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.
