It's the best game of the series since "Symphony of the Night" and those who buy it won't be sorry. This "100" is justified by the enormous quality and the care of how it was made, which is unusual to see on Nintendo DS.
My personal first Castlevania game, and my favourite one to date, Order of Ecclesia has an excellent story, tight combat, and is visually top notch for the DS. The main character, despite being an amnesiac, is a surprisingly deep in terms of her personality. Order of Ecclesia is a must play title.
Order of Ecclesia brings back old Castlevania toughness with some metroidvania style gameplay. While it can be tough grinding now and again, a lot of this games fun comes from over coming what you thought was impossible at first, and that's something every game should try to offer!
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia serves up slick controls, action, and challenge while infusing some freshness into the formula and blending it with some of the best elements of the past two Castlevanias.
These "Metroidvania" games may be a bit formulaic, but there's no denying that they're still great fun. Order of Ecclesia is a bit of an improvement over Portrait of Ruin, and it's right up there with the excellent Symphony of the Night and Dawn of Sorrow. This will be one of the best DS titles released this holiday season -- don't miss it.
This is a difficult game, then, but it’s not an unfair or unusually frustrating one, and it’s a game good enough that the rewards for pushing forward are worth it.
It is a shame that Konami so overinflates the experience through early chores, especially as it has struck the balance between hardcore fans and casual explorers so well in the past. [Jan 2009, p.88]
Order of Ecclesia is easily the best Castlevania on the Nintendo DS so anyone who has played the other two games will feel right at home great gameplay difficulty Superb graphics the best of the trilogy memorable soundtrack and a good story The system of glyphs works very well, it is pleasant to destroy your enemies with spells or physical weapons, the variety of enemies is huge, from a zombie to a merman, mermaids, skeletons and of course many others Bosses are challenging but fun to fight even more with soundtrack during battle The game rewards you for exploration either with glyphs or items that make you even more powerful. . In case if I were to point out something negative I would say the villager's quest system which usually boils down to picking up a number of items and bringing them here varying occasionally to take pictures Or recording the sound of a creature but still a great game one of the best Castlevania for me I hope you can enjoy it the same way I enjoyed it
Didn't really work for me. I played through the GBA and DS games, six in total, and enjoyed all three on GBA, and the first two on DS. This one fell flat after five great experiences.
It's not a terrible game by any stretch - the graphics and animation are beautiful, and the music evokes nostalgia as does that of any Castlevania game. The gameplay is more of the same, so you'll be comfortable here.
However, I found the levels uninspired and linear, and the progression that takes you through a jumble of spots on a map was cheap and didn't help me enjoy myself.
Not bad, but by no means the greatest handheld Castlevania title.
I find it great that you get bonus content for connecting it with Castlevania Judgment. However, I think Blood Stain Ritual is a better up to date version of it.
Order of Ecclesia is, I'm sorry, a complete mess ****. Konami seemingly took everything they knew about the Castlevania formula, and then ignored it completely. Whatever was kept, they made a conscious effort to make worse.
Gone are the sprawling, interconnected worlds of previous entries for an overworld map. Need to get quickly to a previous area? Fast travel to the warp point closest to the area exit, then go through several intermediate rooms to said exit, select your destination on the overworld map, walk to another teleporter, find the closest warp point to where you need to go (and hope a convenient warp point exists in the first place), then walk some more. Oh, and heaven help you if you don't remember exactly where you need to backtrack, because area maps are only visible in that area.
Rather than simply picking up things by touching them, and opening containers by hitting them, as every other game in the series does, you must now stop and press up on the control pad. Which, in the case of collecting "glyphs", which take the place of weapons, spells, and subweapons, requires you to stand still whilst unable to defend yourself for several seconds. Not to worry, though, as you won't be collecting glyphs often. Unlike in previous titles, where every enemy had something to collect from it, most enemies now drop nothing, and even those that do seem to have much lower rates than in previous series entries.
Another thing enemies give less of is experience. Leveling up is a slow, tedious chore, especially in the early game. Bad news, since this game demands that you grind. Yes, you might be able to learn to get through some of the tricky sequences by skill, but mastering the game to the degree that you don't need grinding would take even longer - it's just not worth anybody's time. This can make even getting to the second boss a significant hurdle, as leveling takes forever, and you have to go through a completely unnecessary number of straight linear screens full of enemies (what I like to call "Corridors of Pain") to get to the next real map. You're going to end up avoiding most of the enemies on these screens, too, because fighting them at a low level with early equipment is just too much of a health tax for what precious little you'll have.
...and as an aside, it's not a good sign when the level design feels closer to Castlevania II than any other entry in the series.
You're not missing much. Combat is horrible too. First of all, since Shanoa's ability to use glyphs apparently renders her incapable of holding a real weapon, all of your attacks use a regenerating mana bar. When the mana runs out, you can't fight. There's a "combo" system, but I don't know if you can really call alternating attack buttons to swing while one hand is on cooldown a combo. You could technically mix and match glyphs, but barring some specific combinations, this really isn't useful. Most of the time, you'll just end up using two of whatever it is you wanted to use. Nor are the enemies really updated to make use of this new system. They still behave the same as they did in previous entries, so the best way to fight them is still pretty much the same. All the new combat mechanics add is hassle for the player.
That's really the core problem with Order of Ecclesia. It adds a lot to the Castlevania formula, but none of it is really an improvement. It all just feels like it's there for the sake of being different, without thought into how it makes the experience more fun. I hesitated about reviewing this game because it's held in such high regard, but the truth is, it doesn't deserve the praise. Everything about Order of Ecclesia is superficial. There's added complexity, but not depth. There's added challenge, but it's tedious rather than satisfying. The world feels bigger and the game longer, but only because there's so much padding.
Without giving spoilers, the story...well, at it's core, it's formulaic. We've seen this story before in the Castlevania series. Multiple times. They try to dress it up with the bits about Ecclesia and the glyphs, but it's still rehashing tired tropes and well-trodden ground. At least, the parts that aren't a nonsensical mess. Grant you, it's not uncharacteristically bad for a Castlevania plotline, but there's nothing worthy of praise about it either.
The art design and music are great, but not particularly exceptional for the series. They don't stand out as anything special. Ultimately, I'd say that they just make the game a well-polished turd with a shiny coat of paint.
SummaryThe legendary Castlevania series is back in its 3rd installment on the Nintendo DS. This time you play as a member of the Ecclesia, an organization that has sworn to defeat the evil forces of Dracula. Use the brand new Glyph attack system which has more than 100 different combinations to battle Dracula and his minions throughout 20 explo...