The Telescope

Issue Date: 11/3/08

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia revives the Nintendo DS franchise

By nigel Harris

The latest addition to theNintendo DS Castlevania family is Castlevania: Order of Eccelsia. This is the third game released thus far. It is also notably the first canonical game to feature a female lead, who is known as Shanoa.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, the third installment in the Nintendo DS' series, brings new life into an all too formulaic franchise.

In Order of Ecclesia, the Belmont family, whose bloodline has been chosen to protect the world from Dracula and vampires in general, are put to the side to learn of another organization that are also looking to putting an end to Dracula's reincarnation.

Shanoa, the games heroine, is the perfect acolyte. She never complains, she follows orders and she alone posses the power to stop Dracula.

The games combat is the biggest change. In previous Casltevania's players were forced to find more powerful weapons or purchase them from a store. Attacks were limited to a standard attack and a power attack that would come later in the games development. Order of Ecclesia's combat has more depth to it. Players learn from the beginning of the game that Shanoa's ability is to use glyphs which require magic points for her to cast. The magic points in the game replenish at a much faster rate then previous iterations of the game, and are to be considered more of an action bar than anything else. Shanoa can equip two glyphs that players can combine to make more powerful attacks.

Players can also utilize combos to help take down, now tougher than ever enemies. The difficulty of the game has also changed; it is now harder than normal Castlevanias. Players will be looking at a game over screen more often than they are used to. Not only on boss battles, which are very clever, but also in regular encounters throughout the game.

The scope of the game has also changed. Players will no longer be trapped in Dracula's Castle for the entirety of the game. The map has changed to explore many different settings on a smaller scale per level but has increased the scale of the actual world players are set to explore.

The games one weak point is that throughout the adventure players are given quests to complete for villagers. The quests don't have a giant impact on the story nor are they particularly clever. In essence these fetch quests can become bothersome and make you feel like a lowly delivery person rather than the hope of all mankind.

The village where players get their equipment and quests starts off bare and players rescue villagers in order to get the quests. The game doesn't open completely until all the villagers are saved however. This makes the game a little frustrating because the hints can sometimes be hidden making it harder to complete the game.

The art in the game strays away from the anime style that has been seen in previous games and is set back on a darker more serious tone. The color pallet used for the games settings are also a lot darker and greyer giving the game a more ominous tone.

With the game trying so many new and original concepts the game is on par with the series best game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

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