Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

Tries to mix classic and igavania styles of gameplay and it kinda works out. Ultimately the game plays more like an igavania than classic Castlevania, but it's a damn good one at that. Offers an interesting and wide variety of environments to explore, a cool glyph system, and some great and challenging (by igavania standards) boss fights. The level design can be a bit overly narrow at times and doesn't give the immense sense of scale like past games, but they're still satisfying to explore.

In a lot of ways this game kind of plays like the hypothetical game that Castlevania II: Simon's Quest was proof of concept for, fusing towns and exploration of the countryside of Transylvania in a loose network of large levels, culminating in a somewhat smaller (but still not tiny) Metroidvania-style Dracula's castle to explore and fight through. After so many Metroidvanias it can feel a little paint by numbers here and there but it's still very playable.

This final entry in the series is pretty good, but the Metroidvania elements are indeed reduced, and the levels often feel too linear. On the flipside, the combat system is probably the best in the series, encouraging and rewarding experimentation. Boss quality is mostly high as well, although there is one annoyingly long gimmick boss... 🐎