Review: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Last week, I stopped off in the San Francisco branch of Gay Gamer castle. During my stay, I was treated with a wide variety of new and fascinating titles which were either new or unreleased, a treat I do not often get to experience. No sooner than I was sucked into all the wonderful new video games did Fruit Brute hand me a copy of Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. "You should play this", he said (I paraphrase).
I groaned and looked at the case. Since Castlevania II: Simon's Quest I've been a fan of the series. I'll wait for you to finish laughing. Done? Good. As far as I'm concerned, the game reached an apex with Symphony of the Night and has more or less reached a plateau. The games have become a humdrum slash-and-grab level grind since then. It is all well and good, find a formula that works and stick with it. It doesn't stop me from being apprehensive and slightly bored with the new installments.
I begrudgingly inserted Ecclesia into my DS. I was greeted with a much refreshing opening video. The art style had changed from the usual dark, charcoal sketch feel to a smoother oil feel. This did not carry through to the in game sprites or background, but it was nice to see they made an effort to revise a standard.
Realistically, though, very little has changed with this installment. The game consists of an over world, and a series of short in game levels similar to the way Portrait of Ruin operated. Each consists of a relatively short, mostly linear hike through various environments ultimately reaching an end point. Sometimes there is a "boss", a term I use rather loosely in the context of the game. They are neither required and rarely do they present themselves at the end of the level.
Of which I would like to express a bit of concern with the "boss" battles. The game has likely the highest difficulty curve of any Castlevania title I've played since the original Vampire Hunter title. The first battle poses little challenge for a veteran player, but I quickly found myself struggling to defeat the second boss, ultimately getting frustrated and setting my DS down for several hours while I recovered my pride. I rapidly discovered this was a pattern, presented with an even more challenging and frustrating boss fight. Ultimately, the game rewards experienced players with medals for defeating the bosses without taking any damage. This is a feat I will leave to better, more patient players than myself.
As far as innovation, the game more or less follows the same format as prior titles. The battle system is very similar to the Circle of the Moon's card battle system. Heart items have been completely removed. Essentially, players can equip 2 attack glyphs and a single auxiliary glyph to their character. The two attack glyphs can be used independently (creating combos) or combine the two at the cost of hearts. The formula seems to work well, but doesn't really present any game mechanic we've never seen before. Capturing glyphs present a handful of unique challenges, but nothing that would mark this game as unique.
What it comes down to is if you enjoy the previous handheld Castlevania titles, you'll enjoy this one. The game play is solid and well designed, even if it may feel a little stale. The game is still an item grind, and with the exception of a few curve balls the quest system feels more like a job at the post office than actual entertainment. I managed to work past my reservations and now I can safely say that I enjoy the game enough to finish it. 100% completion, however, is not in my immediate future.
Overall Score: 7 of 10
Asterick
Posted to Video Games on 28 October 2008
· Comments (4)
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I concur.
Too hard!!!!! I mean, even the first boss killed me at least five times before I figured what I had to do....
Sometimes I don`t get certain people. It`s not easy for sure, but a lot of people complain about games being way too easy these days. And now, when you get a challenge, you say it`s too hard. C`mon, it`s not CONTRA after all.
It's no Mushihimesama either, that's for damn sure.
Insofar at least, it's been a pretty smooth ride, usually only getting killed by bosses a couple of times, and often letting them, just to get a feel for their attack strategies before going for the gold.