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Awesome!

could be interesting. Though I'm not big on the hand held market. a shame really. The stylius drawing seal could either be a cool new feature or a really annoying event.

The graphics don't impress. They're really not much better than the GBAs.

Should be a title to buy....

Not sure how well you can judge the graphics by looking at small pictures from the back of a box.

I loved all the GBA castlevania games and will definitely pick this title up. It will be great to have the map showing all the time, instead of going to the subscreen every 5 minutes or more to make sure you're going in the right direction.

The seal drawing looks really annoying.

Get use to that. Most games on the DS need a gimmick like that to utilize the useless stylus and extra screen.

I'll stick with my HoD and AoS for my portable Castlevania fix.

but it's innovative!
lol

well said

Here's a comparison I found in another forum between Castlevania DS, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA), and Castlevania: Symphonia of the Night (PSOne)

While I like the second screen map, the "sealing" thing needs to be an option. I just don't think little additions like that are worth anything. Companies need to come up with some better uses of the DS, and fast.

The touchscreen was a gimmick to begin with, so there will probably only be one or two good uses of it throughout the lifespan of the product.

I don't plan on picking up a DS unless some killer title comes out for it. While I own all 3 GBA Castlevanias, I still have yet to finish the first one, anyway.

Yeah, it's way gimmicky. I've played some games on the PocketPC with a stylus, and it always, always sucks. Your game renders a whole bunch of nicely-rendered, Bezier-curved, per-pixel-shaded polygons, and then you block 20% of the screen with a plastic pen and two fingers. That's super.

It could be made a into a neat feature, though. Ever hear of a game called Trap Gunner for the PSX? It was an action game involving setting and defusing traps. The defusing part was neat: it would show you a random sequence of symbols, corresponding to PSX buttons, and you had to enter it perfectly within three seconds to defuse the bomb. If you make a mistake, it explodes. If time runs out, If your opponent find you and attacks you while you're defusing it, it explodes. This turned out to be great fun: a half-second of completely different stress in the middle of a standard shooter.

While this is possible, I don't expect a savvy game mechanic like this. I anticipate it'll be a stupid "finish him!" gimmick, where the boss just sits idly (forever) while you draw the pattern around him. Tres lame.

- David Stein

Yeah, it looks lame in Castlevania.

But the touch screen can be put to good use. The mini games in Mario 64 are great, Feel the Magic is supposed to put it to good use, and I'm sure Warioware Touched will be great. Not to mention it's awesome for aiming in the Metroid: Hunters demo.

It really can be and is much more than a gimmick. For a game like this it is more like a gimmick but the touch screen in general is not. It really can open up a lot of different gameplay. Just play the mario mini games or Metroid for a sample.

Even if this mechanic somehow manages not to be as awkward and half-baked as it sounds, what are the chances that it is any fun?

Konami desperately needs to get Igarashi off the Castlevania franchise: Lament of Innocence was shallow nonsense and the GBA/DS games are so stagnant that I'd swear EA was behind them.

The GBA games are fantastic, probably my favorite games of this generation on any platform after Metroid Prime 1&2 and Zelda: WW. They're right up there with Symphony of the Night IMO. I didn't bother with the PS2 game though, as I don't care for 3D action games.

The seal drawing will probably be annoying, but I doubt it will ruin the game for me.

I love Castlevania as much as the next Castlevania fanatic, but I'm tired of having to buy handhelds to play the lastest game in the series. Bring on some more console versions!

Oh and one of my co-workers who owns a DS was wondering : "I got my EGM yesterday and read it and I can't believe that they're actually using the top screen as the map and the bottom for the game!!! The bottom screen is lower res than the top and very blurry compared to the top screen. That means the game won't look even as good as an SP. I can't believe they're doing that. The top screen of the DS is the main screen used for games.. the bottom is supposed to be for maps, inv, etc. If that's the final design and they really do that I'm dumping my DS forever!!!!"

Well, the rumor section of the EGM says to expect another 3D castlevania for the PS2.

I doubt we'll ever see a 2D castlevania on a console again. 2D gaming is dead on the consoles. And I imagine the true GBA successor will be a fully 3D system like the PSP and we'll truly see the end of 2D gaming then with just 1 or 2 games here or there.

Isn't the resolution of each screen identical? Besides you need to have the game on the touch screen to draw those seals on the bosses.

I have loved all of the GBA Castlevanias and even bought SOTN again on the PSone. Can't wait to play the DS version.

I believe the screens are identical resolution wise, but not positive. I can't tell a difference in quality between the top and bottoms screens in the mini-games in Mario 64 which are split to both.

It would be stupid for them not to be the same, as they had to foresee that some games would need to have the main screen on the bottom to use touch features like the seal drawing.

And here it is, yay!!! :

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is a 3D Castlevania game from the creators of Lament of Innocence. The game takes place three years after Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, and stars Hector, a former student of Dracula.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/c...ml?tag=mp_2to9

Check out the movies - it looks much better than the GBA games in motion:

http://www.gamespot.com/ds/action/ca...nia/media.html