......etc)inside the background, are ripped from such past games......Some enemies are rebuilt sprites from several past enemies with colors variations, i mean, the bosses showed in these pics....By the way, why thereīs no more websites covering this news????
In conclusion, itīs a "well made" hoax!!
kotipeltox:
Erm ... you realize these "fakes" were given directly to .tiff by Konami itself, right?