RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

Over a decade ago, Konami introduced a new look to the Castlevania series.  Gone was the notion of lives and linear stages, and in their place was a giant castle to explore, twice in fact.  The game was widely acclaimed, and soon others like it began to appear on Nintendo’s handheld systems.  Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is third game to appear on the DS and the seventh game in the genre, and with some interesting departures, it is the best so far.

Throughout history, Dracula has been been defeated by the Belmont clan only to be revived and defeated again.  This cycle continued for centuries, but in the late 1800s, the Belmonts, and their legendary whip the Vampire Slayer were nowhere to be found.  Knowing that Dracula would eventually be reborn, mankind looked for alternate ways of fighting him, and sadly, most were proven ineffective. Only one of the institutions that looked for a new weapon was successful: Ecclesia.  They researched glyphs, abilities derived from monsters.  By aligning those glyphs with a person’s body, someone would have the power to fight evil on an equal footing.

Through its research, Ecclesia had found the ultimate glyph, named Dominus, with the power to destroy Dracula, but they also had  a woman with the ability to weild the power.  Just as the ceremony transferring Dominus to the game’s heroine Shanoa was beginning, another man named Albus stopped the procedure and stole the powerful glyph.  Not only was Shanoa robbed of the ability to save mankind, but Albus had also taken her memories and emotions.  The leader of Ecclesia, Barlowe then tasks Shanoa with recovering Albus and Dominus and then using its power to defeat Dracula once again.

These boots were made for walkin’…

Order of Ecclesia continues the trend of not having a Belmont as a vampire hunter anywhere in the game, but it does make some drastic departures from the previous six similar titles.  The game does not begin anywhere near Dracula’s castle, or even a facsimile of it.  In fact, one only gets to explore Dracula’s titular home Castlevania if the player has fulfilled the requirements for the complete ending.  Most of the game is spent in various caves, manors, forests, and a central town in something that resembles what you would get if you took Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, and any of the recent games and tossed them all in a blender.  Each of the locations plays out like a small dungeon, some of which are as short as five rooms until the next location is reached.  And for the most part, the larger dungeons have multiple exits that lead to still other areas.  Counting the two hidden dungeons and Wygoll Vilage, there are 19 areas in all to explore.

Speaking of Wygoll Village, another new addition comes from the villagers.  Once they are found and rescued, most of them will have certain requests of Shanoa that will range from fetch quests to a game of hide and seek.  Each completed task comes with a reward, and most of them result in new items being made available in the shop.  None are required to complete the game, but they can be a fun way to kill some time.

The ability to go to various locations is an interesting concept that works better than the paintings of Portrait of Ruin, and it makes more sense that Shanoa would have to transverse the countryside in her hunt for Dracula.  Though it is definitely a very neat addition, it does have two major downsides.  For one, the first half of the game feels a bit disjointed.   And since so much of the game is spent outside of Castlevania, the actual castle itself is by far the smallest version we’ve seen yet.  Despite these two shortcomings, the overall experience is the most fun yet, so these should not prevent you from enjoying the game.

A relic from a historical Japanese battle.

As is typical with the series, the combat system is one of the things that truly defines the game.  Order of Ecclesia borrows heavily from the Sorrow games in that glyphs are similar to the way Soma used souls.  Throughout the game, monsters will either leave behind glyphs as they die or use spells that can be absorbed as glyphs. Glyphs fall into two major categories: attack and support.  As their name would suggest, attack glyphs are used in combat and can take the form of various physical weapons or spells. Regardless of their form, all attacks use Magic Points, which quickly replenish themselves after the player stops attacking. The nice thing is that once a single glyph is acquired, it can be bound to one or both arms.  Aligning glyphs with both arms allows for much faster attacking, and the various combinations can produce dozens of different glyph unions that do significantly more damage and use hearts, similar to special attacks in other games in the series. Support glyphs have a wide range of effects such as producing a magnetic field around Shanoa for movement throughout the various stages, tempororarily increasing a particular stat, or summoning a familiar to assist in battle.  Shanoa can also equip three pieces of armor and two accessories to further increase her stats.

