Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Castlevania has most certainly become a staple series on the DS and it continues to thrive further with a new game on the horizon. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia takes an interesting turn in the timeline of Castlevania by placing the vampire killing in the hands of a non-Belmont. And, continuing with the theme of change, this game is also the first where you actually spend a good amount of time outside of Dracula’s castle. Travelling from monasteries to the ocean to the forest, there should be plenty of new environments to encounter on you quest to slay the lord of darkness. Also, the art design is back to a very serious look, with extremely detailed caricatures.
The new glyph system is an interesting new battle system where you absorb glyphs found throughout your adventure or obtained by enemies and use them to your advantage. Glyphs include knife, sword, cutler, and many other weapons to be used at your disposal. Also, rather than using hearts, your character can rapidly use their glyphs at the cost of MP. The longer the string of attacks, the lower your MP sinks until you run out completely. However, MP refills very quickly after it is consumed, leading to a smooth flowing combat system that feels very fast compared to previous Castlevania games. Also, many of the enemies were different than the typical ones we’ve seen in some of the older Castlevania titles which is also a plus.
As is typical with Castlevania E3 builds, you can play all the way through to the first boss. On my quest to defeat this boss, I found a magnetic glove that allowed me to cling to these metal orbs throughout the monastery and fling my character upward (essentially a unique form of high jumping to reach remote places). Gameplay elements like these are classic to the post Symphony of the Night titles.
It’s quite trivial to say that Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is looking to be a great game because just about every Castlevania title by Koji Igarashi turns out to be a great title. However, it is important to note that this time around the combat feels even quicker than before, allowing players to move through the game at a nice pace. Castlevania is set to release in October of 2008 so we’ll be here when it’s time to review this great title.