Story
At the forefront of these organizations is Ecclesia, headed by Barlowe who may have found a way to destroy Dracula using a type of spell called a Glyph. This particular Glyph set is made up of three different spells and when combined they form Dominus, and it is of immense power.
However, the Glyphs need a host body to unleash their power. The one chosen for this role is Shanoa, a member of Ecclesia and Barlowe's personal disciple. But the ritual is interrupted by a fellow member of Eccleisa named Albus. Albus claims that Barlowe promised him and him alone the power of Dominus. Albus defies Barlowe's orders, attacks him and steals the Glyphs for his self, but Albus is unable to properly absorb them.
During the scuffle, Shanoa was knocked unconscious and upon awaking has no memories, possibly taken by Albus along with Dominus. She must retrain her skills, find Albus and take Dominus back.
Storywise, I enjoyed this but there are some problems. Unlike PoR, we don't have any connections here. We're given a completely new cast with no connections to the Belmonts, or anyone else for that matter. We also finally get to see what was going on before the Morris family inherited the Whip and before the Lecarde family had the Spear. Leaving the year vague was also a good idea. We can assume this happens before the events told in Bram Stoker's Novel, but we're not too sure. Koji "IGA" Igarashi, has expressed a slight displeasure in using his revised timeline, stating:
"Because Dracula only appears every 100 years, we made the whole timeline and ran out of places to put in another game. I made the timeline, but I shouldn't have actually released it, because now it's all official. That was a bad decision."-IGA in an interview with WIRED.
So to get around this they simply added XX. Plus there is the whole premature revival thing that can happen like in RoB and almost happened in SOTN.
Characterization is fairly good, I'm going to get into some spoilers here so it might be a good idea to skip ahead. I try to avoid it when possible, but I can't really talk about the characters without revealing major plot points, unfortunately.
I don't get it, she's supposed to be emotionless, right? I have a better idea, instead of taking away her emotions, just leave it at her memories. Since her memories are gone she wouldn't have any emotional connection to anyone like Albus anyway. Shanoa outright states at one point that she has nothing left, but doesn't feel anything left except her mission. I know that lacking emotions doesn't mean she can't understand the situation, but I'm calling bullshit on that. You don't go from "I have nothing left" to full-blown confidence without an emotional force. Now you could probably argue that she's just fulling her last quest not because of emotional ties or trust or anything like that, but because she could be akin to a robot at that point and I'd probably buy that if her facial expressions didn't change twice during that particular scene.
It's one of the challenges in doing an emotionless character and probably why it shouldn't be done. We, as creatures with emotions, do not fully understand what lack of emotion is.
Something I do love however, is that by the end of the game Shanoa does not fully get her memories back. She does get her emotions back and she gets fragments of her past(from a different perspective) but never her full memories. Shanoa and we as the player get just enough to give some comfort, but there is still a bit of mystery there.
However, where the game succeeds in making us not have emotional connections like our main protagonist, it fails in giving us any true attachment to any of the characters when needed. When things finally do start to get emotional towards the end I just don't care all that much. Sure, the situation is sad, and Shanoa acts accordingly like she should in that particular situation, as a real person would. But we, the player, do not have the same feelings.
Despite my heavy criticism of the emotional aspect(or lack there of), Shanoa is probably one of best characters in the series. She has probably more characterization than someone like Jonathan, it's just messy in what feels like obvious oversights. The oversights can probably be explained to some degree since she does absorb a soul and one point and it could possibly affect her. But we're never told that, so it's just fan speculation at best. I also have to give credit towards them doing a female lead and not making her overly sexulized. It's a bit of a surprise really for a video game, especially a Japanese one, to not do that.
Barlowe doesn't have a lot of depth. He's just sort of the leader of Ecclesia and helps guide Shanoa through the game. He has something of a calm fatherly aurora, but we never find out a lot about him until much later, where certain events transpire to reveal Barlowe as less than the kind leader we believe.
