Template:Infobox CVG
- "I will become the blade to banish all evil."
- — Shanoa
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, released in Japan as Demon Castle Dracula: The Stolen Seal, is the third Castlevania title released for the Nintendo DS handheld platform. Though developed by the same team that created Portrait of Ruin, it has dropped the anime inspired artwork of its two predecessors in favor of a more traditional Gothic style with character design by newcomer Masaki Hirooka. It is notably the first traditional game to feature a woman in the lead role, who is known as Shanoa. Additionally, this is also the first canonical game in the series where the Vampire Killer does not appear in any form.
Releases
This game was released on October 21, 2008 in the US and October 23 2008 in Japan on the Nintendo DS.
Gameplay
The basic gameplay is like all other "Metroidvania" style games. The system for this game is known as the Glyph System. Shanoa is able to absorb the powers found in glyphs found throughout the castle and within enemies. These glyphs give her magical weapons and abilities and consume her magic meter, which automatically replenishes itself over time. She can equip a glyph in her right hand, her left hand, and on her back, marking a return to the two-handed weapon style only seen in Symphony of the Night. Each usage of a glyph absorbs magic. This means that practically everything offensive done by Shanoa, even simple attacks, uses up MP. However, equipping certain glyph combinations in each hand will give the ability to activate a "Glyph Union", which will execute a powerful special attack that consumes hearts instead of magic. Glyphs can be found in certain locations on the map, or can be dropped by enemies; at which point, Shanoa can absorb the glyphs simply by holding the D-Pad Up button. Some enemies also use Glyphs to attack; you may interrupt their attacks by absorbing their Glyphs. Additionally, there are Glyphs that affect the environment; Shanoa will have to absorb these in order to proceed. Besides from attacking, there are also glyphs that will boost skills, increase speed, transform her into an enemy creature, and so forth.
The map that connects the dungeons in Order of Ecclesia.
The maps of the game are also different compared those in Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow, or Dawn of Sorrow that contain a large singular map connecting all of the dungeons. In Order of Ecclesia however, the individual dungeons have unique maps along with individual map completion rates. These dungeons along with the village (see below), are displayed on a main cartography-drawn map that connects all of them. New areas visited will then update this main map of the game.
The Wygol Village also serves as the main hub. As Shanoa successfully frees Villagers, she is granted access to quests by them, and completing these quests unlocks new items in the shop.
Order of Ecclesia is praised by the critics for its high level of difficulty. Because generally, the gameplay is harder since the maps are small, contain few monsters per area (which are sometimes hard to kill and deal a lot of damage), have few Save Rooms, and secret items. The shop only contains few items from the start. The growth of Shanoa's health is also low (8 HP per level), and she requires MP to cast even the basic attacks. Fortunately, the idea of level-grinding, and the quest system helps the her to gain more power easily. Although longer hours of gameplay may be allotted just for the course of power-leveling as compared to the previous Castlevania games for the Nintendo DS.
Plot
Setting and prologue
This game takes place after Symphony of the Night, sometime in the early 1800s. As the Belmont Clan had vanished by that time, several organizations are created in order to research countermeasures against Dracula and his army's eventual return. Between these organizations, the most promising was the Order of Ecclesia who created a triad of magical glyphs named "Dominus".
Shanoa is a young lady chosen by the order's leader, Barlowe, as the human vessel for Dominus, but just before the ritual is performed, the glyphs are stolen by Shanoa's best (and only) friend and fellow Ecclesia member Albus, disrupting the ritual and apparently costing Shanoa her emotions and memories. Upon awakening, Barlowe tells her of his version of the events and orders her to retrieve Albus and Dominus.
Shanoa's quest
In her pursuit, Shanoa arrives in the deserted Wygol Village and finds out that Albus kidnapped its inhabitants and keeps each one of them imprisoned in a different location. As Shanoa rescues them throughout the game, she learns that Albus captured them to perform some kind of twisted experiment on them which involved draining samples of their blood. Each villager rescued provides Shanoa with tasks that once completed, provide new rewards. Although completing the tasks is not required to complete the game, its final areas are only unlocked when all villagers are rescued.
On two occasions, Shanoa manages to track down Albus, who willingly lets her retrieve one of the Dominus glyphs. But when she finds him possessed by the power of the third and final glyph, she is forced to battle him; it transpires his objective in gifting her with the glyphs was to learn her absorption technique. If there are villagers left to rescue at that part of the game, Shanoa retrieves the final piece of Dominus after killing Albus and immediately returns to Ecclesia to perform the ritual. The game ends with her untimely death and Barlowe's master plan completed.
However, if all villagers are rescued before Shanoa's final confrontation with Albus, his conscience fuses with hers when she absorbs the final glyph and she learns that Albus's true intentions were to find a way to defeat Dracula without Shanoa using Dominus, as he knew that it would cost her life if she used it. He also reveals that the reason he experimented on the villagers was because they were the last descendants of the Belmont Clan, and he (erroneously) believed their blood would have the power to help him control Dominus without it consuming him. As for her lost emotions and memories, he revealed that Barlowe used them as a sacrifice to gain control of Dominus, a fact he hid from her. He also revealed that Dominus is made from Dracula's own essence.
