A few things I don’t remember seeing mentioned anywhere:

When Leon renounces his title in order to go searching for his woman, he is forced to leave his sword behind. As a result, Leon is unarmed when he rushes into the vampire’s forest. This is why, when Leon runs into this Gandolfi fellow, Leon is presented with an alchemically-fortified whip (later, I assume, to be dubbed “Vampire Killer”), with which to defend himself.

It always did seem a bit out-of-place, did it not?

To go with the whip, Gandolfi then treats one of Leon’s gauntlets, giving it energy-absorbing powers. This allows Leon to block near any attack, and also to absorb magical power with every blow the gauntlet withstands.

Whenever the player defeats an Elemental (in the Dungeons & Dragons sense of the term), that Elemental’s power may then be applied to Leon’s alchemical whip. So the way you get a flame whip is to kill a fire elemental (modeled after Weta Workshop’s idea of a Balrog). Sort of clever.

You know those orbs that you collect after you defeat a boss in the older Castlevania games? They are kind of arbitrary, aren’t they. They refill Simon’s or Trevor’s or Juste’s life bar, and they mark the end of a level. That is about it.

In Lament of Innocence, the orbs are back. In this game, however, Leon collects the orbs; each contains a unique magical influence. Do you remember the Spell Fusion system in Harmony of Dissonance? The way it works is, Juste collects spell books — ice, fire, what-have-you — and then can apply those powers to whatever secondary weapon he might be holding. So if you have the ice book and the cross, a little ice crystal will follow Juste around and shoot at enemies. If you have the wind book and the dagger, Juste can throw a bunch of daggers really quickly.

Exactly the same deal here, with Leon — only with a logistical twist. Get a subweapon, equip an orb (claimed from a defeated boss), and you may use your gauntlet — and the power you have absorbed with it — to cast similar spells depending on which orb and which subweapon you choose. The important thing is, this relies on Leon’s enchanted gauntlet and on the old boss orbs. It… well.

I really like some of these details. It would take a while to explain why I find this as neat as I do.

The game is, indeed, getting more interesting now. That first level I entered — the one in the center — was bland and annoying. This second one — the one on the far left — has a lot going on (in comparison, if perhaps not absolutely). If the game continues to improve at this rate, it could be pretty darned satisfactory by the end.

Again, we will see.