Fans of the series know that Castlevania games are not easy.  Life-restoring save points are spread quite far apart and boss battles typically do not end well on the first attempt.  In this regard, Order of Ecclesia does not disappoint.  Boss battles are hard, and it will require a fair bit of pattern recognition to kill most bosses.  Luckily, nearly all the bosses telegraph their attacks beforehand, so it’s not impossible to win without receiving a scratch.  With each defeated boss comes a sense of satisfaction that is similar to solving a difficult puzzle, and Order of Ecclesia has some of the best boss fights yet in the series.

One of the best aspects of the game is the visuals.  Past games have all excelled in this regard, but with the exception of some of the levels being palate swaps of other areas, this is the best game yet.  Order of Ecclesia has the most detailed sprites seen in the series yet, and thankfully, around half of the monsters are either completely new or have an updated sprite.  For fans that were getting tired of killing the same monsters again and again in each new game, this will be a very welcome relief.

Aurally, the game performs up to the series’ high standards with a new set of haunting melodies and remixes of familiar tunes.  Most of the sound effects are excellent, but there are a couple sticking points.  The small bits of voice acting the villagers get is horrid, and Shanoa will call out the names of some of her spells as she uses them.  If you happen to use the fire glyph, a particularly useful one, be prepared to hear Shanoa call out “flame” a lot. Possibly too much.  Since players will probably end up tuning it out, it never ends up being so bad as to really detract from the game, but it’s annoying enough to be distracting.  Fortunately, these flaws only represent a small fraction of the game’s sound overall. Most of the audio is pretty good.

Let’s move. Five meter spread, no sound.

Castlevania games have never been known for extremely deep plots, but the story for Order of Ecclesia is as good as any have been thus far.  There are a couple of twists and the idea of a Castlevania game that doesn’t have a Belmont is an interesting idea that actually pans out pretty well.  It’s by no means an epic tale, but then again, few people probably play the games for the story.

In keeping pace with other entries in the series, there is a fair bit of extra content.  There are two optional dungeons that intrepid explorers will find.  One of them is the standard dungeon of extremely hard fights resulting in an extra boss.   The other is much more interesting.  It’s called the Training Hall, and it’s basically an obstacle course that essentially comes down to how well you can time your jumps and use the aforementioned magnet glyph.

After the game is finished, several modes are unlocked including hard mode, boss rush, and Albert mode, which replaces the usual “play as a Belmont” mode found in the other six games.  Albert’s play style is unique and is quite fun.  Compared to Shanoa, he’s extremely overpowered early on, but since he lacks the ability to use items or equipment, the difficulty gradient is nearly the opposite of the main quest.

The interface for the game is typical for the series.  After a certain point, up to three different glyph combinations can be equipped and switched out on the fly, and thankfully, there is little use of the touch screen.  It’s pretty much classic exploration action, and with the exception of the occasional time when you’ll get hit when you’ll swear you’d dodged that attack, hit detection is pretty good and frequently sides in your favor.

Finishing the game with full completion will take between ten and fifteen hours, if you take into account the restarts required for bosses and the optional dungeons.  If the conditions for continuing the game are not met, there will be an abrupt end midway through, but unlike other Castlevania games, Order or Ecclesia will at least offer a hint as to what is required to continue.  This is one of the two factors that help to mitigate the difficulty.  The other is an item called a magical ticket, which instantly warps Shanoa back to town and can be the only thing between death and keeping some hard-earned experience.  Using these is entirely optional, and they can be avoided for extra difficulty.

In the end, Order of Ecclesia is the best Castlevania to date, even surpassing series favorites such as Dawn of Sorrow or Symphony of the Night.  The exploration of more than just the castle is paired with some of the best boss fights in the series and new monster sprites to make this an experience that a fan of Castlevania should not miss.  Add in the extra replayability from all the unlockable modes, and it’s more than worth a few hours of your time.