http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3167762
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| Following Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin, the Castlevania series gets a third installment on the Nintendo DS. Developed and published by Konami, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia lets gamers play as a member of the Ecclesia, an organization that has sworn to defeat the evil forces of Dracula. |
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Previews: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia We check out a girl and her glyph in the next handheld Castlevania title. You're reading an E3 2008 preview, which we've broken into three sections to make it easy to sift through during this week of convention madness. Check out E3.1UP.COM for all (meaning words, screens, and videos) of our E3 2008 coverage.What's the game about? Ever since he galvanized the long-running Castlevania franchise with watershed PS1 entry Symphony of the Night, Konami's Koji Igarashi has pumped out a steady stream of eerily similar follow-ups for both the GBA and DS. Although some bemoan the games' innate similarities, successive iterations add just enough freshness to inspire another long and winding trip through Dracula's abode. This installment's story takes place in the mid-1800s, a time when the legendary Belmont family line has seemingly been extinguished. In order to combat the menace of Dracula, a holy order calls upon a young female acolyte to venture forth and vanquish the timeless evil. Ecclesia dares to mix up the Castlevania: SOTN formula with its atypical female protagonist, Shanoa (Igarashi famously deleted the series' only previous leading lady, Sonia Belmont, from the official Castlevania timeline), an innovative glyph-based combat system, and a wider variety of locations to explore. What's new for E3? Igarashi had briefly demonstrated the game at a press event, but E3 provided my first opportunity to get hands-on time with Ecclesia. Rather than showcase some random chunk of the adventure, Konami simply let me begin a new game and plow through as much as I could in an hour. What's our take? As a veteran of every previous Igarashi-helmed "Metroidvania," I immediately marveled at this game's nicely detailed backgrounds. The last few handheld Castlevanias have looked dangerously similar, so Ecclesia's unique level architecture and daring color choices come as a welcome surprise. Likewise, a smattering of all-new enemies and long-overdue monster makeovers (say hello to this season's fashion-forward zombie and ghost sprites) helps to dispel the warmed-over rehash feel that permeates the preceding games. Yet it's Ecclesia's revamped gameplay that truly sets it apart from its predecessors. The Glyph system expertly combines SOTN's vast array of equipment with Aria of Sorrow's Soul system, allowing Shanoa to extract and equip abilities from both enemies and objects. All her actions draw from a MP gauge that recharges when not in use, meaning that you can't endlessly wail on the attack button. Since Shanoa can equip a different weapon glyph in each hand, you're able to master multihit combos by properly timing button presses?perfect for taking out the game's trickier-than-usual standard-issue foes. Seriously, when's the last time a bone-tossing skeleton posed a threat? In Ecclesia, they're impressively resilient. The game's first level introduces a special glyph that grants Shanoa the bizarre ability to gravitate toward magic gems, anchor onto them, and then fling herself around by ratcheting up the tension of whatever magical rope she's using, and then releasing. It's a neat trick that opens up new traversal possibilities and even comes into play against the area's grotesque boss monster. Although solving the first area took longer than expected (and -- shockingly enough -- involved a peek at the Game Over screen du ringthe boss encounter), I quickly chose my next destination: a nearby town. Exploring this quaint, stone-hewn burg instantly gave me Simon's Quest flashbacks as I read signs, gabbed with townsfolk, and explored their houses. Eventually, I discovered that a number of the denizens had been taken captive in a nearby haunted forest, but before I could set off to rescue them, my time with the game came to an abrupt end. It certainly sounds as if that next mission breaks even further from the established Castlevania norm, and I frankly can't wait to see more of this game. |
