Ecclesia, reviewFollow

tl;dr:

Q. Is this game worth buying/does it uphold the high standards of the other DS castlevanias?

A. Yes

Review

If you didn't know, a new castlevania was recently released on the DS, with more than a few new and unique gameplay tweaks.

The combat engine itself is identical to Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin, but instead of dividing weapons into categories like magic, sub weapons, heart weapons, main weapons, everything is now just a glyph; you get glyphs by absorbing them from various monsters, statues, items, etc. You get two hand glyphs (weapons and spells) and one back glyph (support), and three configurations which you can swap among by using the shoulder buttons, very easy. Hearts are consumed only during Ecclesia's version of the item crush, called glyph union. Every attack uses mp, but it recovers very quickly when not being used so mp is only ever a problem if you're wasting it away. I like it this way personally.

You don't play as a belmont; instead you control this cool lady named Shannoa who is a member of the order of ecclesia which was created to fight dracula in times absent of belmont. Whatever, the plot of castlevania isn't it's strongest point, but its passable. Other points to note about Ecclesia.

It's the only castlevania I've played that has a world map to pick zones from. The only other one I can recall having something close to a world map was curse of darkness. The effect is that you get a lot of mini zones instead of one huge castle (though the castle is there at the endgame) similar to Portrait of Ruins portrait worlds. It works fine just fine and dandy.

There is also a village in the game with a crapload of npcs that will do various things for you, crafting armor, accesories, etc.

Concerning the game itself, there is one thing that should definitely be mentioned. Ecclesia is a hard son of a ***** sometimes, to the point where you can die in levels. Compared to Dawn of Sorrow or other castlevanias, this is basically unheard of (in terms of what I can personally do obviously; results may vary). Bosses are anywhere between challenging and brutal, but they're damn satisfying once you finish them. Expect to die at least occasionally though.

Music is nice, title theme jumps out at you as fairly spectacular.

In summation, this is a fantastic new addition to the DS's library of excellent games, and a fair successor to dawn and portrait. Ecclesia is proof that sprites and platforms are not relics of a past era.

7.5/10

*cough*

Vol Luminatio + Acerbatus

Wanna know what happens? >.>

Belmont bloodline of the villagers and the revival/rediscovery of the holy whip, instead of driving forward with Dominus which should have been dropped as a device after the Albus fight).

Honestly I hated the belmot bloodline part of the plot. There are just these random dudes out of nowhere that are supposed to be belmot related?

What they maybe could have done was make the town related to the morris familiy, tie in with portrait or something.

Then again I've played like 7 castlevanias and only once was a belmont. My favorite personally was Dawn of Sorrow.




One thing I love about ecclesia is the small graphical details that you find. This applies to dawn and portrait also but its just little things, like Shannoa doing a backflip for her backstep. They really add a lot to the experience.

Edited, Nov 11th 2008 5:46pm by Pensive

I know right?! Isn't it just great?

It was also the only way I ended up beating old whatshisface guy right after you get dll of dominus.

IGN's review gives it a 9.0 I'll be looking into it.