Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

A New Hero Rises

NA release: 21th October 2008
JP release: 23rd October 2008
EU release: 6th February 2009
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
NGamer Magazine Review: 75%
Platforms: DS
Version Played: DS

The last of the three Nintendo DS Castlevania games, and one that many fans consider to be the last proper Castlevania game, as a reboot into a new genre was on the cards. Order of Ecclesia took the extra worlds found in Portrait of Ruin and focused on that aspect a lot more.

You play as Shanoa, part of another Order trying to fill in the gap left by the Belmonts after Symphony of the Night, a very busy time for Dracula. This order focuses on creating special glyphs to give them powers, trying to create one that can vanish Dracula himself. However, before she takes on this glyph, it’s stolen by her brother, Albus, and the incident erases her memory and emotions, but must still set off to recover the glyphs from Albus and defeat Dracula

The glyphs are used for many of Shania’s abilities, and come in the form of various weapons and magical abilities. It’s quite similar to Soma Cruz’s soul dominance, this means that regular weapons also use up your magic points, but it does recharge quite swiftly. Replacing subweapons are glyph unions, which creates lots of different powerful attacks based on which two attack glyphs you have equipped.

I did not enjoy the first half of the game at all. The exploration is pretty much gone and it’s a bunch of smaller, linear levels (some just a straight line). On top of this, I had more trouble with the first half of this game than any part of the other handheld Castlevanias. Part of this is because enemy strengths and weaknesses have much more impact, so you have to switch between weapons constantly.

The “bad ending” also snuck up on me, as it’s at the end of the first half of the game. You need to find a bunch of hidden villagers (two behind unmarked breakable walls that aren’t on the map, naturally) before fighting the boss. I am glad that there’s no grinding rare item spawns, though.

Then you finally get to go to Dracula’s castle, which is much more like the previous games (although fairly small in comparison). You’ll need to track down some bosses to reach the final part, with some neat looking areas. Early on in this, you’ll encounter an enemy using a glyph you can steal, called Nitesco. This turns the difficulty on its head completely, as it’s a powerful beam that hits multiple times and is strong against virtually all enemies. The rest of the game is easy once you get this, which is crazy.

Use the right equipment and combine it with a weapon, and you’ll create a glyph union that can defeat any boss in less than 30 seconds. Despite trivialising the difficulty, I still enjoyed this half much more. It’s just strange that one item makes the second half of the game so much easier than the first.

Once you complete the game, you’ll be able to play as Albus, using all his abilities from his boss fight, with his own control scheme (which uses the touch screen to teleport). He’s fun to play with, but it’s a bonus mode with no story and is just fighting all the bosses. And you have to deal with the first half of the game again.

There’s still a lot to like about Order of Ecclesia, the gameplay itself is smooth and experimenting with the glyphs is a lot of fun (even if most you never use more than once, especially after Nitesco), it just goes from frustrating to trivial in an instant.

Fun

Thankfully, the second ‘castle# half gives us an action experience almost as good as Dawn of Sorrow. While the unlockable abilities are tired returns, the glyphs are grander, there’s a platforming challenge to go with the action and the pace picks up. But is the pain required to get there acceptable?
Matthew Castle, NGamer Magazine #31

Remake or remaster?

The Domnius version is great, but I’d like to see a rebalanced version.

Official Ways to get the game

Order of Ecclesia is available in the Castlevania Dominus Collection.