I also don't know if this was intentional or not, but he has the same name as the vampire from Stephen King's book, Salem's Lot. But given references in past Castlevania games, I wouldn't doubt it.
Albus is obviously a primary antagonist through the game...sort of. Again, if you don't want to be spoiled or at least anymore so, skip now. Otherwise I'll just say I enjoy what was done with his character.
Albus isn't as evil as initially thought. Of course, if you truly knew his name, you might have been able to guess that. Everything Albus does is for Shanoa. I don't mean in the crazy way either, I mean in the protective sort of way. Dominus isn't exactly safe and Albus knows this, but Shanoa doesn't and we don't really have any reason to believe him since we know jack and shit about him.
But as the game progresses, we learn that Albus is Shanoa's older adoptive brother and really just cares about her. You do end up fighting him because he goes insane after absorbing a part of Dominus. After the battle we get a glimpse at why he betrayed Barlowe, why he's done everything he has, an idea of what his relationship with Shanoa was etc. It's kinda sad honestly, because Albus was never really bad, he was just doing what he was supposed to do, being a brother. He also comes back (sort of) at the end up the game for a few last minute details and explanations. In a way Albus ends up being a hero in the game.
I really like what was done here, but I do have a few problems. First off, Albus kidnaps a bunch of villagers in the game (I'll get back to this later) Now he does this with good interest, he never hurts any of them and needs them to help in his quest with understanding Dominus and all that. Problem: He straight up leaves their asses in monster infested haunted houses, swamps, caves, prisons and more. They're frozen too, by glyphs no less. Did he expect Shanoa to rescue them all? How did he know she would even care? Not like she has (or is supposed to have) emotions anymore, it's a wonder she's even motivated to go after him. Not to mention two of the people he kidnapped were children and an elderly woman. He left their asses in blocks of ice surrounded by monsters.
Also, he gives Shanoa two parts of Dominus during two separate encounters. Apparently this was done so he could see how she absorbed the Glyphs. That doesn't make any Goddammn sense. How does seeing someone preform an action automatically allow you to do the same? That's like if I saw someone teleport with a magic emerald and tried to do the same, despite having never done so beforehand. Though to be fair I suppose it would be possible for Albus to watch Shanoa those two times and practice absorbing Gylphs during the time he is away, but that's still really stretching it.
I also feel more should have been done with his character, perhaps even his own mode like the Sisters got in PoR. You know, something to help elaborate on his story, even just a bit. He does have a mode after completing the game, but it has very little story and doesn't honestly make a lot of sense.
Those are the three main characters, but there are others including 13 villagers. I'm obviously not going to talk about all of them, I'll just say we get a nice colorful variety. There is one that sticks out, but we'll get to him in the audio section.
In the end I think the story is fine, but it does sometimes feel like they're trying too hard. I don't care about a lot of the characters in the way I think the game wants me to. That's not to say it's bad, there are good moments and I certainly was never pissed off during gameplay. But Castlevania doesn't need to have an emotional story. I appreciate the attempt at trying something new and perhaps even trying to surprise me, but while I feel story is an incredibly important aspect to a game, I don't need much of one for something like this. It isn't Final Fantasy and I'm not going to judge the game harshly for not being so, no more than I would a Mario game. I look at games as how I believe they're meant to be and in comparison to previous entries in a series.
However, it seems as if Iga or someone wanted to do more, and that's fine, I'm always up for new things. But I was more emotionally invested in the Lumas in Mario Galaxy than I was in the characters found here and some of the plot points need some cleaning up. It feels as if there was more potential here than what was realized by the developers.
Thankfully, while the story does have some short comings, the game play makes up for them.
Gameplay.
Holy hell, talk about a learning curve. OoE may play similar to past Metroivania games, but the new Glyph system takes some getting used to. For those that don't know, OoE introduces Glyphs, a sort of magic that's similar to Soma's Soul Steal ability but unique in it's own right.
