its the first cstlevania to use the ''future'' scenario, lame gimick or awesome new gameplay?
you play soma cruz, he sets out to meet a freind at a japanese shrine to see an eclipse, but when it occurs they are both pulled into the eclipse where julius belmont sealed draculas castle in 1999, so as you can imagine mr. tepish is at it again. BZZT WRONG!, dracula isnt actually included in this castlevania game, you see soma is one of a few people in the castle witth dark powers, and the first to sit on draculas thrown will recieve all of his power, its up to soma to make sure that the forces o evil dont obtain draculas powers.
gameplay wise this is the saem yet different to the other castlevanias, you dont use items but rather the souls of defeated enemies to battle, beat a beam skeleton, now you have its power you see the way it works?, overall its standard apart from that jumps can be upgraded to double jumps and such and overall if konamis reused the same control system this many times then it aint borken so why fix it?.
graphics are a gothic twist on common side scrollers and suit the theme and mood of the game, very well done overall ,easily the best 2-d castlevania in looks.
sound wise this game has its good moments and bad ones, the bad ones tend to occur in the final third of the game and it seems like the developers got lazy near the end, or that traipsing the first rooms again later on is merely repetitive and annoying.
theres tons of items and souls to collect as well as extra characters to unlock and a multiplayer feature, though a two player co-op would have been a much welcome addition to this slightly dated series.
basically if you like,gbas castlevania gothic horror or devil may cry, then you will love this gamer and its definatly a buy.