castlevania: order of ecclesia

Order of Ecclesia is the third Castlevania instalment on the DS, following Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin.The latter was my reintroduction to the series, which made Ecclesia a little easier to get into. This third instalment roughly follows the same basics as the other Castlevania DS games, but toys around with the details, making it a worthy purchase and a valuable addition to my collection.

The basics are pretty much still the same. The newest line of Castlevania games is a mix of RPG elements and platform action, trying to bring the best of both worlds together. While there is a typical RPG setup with different kinds of gear and character levelling, the gameplay is that of a normal platform game. There are about 20 areas which can be discovered and explored. Once available the areas can be accessed from a map, which makes them a little easier to access than the levels in Portrait of Ruin.

The story and setting have changed a little, leaving the Belmonts and the Morrises for what they are. You're now part of a small cult doing their best to keep Dracula from resurfacing. When a ritual goes wrong though, a fellow cult member escapes and wreaks havoc on the neighborhood. Your task is to get everything back in order and to save the nearby village from complete destruction.

This is done by freeing all the captured villagers. Each of them has a couple of quests for you which grant new types of gear and items. This is a big improvement on the earlier system where it was too easy to get stuck with the extra quests. Most of the quests are still pretty tricky to fulfil, but they present a nice diversion when the main storyline is getting a little stale or when you could use some levelling up.

One thing that cannot be bought is weapons. They are dropped or stolen from enemies. You have the ability to equip two regular weapons and one special ability at all time. On top of that, you can choose to prepare two other sets and switch between them at will. And to make it even more fun, the combination of certain weapons can lead to even stronger attacks. It's a pretty fun system that takes some time to get used to, but keeps the whole weapon choice interesting until the very end of the game.

Visually not much has changed. OoE looks very polished and detailed, though at some points a little muddled and pixelated. You come across some pretty big and mean-looking enemies, but to achieve this on the little DS screen your main character looks a bit puny, lacking some presence. It's a little quirk, but one that carries some weight for a character you have to look at the whole game long.

The sound is decent for short bursts of gameplay but becomes boring and repetitive when playing for longer stretches of time. A recurring complaint about DS soundtracks, which they seem not bothered to fix. Maybe it's because the DS is considered purely as a portable gaming device, used in situations where you can't turn on the music anyway, but when playing at home it would be nice to have some nicer music to go with the game.

The difficulty level is still a little uneven. Regular areas are quite easy to navigate, if not some quick levelling will help you along. The bosses are a lot harder and require pattern learning. But once you understand their pattern, they can be handled with relative ease. It's a repetitive difficulty pattern that is countered by the different weapons and spells you can use to kill enemies. The quests and exploration also provide an additional challenge, keeping the game entertaining while avoiding too much repetitiveness.

As an evolved platform game, OoE is a true stunner. The RPG elements have been tweaked to fit better into the platform gameplay and don't detract as much as in Portrait of Ruin. The world is easier to navigate and quests are more readily accessible. There are still plenty of modes to unlock (one of them involving playing the game from a completely different perspective) so the replay value of the game is still pretty impressive.

OoE is a game developed for those already fan of the series, or for newcomers who want to start with the best outing available. If you didn't like the previous Castlevania DS games, you won't find much here either I'm afraid. The gameplay hasn't changed much, but the mechanics and details in the setup makes it slightly better than Portrait of Ruin. A worthy sequel in all aspects.

Check the trailer if you want.