Glyphs replace everything weapons wise. You can obtain Sword Glyphs, Axe Glyphs, Hammer Gylphs, Sickle Glyphs etc. Weapon Glyphs are also more basic than any weapons in previous installments. You get standard, powerful and superior. Don't expect any additional attributes from weapons alone, you get the damage type(Piercing, Blunt Slash etc.) and that's it. No Holy or Dark sword here.
Using Glyphs will also drain your MP, so every time to hit an enemy with a weapon, your MP goes down. Thankfully, it regenerates fast, about half the speed of what the Chaos Ring would do. Just because it regenerates fast doesn't mean you can Spam attacks like mad, it's perfectly balanced so it never feels like you only can attack a few times nor is it so you can go insane. Still, you must be careful in your attacks, keeping in mind how much MP you have, knowing when to stop and regenerate and knowing when to push it to it's very limits.
In addition to your weapon Glyphs you also get magical spells. Spells will probably be your main source of attacking once you get enough of them, but even so you will still need to rely on your weapon Glyphs quite often.
You can also Dual wield Glyphs, meaning that for the first time since SOTN we have the option of equipping an item in each hand. Doing this is very important to the game, alternating attacks with the same weapon allows for faster attacks. You can also preform a Glyph union, which is a combination of either the same spell made more powerful, two different spells made into one attack, or a spell combined with a weapon which will also give off an additional attribute relating to the spell used.
Glyphs can also be preformed together by alternating rapidly between the two.(This is not the same as a glyph union, it's more or less a critical)
Alternatively, you may wish to equip two different weapons or most likely equip a weapon Glyph and a spell Glyph.
Finally we have Back Glyphs which are assigned to the R button and are meant to help the player. This can include Glyphs to boost a particular stat such as luck or condition, a Glyph that will slowly heal you 1 point every second, or a Glyph to speed you up. You should and will use these a lot. Being able to so much as do 10 points more of damage is incredibly important in this game.
You will also use the so called Magnus Glyph a lot. It's obtained in the first level in a game and is used throughout.
The most important aspect here is variety in weapons. You will not simply pick a Glyph or two that's good enough and run with it, you will get yourself killed if you try this. You must switch your layout at a moments notice and you must mix and match your Glyphs. Thankfully you obtain the ability to have three different layouts and can cycle through them during gameplay without pause, but even then you will sometimes have to change those three around at key moments.
Each slot allows for two Glyphs plus a back Gylph. This takes a lot of getting used to as you'll probably think one layout has a certain spell or weapon Glyph, but doesn't or you may switch to the wrong one while in a bind. But you have to do it and eventually you'll get the hang of it and know each and every one.
We also have levels making a return, but unlike PoR we do not use paintings or Dracula's Castle as a hub. Instead we get a map screen were we can select where to go. At first you'll only have two places to go, Ecclesia and the first level 'Monastery' which ends up being a dead end, but serves to introduce us to one of 13 villagers Albus has kidnapped for his own reasons. Later, we learn about a prison and end up having to travel through 'Ruvas Forest' before getting to select a new level. This is the level type that most of the maps follow. Rather than having every area make you walk back/teleport to the entrance like PoR, we get exits at one end up the level which will almost always open up another level to enter. I should note that some maps like Kalidus Channel have multiple entrances for you to enter/exit from, revealing how much of the map was unavailable up until that point.
After walking off screen you'll get taken back to the map screen where a new area will appear, but you do not have to travel there immediately, you can travel to any of the other previously visited areas if you so wish before proceeding, either to grab items or grind up. Conveniently, after completing a level you have the option to enter from either side of the map; the original entrance or the initial exit. This can be useful to those needing to explore a particular part of the map but do not wish to travel through the whole damn thing/are not near a teleporter.
The level design here is solid. Levels here are a lot more varied than PoR. PoR did have a good variety of levels, but some also tended to be similar and take place mostly indoors. Here we have a lot of outside and indoor areas like forests, mountains, haunted manors, a prison, caves, snowy environments even the freaking ocean. Even better is that most of the areas mix the two together, you may start on a mountain and work you way into a cave then exit out to find a wooded area.
