Hmm.

Hmm.

HMM.

I’m not sure about this. Maybe this is where there Castlevania meets diminishing returns. It seems to be half made up of changes I’m not sure I like (complicated glyph attack system, small level maps travelled to on a top-down, no-gameplay world map, more talking than normal) and the same old gameplay, but made a little bit harder by throwing a few too many enemies at you. (Including some highly annoying floating tentacled brain-suckers that don’t seem to have a name.)

That said, it’s Castlevania, so you can’t go very wrong. Maybe it’ll click at some point, maybe the level design will get more interesting – there have been far too many flat left-to-right trudges so far – and maybe the glyph system will seem less random.

Fingers crossed.