I'm actually enjoying it so far.  Feels more retro than previous efforts.  I like the jazz influences too.  In fact, with the exception of Koshiro's tracks, I thought Portrait of Ruin had one of the most unmemorable scores (and it was one of the worst games) in recent CV history.  I'm enjoying this so far.

I've made it to the Lighthouse (and am stuck on the same boss everyone else is). I'm enjoying the game quite a bit now. I still wish the areas were a little more interesting but slashing things with whatever glyphs are equipped remains as fun as ever.

Ol' Crabby?  Yeah, he can be tough if you don't know what you're doing.  The safest place to be is the left-most bottom platform, right next to the smaller claw.  From there, crouch and hack away with an overhead melee, like the sickle or hammer.  You should be safe from the bubbles so long as you're constantly attacking.  Just be careful when he's about to get enraged; the bigger claw will slowly make its way to your position.  Jump to the top platform before that happens.  Move up the tower and repeat.

EDIT: Here's a video that better illustrates the strategy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGVsBtYTNeE

Yeah, I just need to face him over and over again and learn his patterns. Unlike the other games, leveling up isn't terribly helpful here. The levels are just too wildly spaced apart.

(Angela, I received Speed Racer in the mail from Netflix today. I'll let you know what I think!)

I put a few hours into this yesterday and, so far, I really like it.  It's much better than PoR, but not as good as DoS.  What I like most about this game is that even though it has all the basic Metroivania elements, they've remixed them enough that it actually feels different for once.  Even though I game-overed on the crab countless times before killing the damn thing, it didn't feel cheap like the difficulty in the last third of CotM.  Of course, I'm still early on in the game, so my opinion of the difficulty may change as I progress.  The music is pretty good so far, if not entirely memorable.  More thoughts to come after I get more time to play.

Hmm. Is there anyone here who holds the opposite appraisal (i.e. PoR good, DoS bad) that would be willing to chime in with their thoughts on Ecclesia? The idea of tougher, learn-the-pattern bosses sounds good, and I plan on picking it up this week, but if the the new system is just more danged soul-harvesting in disguise, forget it.

Well, I loved both actually, but I definitely liked PoR better than DoS.
With that said, I'm not liking Ecclesia very much at all. Levels look good, but are rather boring, with a lot of them suffering from "long drawn-out hallways full of the same enemies" syndrome that I thought DoS and PoR actually were relatively free from.
Difficulty Level is decent. Not too hard, but not easy either.

The glyph system is basically a dumbed down Soul System if you ask me, and Glyphs seem to be few and far between at the moment.

Dull dull dull.

I have only come to the tower, but so far I like the music in POR better. This is too funky, except for the songs that was in the trailer.

Ecclesia plays more like Simon's Quest, because the stages are actual places on a map.

The game is definitely more soul-harvesting, because that is where you get the majority of your weapons in the form of glyphs.  There are no physical weapons to obtain.  Since your weapons drain MP, the game pacing is now different.  No more spamming a weapon.

This only arrived for me this morning so I'm not far into it but this quote pretty much describes my experience so far. It's almost like they've forgotten how to make Castlevania a game. The forest section was so hideously dull I can't believe any game designer would have laid it down and thought it could entertain.

I'm hoping it will get better. I seem to pick up Castlevania games out of habit. Even the half-assed GBA ones I enjoyed, even though they were so obviously half-assed. But the first two DS ones just felt thrown together - not half an ass between them. PoR was the first Castlevania since the NES days that I didn't finish.

It gets better, right?

Dude, seriously? That whole level is just one straight line. Wow, that looks horrendously boring.

Yep, and the one after it is just like it only with platforms, which is something at least. Dull.

But... having said that, many reviews are glowing and do make reference to the game changing as it goes on so it could turn out it gets much better.

Simon's Quest didn't have a map. If you wanted to get to a place, you had to walk all the way there, the entire world was interconnected. It seems like Ecclesia has more of a RPG setup.