No two maps look a like in terms of design and layout. Everything is unique. There is a slight trade off in that some of the maps are smaller than those in past games, some being a key word here. Also given how hard this game is, the few smaller maps aren't a bad thing. I died at least four times on one of the smallest maps in game and that was mostly just a straight line. Levels also make great use of their respective environments, mountains have slopes and boulders, caves have stalactites that fall but can be used a platforms, even tree branches in some of the wooded areas can be used as a means of transport. Paying attention to the environment can also lead to hidden glyphs.
Dracula's Castle isn't quite as large as it was in PoR, but it's is still quite large, though this is mainly due to long corridors and halls that twist and turn. While the Castle isn't as varied as past games in terms of environments, it isn't that much of a problem given that the Castle isn't the one and only place you're stuck in. In fact, it's quite common for you to leave and return to the Castle and are able to do so as much as you like.
There is also a lot of secrets and back tracking through maps as one might expect. There are the usual breakable walls and such, but those are hardly the only ones. Some secrets require the use of glyph union to clear a blockade to get to a secret, or to kneel on the ground in a specific area to make a chest appear. Yes chests make a return.(Ironically I can only recall seeing a whole three mimics in the entire game.)
Chests act a bit differently here, they will respawn after you leave the area as a whole(going back to the map screen) and return later. There are also 5 different types of chests in game. Wooden(common, have a 10% chance of having a different item than the last) Green(rare items) Blue(hidden) Red(Have a set item in them which will either be HP, MP, HU MAX UP or equipment. These do not reset.) Gold(contains a relic, only four in the entire game, do not reset.) There is also a chance that a wooden chest may be replaced with a Green one.
And of course there are huge areas to be discovered in what feel like much smaller maps when you initially go through them. Most surprising is how much goes unexplored until you're very far into the game and obtain the ability to walk through certain walls.
A lot of the levels have metal spheres which you can latch onto by using Magnes, this is a very common means of getting around early in the game and much later, but it's not over used or done to death.
The early sections are there just to get you accommodated to it with the first few levels having small sections with it's use and the first two Boss Battles using it. The control is very good. You can hold R and aim yourself in any direction, pulling as far or as little as you want, pulling yourself back farther will launch you faster and of course a longer distance, but you must be careful not to over or undershoot yourself.
Later sphere sections are meant to challenge you more and it does a good job of it, as you'll eventually be tasked with launching onto moving spheres over and under spikes while Medusa heads come at you, and yes that includes yellow ones that will turn you to stone and cause you to fall on the spikes. The thing about the spheres is that they just don't use standard up and down, side to side ones. They'll place them on rotating cogs and sometimes that leads into spiked walls or other hazards.
Despite the backtracking, out of all the maps the most common area you'll visit before and after completing a level is Wygol Village, an area unlocked immediately after the first level. Here you'll be able to save your game, refill your heart meter with a heart fountain and buy items. Finding and saving villagers will open up new items in the shop...to a degree. One of the most challenging aspects of this game is the shops. The villagers have quests, much like Wind in PoR. But they're incredibly tedious and not as varied. Most of the villagers want one or more items before a item can be made available to purchase. For example, you will need Sage for the villager 'Abram' if you so much as want Potions and Tonic to buy. Which is fine since Sage is a common drop, but things start to get difficult as it progresses, too much so.
After the first quest, Abram wants Chamomile & Rue, which are a bit harder to get a hold of. After that, he wants Sage & a Mandrake Root. Mandrake root has mere 4% drop rate and this is the problem with a lot of the quests, they are grind and luck based. Go get this item go get that. It is not fun at all. I don't want to keep re-entering the same level looking in chests hoping to get a certain item, not getting it, leaving, waiting an hour/doing something else in game, returning and repeating the process over again. Trying to get an item drop off an enemy isn't much fun either. Kill an enemy, leave the screen, come back and do it again as needed.
