Everyone loves Castlevania, right? One of the more interesting series in the gaming industry. There’s the super-hard classic games, the metroid style games, and the not-too-good 3D action games, it has spanned a lot of game genres. And, other than the 3D games, they’re all really damn good (yes, even Simon’s Quest… which would have been awesome if the translation wasn’t terrible, because you really NEED a guide to finish it since the townspeople are really useless).

Well, Castlevania is tackling a new genre again: puzzles! And just to be completely weird, it’s a remake of Symphony of the Night… Weird.

So read on and see if it’s any good!

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Date of Release: July 10th 2010
Platforms: iPhone
Genre: Puzzle RPG

Gameplay
Well, one thing that surprised me when I started playing is that the controls weren’t as completely horrible as I was expecting them to be. Previous of the game and such made me think that you actually had to touch the falling pieces to move them around or rotate them, but, in actuality, you can touch anywhere on the screen to control the game. Very nice. One problem: the game will randomly instantly drop your blocks when you don’t want them to because the controls are very sensitive. But, still, it plays well.

So the basic gameplay is really simple… Actually, it’s exactly the same gameplay as Puyo Puyo (or Kirby’s Avalanche on the SNES). You get 2 blocks that are linked together, and you must place them on your playing field, rotating them and making them drop. If 3 pieces of the same color or more are touching each other in any pattern (instead of 4 in Puyo Puyo), they get destroyed. There are “solid” blocks, which cannot take place in a group to be destroyed until a gem next to it is destroyed, which turns it into a normal gem. You can also do combos, just like in Puyo Puyo.

Here, you are fighting enemies who also have their playfield. Doing combos puts solid blocks in their playfield, and vice-versa. One element here that is pretty unique is that there’s an hourglass on the bottom of the screen. When it ends, both Alucard and his enemy attack, dealing base damage in addition to any extra damage given by blocks destroyed and combos. If either screen gets filled up, some of the blocks are removed and massive damage is dealt to whichever player filled his screen.

Outside of battle, you travel around (as far as I can remember) the exact same map as in SOTN, except it’s a grid rather than an area you platform through, where rooms/sections of rooms are separated in squares/rectangles in the grid. So from one room you can move to any connected room, unless they’re “locked” because you don’t have the required power/item to go there… just like in the original SOTN, so it’s actually a really cool feature. If you played SOTN a lot, you know exactly which path you’re gonna take to go through the game, and what you need to move on to different areas.

Other than the “exploring” aspect, there’s a leveling aspect. Each “battle” (which, by the way, are more or less random when you go to another square in the grid) gives you experience. Get enough experience and you level up. That boosts all your stats (other than elemental affinity), and gives you extra points to spend on stats, as well as elemental affinity (don’t know if the affinity actually changes anything in battle, but getting enough affinity does teach you spells that you can us in battle for various effects. Oh, and you also get equipment, some that you find as drops from monsters, or in rooms in the map.

One thing I found is that getting lots of attack power, by boosting your strength, and getting lots of defense, with good equipment and stat boosting as well, will get you through almost any fight without any trouble. Boosting elemental affinity is basically useless unless you really plan on using lots of spells. The game is just incredibly easy other than a few select boss battles, and, if it’s really giving you trouble, you can always level grind a bit, though it’s sort of slow. High attack power means more damage every time the hourglass finishes.

Presentation
The game basically just re-uses all the graphics and sounds from SOTN. It’s actually all recycling other than the gems. The animations, the sprites and the map, everything is recycled. Not that it looks bad, but it’s nothing really special. If you liked the looks of the original, you’ll like it here. Nothing more to say.

The game follows the exact same story as the original as well, with the same “cutscenes” in the same areas as in the original. Except that the conversation with Death at the start doesn’t strip you of your equipment.

Yeah, there’s really nothing much to say about the game’s presentation, it really does nothing special. It looks just like SOTN presentation-wise.

Overall
Encore of the Night isn’t really a bad game, but it’s not really good. It’s terribly easy other than some of the boss battles, the leveling system pretty much boils down to “boost your attack power and defense a lot”, and the “battles” are so short they’re barely worth mentionning.

It’s entertaining for a bit… but that’s it. After getting over the novelty of playing SOTN except with a puzzle mechanic, there’s really not much to it. Since it actually lacks multiplayer, which is the main appeal of games like this, it’s not really worth buying. I mean, the funnest thing in Puyo Puyo is playing with other people, the single player is usually an afterthought in those games.

Pros and Cons
Pros
- Controls are much smoother than I expected
- The leveling system isn’t too bad

Cons
- Despite the controls being more useable than I expected, they’re still really sensitive
- REALLY easy
- Not really fun to play
- No multiplayer

The Save Factor
The game costs 10$ on the App Store… Just don’t bother unless you’re a hardcore Castlevania fan AND if you like puzzle games.

jobocan Handheld, iPhone/iTouch, Review