Dracula returns
Confronting her master after learning the truth, Shanoa hears from him that his true objective all this time was to bring Dracula back to life using her as a sacrifice. After Barlowe is defeated, he ends up offering his own life to fulfill his ambition. With no memories left, no emotions left, and with the death of those who were most precious to hers, Shanoa sets for Dracula's castle to put him back into his slumber, and complete the task she has spent her whole life preparing herself for.
Shanoa infiltrates Dracula's castle, defeats many of his underlings, and finally confronts him. She successfully defeats him using Dominus, but seemingly at the cost of her own life. However, Albus's spirit appears and reveals to Shanoa that while using Dominus demands a life in return, it need not be hers. He gives up his own in Shanoa's place after restoring her emotions and memories back, but not before he asks her to smile for him one last time. Albus's soul disappears, Castlevania crumbles into ruins and Shanoa escapes. It is also said that all records of Ecclesia vanished soon afterwards.
Character gallery
- Main article: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia/Gallery
| Characters | ||
|---|---|---|
| Protagonist & Supporting Cast | ||
| Image | Name | Information |
 |
The heroine of the story. Intended to be the vessel of Dominus. (playable)
| |
 |
Shanoa's adoptive brother and an antagonist for the first part of the game. (playable)
| |
 |
The founder of Ecclesia and Shanoa's master. Becomes an antagonist in the second part of the game.
| |
 |
People from Wygol Village. Kidnapped by Albus. They later help Shanoa in her quest and give her missions.
| |
| Antagonist | ||
 |
Ecclesia was founded to defeat this powerful vampire in the absence of the Belmont Clan. (final boss)
| |
Dialogue
- Main article: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia/Script
Reception
Shane Bettenhausen in the August 15, 2008, 1UP Yours podcast raved after his hands-on experience with the game, "It's maybe... the best Castlevania ever", and called it a cross between Symphony of the Night and Simon's Quest, noting that the high difficulty level ("You will die a lot. You will die all the time") was balanced by the roleplaying elements. Bettenhausen also raved about the quality of the game, despite the length, noting there are "3 or 4 levels of things to find". He concluded his experience with the game stating "It's all action-RPG oriented Castlevania at its best". He later awarded the game an A- for 1Up.com, stating, "With this game, series director Koji Igarashi proves that he can still breathe new life into this long-running, often self-cannibalizing franchise."
Order of Ecclesia has gained generally favorable reviews, with the reviewers often praising its increased difficulty over the older installments of the series, the new "Glyph" system and the renewed artwork.
Development
The game was made by the team who developed Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin along with Igarashi. In a Wired interview, Igarashi said, "We're doing another Nintendo DS version. There hasn't been an official announcement, but we're doing it... we want people to enjoy the PSP version Dracula X Chronicles, and afterwards we're announcing it. So, please wait a little bit". On January 25, 2008 a group of "leaked" screenshots from a DS Castlevania game that also showed Wii connectivity appeared. In response, Igarashi didn't give a direct answer if this was even the same game or said it was an official Konami product—he told IGN that "Konami doesn't comment on rumor or speculation". Eventually, it was confirmed by a later update that these were screenshots from Order of Ecclesia.
Bosses
| Name | Location | HP | EXP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arthroverta | Monastery | 700 | 300 |
| Giant Skeleton | Minera Prison Island | 800 | 350 |
| Brachyura | Lighthouse | 1,800 | 1,000 |
| Maneater | Skeleton Cave | 2,500 | 1,500 |
| Rusalka | Somnus Reef | 2,800 | 2,000 |
| Goliath | Giant’s Dwelling | 4,200 | 2,500 |
| Gravedorcus | Oblivion Ridge | 3,600 | 3,000 |
| Albus | Mystery Manor | 4,000 | 0 |
| Barlowe | Ecclesia | 4,000 | 0 |
| Wallman | Library | 9,999 | 3,500 |
| Blackmore | Underground Labyrinth | 5,000 | 4,300 |
| Eligor | Arms Depot | 3,000 | 4,300 |
| Death | Mechanical Tower | 4,444 | 4,444 |
| Dracula | Final Approach | 9,999 | 0 |
| Jiang Shi | Large Cavern | 6,500 | 2,525 |
Use of Latin
- Main article: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia/Use of Latin
The word ecclesia is Latinized Greek in origin, meaning "assembly" and used in English to denote either a particular local group, or the whole body of the faithful. Ecclesia is also another name for the Catholic Church.
Many of the names in Order of Ecclesia come from Latin, place and glyph names.
Related products
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Original Soundtrack
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Promo Soundtrack
- Official Koma - Comic panels associated with this game.
- Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - The previous game in the Nintendo Dual Screen series (not chronologically).
- Akumajō Dracula Best Music Collections BOX - Contains music from this game on Disc 15.
- BradyGames Order of Ecclesia Official Strategy Guide - US Official Strategy Guide.
- Konami Akumajō Dracula: Ubawareta Kokuin Official Guide - Japan Official Strategy Guide.
References
- Game Informer
- Kotaku article on rumored image
- Nintendic
- Silicon Era Order of Ecclesia news
- Nintendic - ESRB Ratings
External links
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia at the Castlevania Fan Wiki
- Official Japanese Site (translate)
- GameFAQs