Call me crazy, but that actually looked cool to me. It looks not very unlike old-school 2D Castlevania action. If the rumors about Ecclesia being harder and more linear than other Metrovania games are true, then it has the potential to be something else than the same old deal as the other GBA/DS games after all. Personally, I thought the best handheld Symphony-clone was Circle of the Moon, which distinguished itself by having old-school difficulty. At this point, I'd take something like that over another lukewarm, super-easy Symphony rehash like Harmony of Dissonance or Aria of Sorrow that only occasionally branches out in a few alternate corridors to fool you into the impression that you're actually exploring a vast world when you're not. A lot of the old, classic CVs were as linear as any game can be, but they were still great games (most stages in CV3 and Dracula X were only long, straight corridors). IMO, if the action aspect of Ecclesia turns out to be satisfying, I can deal with linearity. What made the linearity of games like Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness so frustrating was, IMO, not the linear stages themselves, but the fact that they were filled with so boring enemies and so dull battles (and part of it was also aesthetic, the stages looked really ugly and empty, but Ecclesia doesn't seem to suffer from that from what I've seen so far).

Not expecting an awesome earth shattering game, but am still carefully optimistic about trying it out.

I've been playing it and I came up with the same conclusion. This more linear level design is a hats nod to the older games. The fact that the stages are on a map to me is inconsequential. Imagine that the Portraits in PoR were on a world map instead of paintings. Its pretty much the same concept given if OoE still has Drac's castle in it. I am enjoying going through it right now but in totality I'm not terribly sure how much I'll like it in the end. Hopefully if there is a whip glyph Shanoa will move her damn elbow. Simon moved it in Super CastleVania 4 so Julius and Juste should have been able to move their elbows too. I'm off topic and nitpicking though.

But yes, enjoying it for the time being.

.

It's not really about whether it's linear or not. CVIV was linear and never got boring. Rondo was linear and never got boring.

The improvements in the later stages of this have meant the game is growing on me massively. I already feel it's much better than PoR. It's challenging in parts, which is great, but not ever (so far) frustratingly hard - the patterns are quite simple, but can't just go in spamming the buttons which is how I made it through the last hundred or so CV games. That applies to normal level enemies too, not just bosses, which is great.

I still don't get the feeling there was a massive amount of thought in many areas. Loads of enemies seem thrown in at random. As always, too much reuse in the sprites. Except for a few introductory screens, most areas feel like tilesets rather than locations and there's a lot of copy/paste going on in how it's laid out.

But it has some variety, some challenge and a sense of accomplishment getting through certain areas. It's been a while since I felt that in a CV game. Definitely a grower.

I agree.  This is the first Metroivania where I'm actually trying to avoid getting hit by the bosses and learn their patterns.  They really make you work for it, and you feel like you accomplished something when you beat each one.

Late to the party on this one as well.

Overall, though I'm getting really tired or the "Metrovania"-concept (and the series as a whole), I did enjoy it a lot. Of the portable Symphony-clones, this is definitely one of the better and more rewarding ones. It's main attraction is that its actually a bit hard. Never had many problems with muddling through it, but like XLord007 said, they do make you work for it. The boss fights were particularly satisfying. The  difficulty with many of the normal enemies, though, did feel a bit cheap, since they basically just doubled their hit and attack points from easier Metrovanias.

I never had much problem with the much-dreaded linearity of the game. Most of the Metrovanias were after all not that open to explore in the first place, so this doesn't feel that different, although it is more noticeable. I think this was eased by the fact that most stages are pretty short and in an outdoor environment, it felt more like you were traversing landscapes rather than just walking down the same old boring castle halls. And yes, I know that is only a perception: in practice the locales are the same rectangular-shaped corridor-type stages, but for me the outside environment did make a difference still. As for the music... as the case was with Portrait of Ruin, I did start liking the soundtrack more when I played the game, but I still find it pretty weaksauce when compared to most other Castlevania soundtracks, or considered as a stand-alone listening experience.

Also another thing... This isn't necessarily a knock, only an observation. One thing that I've been thinking about regarding the atmosphere in most Castlevanias from the 2000s - and which seems very striking with Order of Ecclesia - is how far this series has moved in feel from it's horror-inspired beginnings to a more generic fantasy-type setting. If it wasn't for the fact that the bad guy is Dracula and that you occasionally fight undead enemies, there's not much in OoE's style, story, atmosphere, etc. that connects to it's horror-roots or significantly varies from a generic fantasy-setting. I know the old games weren't especially "scary" in any sense either, but it seems that they at least had an ambition (up till around 1999's Castlevania 64, I'd say) to create a "haunted castle"-type of gothic atmosphere, which made the games feel different than the new ones do. I think this is part of why many people feel the series has lost a lot of it's identity. Just my impression...