There isn't much point in doing the quests either. Potions are incredibly over priced in this game and hardly do jack shit even at early levels. High potions aren't much better and Super potions are even worse, costing a whopping $24000 for a single potion and that's with a discount. What a slap in the face that is, going through all that trouble and then having to grind for gold just to afford the damn thing. Other items tend to be things you won't even use. Why should I bother killing spiders and hope they drop silk so I can have a dress made? I'm never going to buy the damn thing let alone wear it.
If you do decide to do any of the quests make sure you do Aeon's after you save him. He's the village chef and after doing his quests he will make 'Tasty Steak' which does the same Goddamn thing as a super potion(restoring all your health no matter what) and they cost $4000 The other person you should do quests for is Eugen, the village blacksmith. You'll probably be able to complete two of his three quests just by going through the game and opening chests as you normally would. You'll probably have to grind for gold to buy his armor, but the armor is actually worth it.
Now to be fair not all the quests are grind fests. Sometimes it might be something along the lines of going to a particular location and using an item like a recorder or a camera, sketch book, etc. These aren't as bad, there are even a few that are charming and they're not much different from some of Wind's. But even so, the rewards rarely feel worth the time and effort put into it. Wind gave me the sub weapons and the Alucard Spear, what did I get from you?.... A ribbon. Oh joy.
You can make some of the grinding easier by raising your luck by various means, but I just don't care enough to do so. Thankfully they're optional just like Wind's were and I'll admit some of the character interactions were nice and I can at the very least think of at least one good item obtained from a quest. The annoyance of the quests certainly isn't enough to take away from other aspects of the game, but it's just such a waste, you don't even get an awesome reward for completing all of them.
When it comes to enemies, OoE offers quite the variety and challenge. We'll get to the new designs in the graphics area, but let's talk about difficulty. I cannot stress enough that this game does not fuck about. Enemies are very tough and you'll be switching around glyphs familiarizing yourself with what works best on that enemy at that time. You're going to try your best to avoid enemies in certain sections, not just avoiding their attacks, but straight up running away to avoid dying. The game hits you hard by the time you reach the third area and doesn't really let up. Thankfully you get a Glyph early in the game that allows you to freeze some enemies. You'll be using this a lot in the game, even as late as in Dracula's Castle.
Part of what causes the difficulty is that there is very little armor to find in game. You'll mostly rely on buying it and I've never even gotten a piece of armor from a chest until very late in the game, and it was outdated by the time I obtained it. Now the difficulty in terms of normal enemies does start to drop as you get better, but you'll still need to be wary. However the threat the normal enemies does drop dramatically once you encounter the Nova Skeletons deep in Dracula's Castle. Reason being is that you can absorb their beam attack and it works incredibly well. While not very powerful, it doesn't use a lot of MP, it does both fire and light damage, it hits multiple times, and you can alternate between attacking with it very fast. It might as well be this games version of crissaegrim.
Bosses also do fuck about. I died on the second boss no less than four times. The first boss is easy, then the game decides "Alright, that's cute. Here, have a crab battle."
A lot of the boss fights tend to have something unique going for them, often with the use of the environment during the battle. This can range from you getting chased up a light house tower, a boss diving into the ground like a sandworm, causing rocks to come down from a cave ceiling etc. But one boss sticks out in my mind as the most interesting. Eligor, based upon the Duke of Hell from Ars Goetia. He is quite possibly one of the largest bosses in the series along with Galamoth. His entire body is practically a battle platform and you are required to make your way up to his back to fight harm him. I really want to see more bosses done like this.
Bosses hit hard and you have to switch your strategies and attacks at a moments noticed, it's not to say they're cheap, they're certainly fair in their difficulty for the most part, as most of the game is. But you will likely need a few attempts if you're going in blind, and even then you still need to have good reaction time as Bosses will regularly change up their patterns and keep you on your toes.
