Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night. The name itself begs many questions. What does Castlevania have to do with puzzles? Encore of the Night - does that have anything to do with Symphony of the Night? What's going on here, Konami? In order, the answers are 1) this game 2) yes and 3) the explanation follows.

Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night is a new iPhone title from the folks at Konami that successfully merges the characters, castle exploration and RPG elements of the classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with the "Match 3" puzzle battles to which we've grown accustomed in games like Puzzle Quest. It sounds crazy, but it's actually done very well, offering another take on a classic loved by so many.

In "Story Mode," the game's main mode, players take the role of Alucard, Symphony of the Night's protagonist. The main screen is a map that looks very similar to the layout the Symphony of the Night - starting at the castle entrance, working into the Alchemy Lab and so on. The sections are blocked out, with lines indicating the travelable path from one to the next. A blue line means the path is open, whereas red ones are locked.

Places not yet visited appear in blue on the map, and open up as the player passes through them, by double tapping the intended path on the screen. Moving to certain spaces earns the player items or equipment, but most result in battles. The screen zooms in, and we see "Alucard vs..." any of a variety of Symphony of the Night villains seemingly pulled straight out of the original, graphically speaking.

Only instead of the battles taking place in action-oriented gameplay, a puzzle screen starts dropping blocks in head-to-head fashion. A timer indicates rounds, and based on the stats of Alucard and the enemy, damage is doled out at the end of each round, reducing the combatants' overall health points. The first opponent to lose all of his health points (ideally the enemy) loses.

So what role do the puzzles play? Good question. Every time the round timer is up, players can actually reduce damage by having more of the board cleared, or increase the opponent's by helping to fill his board. This is done through transferring inactive pieces. These cannot be directly matched with their colors until another match takes place touching them, thereby making them active. Unfortunately for the player, the enemies can do the same thing. An interesting twist is that filling up a screen does not necessary spell defeat. Instead, a few rows are taken off the bottom, dealing damage in the process.

The puzzle mechanics are par for the course. It gets interesting, though, when winning battles earns the player XP to upgrade character abilities. Equipment can also be applied to modified statistics, and items and spells can be used in battle to affect the results. And of course, being a Casltevania game there is some backtracking involved. This means more battles and more opportunities to grind for XP. Depending on one's play style, this can be a positive or negative. Luckily, the save points on the map also allow teleportation between one another, making it a bit less painful.

All in all, it's a lot of fun. The only major flaw to Encore of the Night is the space gamers are given to work with in manipulating the puzzle screens, especially if they've got big fingers. Instead of going vertical and just zooming in the player's battle screen, Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night works in the horizontal orientation. It's nice for the map screens, but when one considers shrinking down two puzzles towers, and having the characters and stats animated in the middle, it's just not much room to work with for the rotation tapping, drop flicking and dragging required by the game. Although Komani offers some sensitivity and flick options, it's all but guaranteed players are going to find themselves swearing a bit about mis-drops and the like.

Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night is rounded out with an "Arcade" mode, which allows players to pick a character, an enemy, a map and a difficulty, and do battle under those conditions - sort of an exhibition mode. Encore of the Night also supports custom music, allowing players to swap the in-game soundtrack for any tunes on their iPhones as they do battle. It's a nice option, but with the core soundtrack being that of Symphony of the Night, most players won't want to use this option. Encore of the Night may be flawed, and possibly better served by a bigger screen on another platform, but it's still an innovative throwback to a great game, becoming a great game in its own right.

Final Score: B