Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

"Decent game, some bad design decisions, but otherwise fun."

In comparison to other Castlevania games, this one really didn't live up to the name, but overall it was a decent game. Order of Ecclesia follows the female character Shanoa as she is bent on recovering a power that could help seal away Dracula. Unfortunately a jealous member of the Order of Ecclesia jacks the power, and it is now your job to recover it.

-Story: 07/10

Now I don't mind that this game doesn't involve the Belmont clan, what I do mind is the entire cop out of character design in Konami's idea to have the main character's memory and emotions stripped out. While ultimately the story is the same, deal with Dracula, they really didn't engage you into the game at all. The character you play doesn't draw you into the story in any way, and after a certain point, you really don't care what happened to her or what her job is. Sure there is a plot to unfold and information to uncover, but they could have performed this story without making your character a hollow mindless pixel sprite.


-Gameplay: 07/10

Ok, this is not where I'm going to get into the difficulty of the game (which wasn't really that hard but I'll get into that later). I like strategy, I am primarily a fan of RPG's and the like, and I don't mind bosses or amped up monsters having weaknesses, but implementing a system where every single monster in the game has a specific weakness, and if you want to deal an amount of damage that actually will allow you to progress with the game at a reasonable pace you have to CONSTANTLY switch "weapons" is insanely annoying. They did try to help you with this with the swap system, but it's too awkward to use reliably in combat. Playing the game is annoying at best, and it severely distracts from the ability to actually play and enjoy the game. This system doesn't really increase the difficulty as you can just walk away, switch, and walk back. What it does do is repeatedly break up the flow of the game, as you are repeatedly swapping things out to play.

-Graphics: 09/10

For a DS game, they did an amazing job. The colors and fluid animation of the sprites is very well done, and the environments are very detailed. Graphically the game is superb. While there is some pixelation in some situations, it's not enough to really distract from the graphical quality of the rest of the game.

-Sound: 08/10

The game sounds good. The sound effects are decent and keep you focused on what is going on. The music is fair. It's not as good as the previous GBA/DS Castlevania titles, but it isn't bad enough that you'll turn it off. It gives you something to listen to but nothing you'd really want to hear outside the game like SotN's soundtrack.

-Difficulty: 09/10

Ok, finally a Castlevania that you have to pay attention. This is definitely one of the harder Castlevanias to hit the shelves in a while. The bosses require you to pay attention and focus on strategy to live, the enemy placement is very well done and makes you engage the environment on a more regular basis. I like that you have to plan your attack and make your moves in a careful timed fashion rather then just blazing through the door. Unfortunately they kind of had that kind of planned approach for the whole course of the game. There is no run and gun opportunity which in some cases is actually kind of fun. There were a few instances in previous Castlevanias where I liked to just charge down the hall buzzing monsters down mindlessly. They could have done a better job balancing mindless plowing and strategy rather then just intently focus on one or the other.

-Replay Value: 06/10

Ok, this is where the game gets it's second black eye. There are boss rush and difficulty modes, but they don't really offer any significant replay ability other then just making the game harder. I was also disappointed that there is only one alternate character to play through as. While in some cases this isn't bad (for instance the PS version of SotN only had Richter, as opposed to the other variants that included Maria as well), the game was too short to really warrant the limit it replay ability. The game way way too easy to get your 100+%, full bestiary and unlocks in. In all the previous games, it required a bit of work to pull off what was essentially a full clear, but this game was short with no surprises.


-Final Thoughts, Final Score: 07/10

I've played every Castlevania game. Beaten every one at least a few times. Every SotN style game did the full clear with each bonus character several times. I've enjoyed revisiting every game, and there was no game that I didn't enjoy completely (Yes, even the N64 Castlevanias). Sadly this was the first Castlevania where I had to really push myself to get through. Not difficulty, but the game was painfully boring, and had me completely unengaged. The main character was completely unexciting, and the constant glyph swapping completely obliterated the flow of the game. With every previous title, I full cleared it with every character because it was fun to do it. With this game, even with how short it was, and the limitation of only having two characters, it is the first time I have no ambition to do it for the sake of the game, but for the sake of being able to say I cleared every Castlevania game.

There is a clear distinction here. if you love Castlevania, you may be disappointed with this game, it's definately not as good as any of the previous PS/DS/GBA titles, but you will play it anyway because it's Castlevania. If you're a mindless Castlevania fanboi then you'll rave this game to everyone because you don't know any better. Regardless you're all going to play this game anyway, but if you're new to Castlevania, this should NOT be your introduction to the series. Go get... well... any other one. Just not this one. Come back after you've played all the others, but don't miss this one completely.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/07/08

Game Release: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (US, 10/21/08)