Strangely, Death is hilariously easy to beat, especially considering how hard his section of the castle is to navigate. With the right gear, Death can be killed in a mere 6 hits. I even got a damn medal for it because I didn't take a single hit during the fight, which means I had an easier time fighting Death than with the first Goddamn boss.
Dracula's battle is really great. He only has one form but does have a good veriety of attacks and gains more about midway through the fight. Probably the best thing about the fight was the curve ball they throw at you. I almost don't even want to spoil it because I didn't expect it, even though it's so damn simple.
Everyone that's played any game from the series knows Dracula's common method of attack. Hellfire/Dark Inferno and Teleport, repeat again and again. Doesn't even turn around if you're behind him, just keeps firing flames.
Here....well, he does do that but then stops to walk across the screen to literally kick the hell out of you. Yeah, Dracula walks in the freaking game, which is a first in any of the games. Not only will he walk over to kick you, he'll sometimes disappear just before you land an attack only to suddenly reappear and attempt to grab you. If Dracula grabs you, he'll start draining your life while replenishing his own.
That's freaking brilliant, why hasn't he done that before? He is a damn vampire after all. Maybe it's because the Bemonts have divine blood or something, I don't know. But it's nice to see some new attacks that don't simply rely on an alternate form.
Art/Grahphics.
You know, I never really had a problem with the Anime art styling in Castlevania, it wasn't my favorite and certainly I didn't like it as much Ayami Kojima's styling or even the inconsistent styles of the 80s and early 90s. But it wasn't terrible(Not counting Judgement). That being said, I am very happy that OoE moved away from that style. The art style here is handled by Masaki Hirooka, whose only other really known work before this was Sonic and the Secret Rings. Dear lord are his illustrations gorgeous to look at.
I absolutely adore this style. It's incredibly detailed and it just fits Castlevania so perfectly.
It's one of the challenges in making a character emotionless, you either have it being boring or unwisely show emotions to convey a situation.
Dracula's design here is also quite nice. I mentioned in my PoR review that Dracula had a bit of a goofy look to him in the game. Here he looks like I would imagine Dracula looking.
It seems to take some aspects from SOTN and his Chronicles design, without looking too much like either.
(Top; Chronicles, bottom; SOTN)
In game graphics are absolutely gorgeous(as far as pixels go anyway) The best part here is the character animations.
The sprite for Shanoa does a good job of reflecting the design.
Shanoa's movements are absolutely beautifully done and are incredibly detailed. When Shanoa bends her legs at the knee you can see a slightly lighter area where the armor is hinged. When she runs, her hair and dress will flow behind her and the red lining of her dress can be seen wrapping over portions of the blue in the wind. Attacking with the appropriate arm when facing left or right will cause her to turn her upper body slightly revealing part of her back tattoo, If you attack with the opposite arm she will turn the other way and reveal part of her chest armor. When she falls she will look down and pull her arms back. When you back dash she will bend back and place one arm on the ground behind her as she flips. Double jumping isn't just a repeat on the original jump in the air(looking at you Jonathan) she will contort her body and fling herself up in a flip. When you suddenly stop or turn around she will place one foot forward and skid while pulling in the opposite direction, her hair will also flow forward.
Her hair, dress and limbs all move accordingly, no matter the animation. It's better than PoRs animations by a long shot. You can tell a ton of work went into this.
Unfortunately Albus didn't get the same treatment. He has a weird looking idle animation that sticks out. His shoulders seem to move independently of his arms, despite, you know, being connected. Sometimes his shoulders will go up while his forearms go down, almost as if his shoulders are like a beach ball floating in water or his forearms are slinkies. It's hard to describe, it just doesn't look right. The sprite itself looks fine, and there are some nice animations with him, just not as nice as Shanoa's.
