I've already finished it. It is about half the length to 60% of Super Castlevania or Dracula's Curse.

First off: visually it is in the style of Super Castlevania, but superior in graphics and animations. It also has some nice Audio. The main character handles like Trevor Belmont, except your level 3 whip has fireballs for a certain period of time (adjusted lower if you get hit) before reverting to level 2.

Is the game as good as Dracula's Curse and Super Castlevania? No, I don't think so. Though if you are not very familiar with the unforgiving original Castlevania series, this one comes strongly recommended over Dracula's Curse and Super Castlevania, as those two will chew you up and spit you out. If you are only familiar with the new series Castlevania (Symphony of the Night and the GBA/DS sequels) then I would recommend getting this one first before going for the others. For more advanced players, you probably already have all the classic series games, but if not this one comes after you get Castlevania 3 and 4.

Pluses for new players: the game is lighter, less oppressive than 3 and 4. There are no frustrating jumps or traps at any point. Medusa heads never swarm you during tough spots with instant death traps around like in the other games; and they're very easy to hit. Overall, it was lighter than the others, less intense. All of the boss creatures are easy enough to solve (possibly because they're all familiar).

When I finished the game, I noticed an options mode had unlocked where you can adjust difficulty, lives (you can push them up to 9, but probably won't need more than 3), and some sort of character style (classic and normal, I am not sure what this means).

Thanks for the impressions. I've never played much Castlevania, so I wondered if this might be a good point to jump into the series.

I grabbed one of the DS games, but I'm not going to play it until I get around to sending in my DS to get the R button fixed.

Which DS game?

@Jumpin:

Well, I think you just made a sale for Konami

This may be a stupid question, but is Rebirth a remake of an older Castlevania or a complete new entry?

My Castlevania knowledge is...bad, but when I'm done playing through the Contra series I'll probably start playing Castlevania.

Completely new.

Well, I played the old Castlevania games (all of them, even Castlevania 2....). This is one of my favorite classic series and now I am playing the DS games (incredible games by the way), I finished Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin. I will buy Rebirth once I finish Order of Ecclesia.

Oh and thanks for the impressions!

i'm a big fan of the original castlevania style, meaning castlevania 1, 3, and rondo of blood. 4 was very good as well but i actually felt that having so much control over the player made the game a lot easier. SOTN and the DS games are good in their own way but it's a lot easier than any of those games.

I was looking forward to rebirth, of course i'm still gonna like it but it sounds like they made it a little more mainstream then it used to be. I like what they did with Mega Man 9 better.

Did a quick easy playthrough myself, awesome soundtrack and level design. It's definitely the most beginner friendly platformvania... just save those keys guys!

I thought this was a reimagining (or update, not sure) of Castlevania: The Adventure for Game Boy? Can anyone clarify?

I don't really care how easy it is atm. I just want a new game that's not a carbon copy of SotN.