Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Review: Whips and Belmonts Are Passé

The latest game in the Castlevania series, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is taking the vampire vanquishing franchise to new heights, and breaks down gender barriers at the same time. The first game to feature a sole female protagonist, though Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin had a female main character, Charlotte (Jonathan!), sharing the spotlight, Ecclesia’s Shanoa is a worthy successor to the monster hunting throne.

Game Experience

Double Reppuken!

Just Right: First things first. This game is a bit hard. Not impossible by any means, but you will probably run into some game over screens. The appearance of difficulty might also be influenced by the fact that the earlier portable Castlevania games weren’t very challenging at all. This is by no means a bad thing and I appreciate being challenged a little. The boss battles in particular are satisfyingly hard. You can’t afford to make many mistakes, since some of them have attacks that can single-handedly take half of your life away. Couple this with the fact that healing items are in short supply (or very expensive). To make matters worse, my L button doesn’t work 100% of the time.

The glyph system allows you to equip two weapons at once, which are assigned to Shanoa’s right and left arms (the Y and X buttons). This allows her to alternate her attacks quickly and gives her a huge increase in damage potential. Example, if I were to equip the Hammer (since it is one of the slowest) glyph and press Y as fast as possible, she would attack about once a second. Equipping the hammer on Y and X and alternating presses allows you to combo the attacks together to get about 3 attacks per second. This simple mechanic makes the whole game. Instead of just mashing on the same attack, with some simple timing you can chain your attacks for a flurry of swords and magic. Every Glyph attack takes up some magic points, but thankfully, your magic points regenerate incredibly fast in this game.

Sword Glyph Union. Cloud must be jealous.

Glyph unions are the new heart attacks. Combining your two weapons, Shanoa lets out a massive attack. If it is the same type of weapon or magic, the attack will be a larger version of that attack. If you combine a weapon glyph with a magic glyph, the Glyph Union will be a weapon attack enchanted with that type of magic. A third Glyph spot, on Shanoa’s back, is used for support Glyphs which give her added mobility, stat boosts, a summoned monster or even the ability to transform. All of these tools give Shanoa plenty of choices to deal with the diverse baddies thrown her way. I found myself switching Glyphs constantly just because so many of them were fun to use.

Overcooked: There’s a large selection of Glyphs, but many of of them are simply upgraded versions of a previous weapon. So you have Rapier, Better Rapier, Best Rapier, Axe, Better Axe, Best Axe etc. The support Glyphs could stand to be a bit more useful as well. The summon monsters ones are particularly unhelpful. Also, those damn Medusa heads are back. I hate them so.

Sound

Just Right: The little voice acting that is in the game is decent enough, though thankfully, Shanoa’s battle cries are easier on the ears than the voices of the villagers. Some of the enemies and bosses have decent attacks quotes themselves. It was nice of Konami to include a Japanese audio option as well. Even though the voices aren’t so horrendously bad to give us the unintentional humor that some of the older games have, it doesn’t come close to falling into the category of “just plain bad.”

Overcooked: The music was a bit sub-par. Some tracks were too happy and jazzy for an adventure game where you’re dealing with skeletons and demons. It tends to repeat itself since there are only 8 tracks.

TRESemmé TRESemmé oooo la la!

Visuals

Just Right: Shanoa herself looks great. All of her animations are visually impressive. Her long hair and flowy robes give her an added personality. Her Glyph absorption animation could double as a shampoo commercial. The enemies are a bit random and obviously have no back story, but they look great in movement. The HUGE crab in the lighthouse that yells at you (can crabs yell?) is probably my favorite. Most of the Glyph attacks look great and the Wind Glyph is especially visually impressive. I found myself using the triple throwing knife Glyphs often just because it looked neat. The fact the the game takes place in various levels, rather than one big castle like some of the older games, means more diverse level design. Waterfalls and lighthouses are much more scenic than Castle Room #234.

Overcooked: There is plenty of repetition of walls and stairs within each background. The castle levels in particular look ripped straight out of previous games.

Replay Value

Just Right: The Pokémon lover inside of me appreciates the “collect ‘em all” nature of the Glyphs. I was compelled to find each one until I saw the sweet satisfaction of 100%. The game features a secret dungeon, a secret training course, Hard Mode, alternate character mode and even a New Game + feature. Completionists should have plenty to do with all sorts of hidden glyphs and equipment spread across the country. Each villager you rescue has various side-quests for you to complete, ranging from taking pictures to finding a mouse. They might seem a bit silly and tedious for a badass vampire hunter, but the rewards are nice enough and it feels good to help the little people. Also, all of the villagers won’t stop fawning over Shanoa. The dress- and jewelry-making women in particular won’t stop complimenting her looks. It’s a nice ego boost before tackling the next dungeon.

Overcooked: The game does require you to go on the worst kind of “collect ‘em all” quest: the mandatory kind. In order to access the last portion of the game, you must find and rescue all 12 villagers from the local village. While none of them are particularly difficult to find, you’re likely to find yourself missing a few by nature of not exploring every possible nook and cranny. While the side-quests given by the villagers are the best kind of side-quest (rewarding, optional and non-missable), the fact of finding them in the first place is not optional is a bit frustrating.

A sad story indeed. Some fetch quests ought to repair her broken soul.

I would advise picking this up if you enjoyed the previous handheld Castlevania games and are looking for more of the same, only better. I would avoid it if you suck at video games. Just kidding. But if you’re looking for the cake walk that some of the recent Castlevania games took you on, be prepared for a challenge. People who have a whip fetish or can’t get enough Belmont action should also steer clear. There is none of that business in this game. But I’ll let you get your whip/Belmont fix here and now:

There. Satisfied? Now go get Ecclesia, you fool.

Final Rating: Barilla

Rating Scale:
5. Pasta Pomodoro
4. Barilla
3. Kraft Mac and Cheese
2. Chef Boyardee
1. Spaghettios
0. Courtney Love