Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Switch): COMPLETED!

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Switch): COMPLETED!

Konami changed things in the Metroidvania formula for Order of Ecclesia in a number of ways. Firstly, you play solo as An Actual Woman, a rare thing in Castlevania games. Shanoa is part of an organisation tasked with protecting the world from the possible resurgence of Dracula in a time in history when the Belmonts seem to have disappeared. Spoiler: the organisation actually wants to resurrect Dracula.

Secondly, there’s a world map with many discrete, and mostly small levels. Like with Portrait of Ruin this means many more non-castle themed areas, but also like Portrait of Ruin, some are just recoloured versions of others. There’s still a lot of variety though.

Additionally, Shanoa’s powers are sort of similar to Soma’s, where she absorbs glyphs (rather than souls) from enemies and can then make use of their powers herself. However, each power drains magic points, so even basic attacks can leave you magicless and you have to wait for it to recharge. A bit annoying when all you want to do is slash a boss in the face over and over.

The graphical style is somewhat different to previous GBA and DS Castlevania games too, which, coupled with the new areas and related foes, does mean that the much-maligned asset reuse of the series isn’t apparent here.

When I played this originally, I gave up for some reason. I don’t know why, as I was enjoying it. Presumably something else came along at the time and I just never went back. It means that this time through, I remembered almost nothing bar the first half an hour or so where the story is set up. Imagine my surprise, then, when after completing a load of levels it turns out there is a castle after all – and an huge one, if not quite a full size one, at that. You get to what you think is pretty much the end of the game and suddenly you’ve a whole extra game, sort of, to do!

I think I ended up preferring this to Portrait of Ruin, but all three of these DS Castlevania games have been excellent in their own way.

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