Completed Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.
Took me almost 4 months, albeit with pauses. Started to play it in March, and completed it just now.
Decided to play this game after completing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It was a mistake to try in play it on the original hardware, though. First, NDS can’t take screenshots. The game is gorgeous, but I can’t prove that now. Second, there are considerable slowdowns when there are a lot of moving objects on screen, which make some boss battles frustrating.
But first things first.
Bloodstained’s heroine was an exact copy of Shanoa, heroine of the Order of Ecclesia. Up to color of her dress and the tattoo on her back.
There’s no difference between weapons and spells now, or as they called here glyphs. A rapier, called Confodere, or a hammer, called Macir, use the same mana as a lightning bolt. Mana recovers quickly after a brief rest, very similar to endurance in Dark Souls series.
Different from most other Castlevania series, instead of a huge castle, there are a lot of discrete locations. All of them are rather small, and some of them also quite linear, even corridor-like.
In terms of pixelart, this is the swan song of NDS. The next Castlevania game will be already a 3D one. And Prison Island is simply a muscle flex, with it’s hand drawn lighting and shadow effects.
In terms of combat system, at a certain point I felt that they should have called it “Order of the Axe”. Seriously, Axe glyph rules the midgame. I always found axes in Castlevania games awkward. But in Order of Ecclesia they simply… work? You can hit enemies above or below you, which is great. You can also hit bosses multiple times, because their sprites are so big. Guess the game also helps you a bit in aiming your throws.
Crab boss was easy, except for the slingshot parts. You need to drag your character down in order to go up the Lighthouse. But then the boss is also beneath you. If you fall, you touch it. One touch, and you’re basically dead, caught in a damage loop.
Maneater boss was a lot of trouble for me due to its random moving patterns, and a lot of flying debris causing lots of damage. Then I discovered I have missed the light magic, Luminatio, at the top of the Lighthouse. I actually went all the way up, but then the elevator glitched, and went all the way down, so I assumed you need to do something special in order to fix it. Turns out it works just fine on the second try. And by mashing double light magic, the Maneater boss went down on my first try.
Not sure if I’ve “got” the game after that, but I enjoyed Russalka, Goliath and the “sand shark” bosses immensely.
I also feel that the game is slightly easier than other Castlevania games. A lot of glyphs have a rather wide arc, so you don’t have to position yourself that much. You can hit enemies standing above or below them, out of their reach. Unlike Symphony of the Night, where you had to get “in their face” all the time. And there are even some homing glyphs.
Also, the good ending is slightly more obvious than in some other Castlevanias, as I have missed just two villagers in my first attempt, and I was doing that without a guide.
Barlowe was a huge pain for me. Lots of well timed jumps, especially in his second phase, when he starts to dash at you. Fail any of the five jumps, and you’ll be stunlocked, and probably loose around 50% of your total health. Ended up stocking on healing potions, just to get past him.
The next boss, Wallman, is a clever reference to Konami’s own Bomberman, by the way.
I really hate when others say “you haven’t seen the game until you do X”, but in case of Eclessia, it is quite true. You haven’t seen the true Castlevania until your reached the castle. And you reach the castle only if you head for the true ending.
Blackmore boss’ design is absolutely awesome: evolution of “not shadow effect” we’ve seen back on Prison Island. But the necessity of constantly staying in the air was quite tiring. I wish I didn’t play this part on the original console.
Eligor was a pain in the ass for me for a few evenings. I almost dropped the game at that point. It’s a long fight with four phases. The boss is huge, but with only a few vulnerable points that are hard to reach. What changed the fight completely for me was the Melio Ascia glyph (throwing axe). It drops very rarely, so I had to farm for 30 minutes for it. But once I’ve got it, destroying centaur’s crossbows is a breeze.
I literally cheated death by cheating the Death boss with the Death ring. Sorry, not sorry. That ring doubles your damage, but you die from a single hit. Unless you unequip it in time…
Final boss, Dracula was super annoying. He hits hard, and his patterns are very hard to avoid, compared to any other boss in the game. I tried to soak damage using the best shield, but the slowdowns in this fight are so bad and he hits so hard I still couldn’t beat him for a few evenings. Had to farm for an hour to level up and get tons of gold. And then used the same trick as in Bloodstained: stocked food items. All the food items I could get. That did the trick. Glad it’s not Hollow Knight!
Going back to pixelart for the last time: Dracula’s cloak is simply mindblowing.
