Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Review - DS

At some point, the law of diminishing returns may set in on Konami’s handheld Castlevania games. Order of Ecclesia is another variation on a theme that first hit portables in Harmony of Dissonance on the Game Boy Advance, which debuted a good six years and four or five games ago. One of these days, we may get tired of hunting the undead and absorbing their powers in an epic quest across Transylvania and beyond.

That hasn’t happened yet, though. Koji Igarashi’s take on Castlevania is still built around a near-perfect blueprint for an addictive action-adventure game. Ecclesia is unique in its own ways, just like the games that came before it, but the foundation is the same – a big free-roaming 2D world, a massive rogue’s gallery of well-designed monsters, and an ever-expanding arsenal of character abilities that eventually fills up with dozens of weapons and spells.

It looks great, too, which almost goes without saying at this point. Detailed backgrounds and lots of parallax scrolling give depth to the levels, while the character animation add it all up and there aren’t many better adventures to try on the DS this fall.

Writing On The Wall

On the long and complicated Castlevania timeline, this game sits a ways towards the one end. In the 19th century, the Ecclesia organization takes up the old crusade against Count Dracula. The point of the sword is a young woman named Shanoa, who has the unique ability to collect and store magical symbols called Glyphs. Some she acquires in the course of the game’s story, but most of them are left behind by dead enemies. Exploring the game world and defeating new breeds of undead gradually builds a sizable collection of Glyphs for her to employ.

Basic Glyphs are simple weapons, like swords and spears and other sharp things. (Castlevania veterans can watch out for a couple of old favorites, like the knife and the handy throwing axe.) For more specialized purposes, there are spells that deal damage or inflict some crippling weakness on the target. Shenoa can equip two Glyphs at a time -- one on the X button, one on the Y button -- and you’ll find that certain pairs make for very useful combination attacks.

Parts of the world itself provide something to collect in addition to all the different Glyphs and bits of equipment. There’s a village at the center of everything, and its inhabitants have been kidnapped for unknown (but presumably nefarious) purposes. Rescuing them gradually adds new services back at Shanoa’s home base, like a general store that sells useful equipment and craftsmen who cook up new items and pieces of gear for the store to stock.

Outside the village, the game world is made up of a collection of levels spread across a large overworld map. Old folks might be reminded of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, back in the eight-bit days. New areas have to be discovered in the process of wandering around the old ones, but after you’ve visited an area once, you can go straight there at any time from the overworld. Teleport points scattered around the levels themselves save on shoe-leather once you’ve discovered them as well, which is handy, since Shanoa can’t reach some parts of certain areas without coming back later after picking up new powers.

Last Things First

Some of these levels have an unusual layout, in that they throw the boss monsters out first, almost as soon as Shanoa walks in the door. The effect is interesting – even after you get over the initial shock and start to sometimes expect a challenge upon first entering a level, it creates a different atmosphere as the rest of the stage unfolds. Normally, in areas with a boss at the end, there’s a persistent low-level sensation of waiting for the other shoe to drop, since each doorway might be the last one, with something huge and deadly behind it. Ecclesia, by getting the big bad guy out of the way in the beginning, makes it easier to focus on the present without constantly worrying about what’s coming up next.

The run-of-the-mill monsters and platforming aren’t the kind of thing you can finish with your eyes closed, after all, and the graphics and sound create an unsettling atmosphere just fine by themselves. In a sense, the chance to explore a new area is the reward for defeating a boss, and given how much fun it is to explore this game, it’s more than rewarding enough.

Many of the bosses, though, are going to give casual players a pretty rough time of it. Ecclesia doesn’t have a variable difficulty level – if a boss or a level is too tough, you’re just going to have to get better – and on the whole it seems a fair bit harder than the last couple of Castlevanias for the DS. Even talented action gamers will probably get killed by any given boss at least a couple of times, before they find a way to take advantage of its patterns and use the right Glyphs against it.

Choose Your Weapon

Clearing any tough stretch of the game is usually a useful learning experience, though, because it forces the player to experiment with Shanoa’s entire arsenal. She picks up new weapons so fast at some stages of the game that it’s hard to keep up. A challenging, complicated encounter is a good opportunity to find new ways of using different Glyphs and combinations.

This is a difficult game, then, but it’s not an unfair or unusually frustrating one, and it’s a game good enough that the rewards for pushing forward are worth it. There’s always a new sight to see, new weapons to tinker with, and Shanoa’s story has a few twists and turns that make the adventure more than just a test of your reflexes. Castlevania’s winning streak may end one of these days, but it definitely hasn’t ended yet.

Article Written By: D.F. Smith