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The CastleVania series has performed well on the
NintendoDS thus far. CastleVania: Dawn of Sorrow arrived
early in the system’s life-cycle, and was immediately recognised as
 one
of the best entries in the series. The follow-up, CastleVania:
Portrait of Ruin, was also considered a success, but received
much less attention launching amidst the hype of the Dr.
Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? and NEW
Super Mario Bros., even though it arrived some time after those
two all-encompassing titles.
Now, the NintendoDS is getting a third-outing, in the
form of CastleVania: Order of Ecclesia. The title follows the
bloodline of its NintendoDS predecessors, with the design ethos
dating back to CastleVania: Symphony of the Night on the
PlayStation. A fast-and-loose Tutorial is included, but fans will
have no problems getting to grips with the title, and it’s new Glyph
System.
In the opening stages of the game the player is granted
their first Glyph, Confodere. Acting as a Sword Glyph, the sword
works as any basic CastleVania weapon would, and can now be
equipped to both hands for faster attacks, with a Special Move
available whilst holding Up and pressing attack simultaneously.
The game now features an Map from which to select your
destination. Only one was available on the show floor, The
Monastery. The first thing that strikes you is the quantity of new
enemies. While CastleVania: Portrait of Ruin was quite
unfairly criticised for reusing many of CastleVania: Dawn of
Sorrow’s sprites, almost everything in CastleVania: Order of
Ecclesia has been drawn fresh.
Finding the second Glyph was simply a matter of a little
exploration. Being a more magic-orientated title, the attacks no
longer consume your Life Meter, although the Special Moves mentioned
above do. This new Glyph was based on the small sub-weapon, the
Throwing Knife, from previous games, which again can be equipped to
both hands. With less monitoring of the Meters than previous titles,
CastleVania: Order of Ecclesia allows for a much speedier
gameplay and variation in how the player wishes to attack. The E3
presentation also featured a Boss Fight, but we’ve been asked not to
talk too much about this as to avoid spoiling the game. What we will
say, however, is that there’s certainly a greater puzzle element to
the defeat of these screen-filling nasties than ever before. |