I've already gushed about the level of detail in PoR stages, and OoE is no different. There are no more weird 3D backgrounds here, just very nice pixels. The backgrounds are varied and fitting for each area. Forest areas have trees at different proximities, some are close and they keep fading until they're just silhouettes in the moon light, the Ocean has tidal waves that crash and toss a wrecked ship about. Levels have as much variety in looks at they do in structure. To me, environments looking different is just as important as how the level plays. If you have good level structure but it looks the same as everything else, it's going to be boring. The same is true if everything is flat but looks different. Thankfully even environments that have similarities are different overall. Caves for example rarely look alike, one level may contain a cave with a tan and a very dry look, reminiscent of Canyons. Others may be dark and damp, or covered in ice with water features. Wooded areas may have tall, nearly endless rows of trees. Others are dead and bare.
Glyphs are also diverse, though they do reuse some sprites from previous games. The flame, Ice Bolt and Wind Glyphs are obviously taken from PoR. But I can't really complain, I mean how many different way can they make an ice bolt look?
Of course OoE has new enemies and some returning ones, just as all Castlevania games have. Some of the new enemies include:
Banshee
Grave Digger
Werebat
Black/White Formor
Enkidu
Skeleton Rex
Ladycat
Miss Murder
Automaton ZX26
Jersey Devil
Mad Butcher
Evil Force
Oh shit, it's Robert Englund.
We also have some returning enemies that have not been seen for a long time, like Bitterfly and Dark Octopus. Even the Invisible Man Returns, but they went through the trouble of giving him an all new sprite and animation.
In terms of design all the enemies do look good. The ones base upon mythology and cryptids like the Jersey Devil do a great job at capturing their historical descriptions and they're well animated.
I'm generally happy with the additions as usual, although I should point out some of the sprites were reused a bit too much. A lot of the new enemies have recolors in the game such as the Werebat being used as Lilith.
Or The Curse Diva, which is a pallet swap of the Banshee.
Or the Lady cat being used for the freaking Black Panther.
Even one of the bosses is reused as a normal enemy, though instead of a pallet swap its just the same thing, including the stats. This is also probably the first time a boss has become a generic enemy within the same game.
On the other hand, a lot of the enemies in the game aren't reused at all, be it a pallet swap or not. For example; Grave Digger and Skeleton Rex are only found in their respective areas and have no related pallet swap. I'm rather split on my feelings towards this. On one hand I can look at this as the designers simultaneously using some enemy types too much and underusing others. Or I can look at it as them reusing enemies to their full extent and not using others to make them more unique. I'm rather neutral on the whole thing. I will give them credit for at least changing some of the attacks on the pallet swapped enemies.
I also have to point out just how out of place some of the enemies look, like the Mad Butcher. He is obviously Leather Face, which is fine, but he carries a chainsaw and the game takes place in the 19th century. Chainsaws date back to about 1783 but they didn't become gas and electrical powered until the 20s. But the one enemy that sticks out the most is Automaton ZX26, which is, as you can see above, a robot. One that looks like a windup toy no less. Look, I'm fine with silly fun things in Castlevania like paper airplane and pie weapons. I'm fine with exaggerated technology. But it has to fit in somehow. The Tinman for example, it's a robot but it has a steam punk look which works much better.
Both The Mad Butcher and ZX26 have good designs, but they probably would have worked better in PoR. It's not a huge problem, they just stick out enough that I have to mention how noticeable it is. I'm certainly not bothered by it as much as I was by the historically out of place enemies in CV64, but then again CV64 sucks, so everything else was made worse by that fact. Here the the rest of the game is good enough for me to not care all that much.
Bosses are also diverse as the rest of the enemies are. Most of the bosses, as usual, are based on a nice variety of mythological creatures, though there are some originals in there as well. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I've leaving out two of the bosses.
Arthroverta; The first boss of the game and she is based upon the She-worm creatures from Castlevania The Adventure on the Gameboy.
Didn't Bill and Lance kill you in '88?
I really like the design of the female face on a giant worm body, and there is a nice attack where she spits silk on you and she gets really big eyes during the attack. I also like how colorful it and a lot of the other bosses are. That's something I think of a lot of games with a Gothic or horror theme miss now, color. Everything is brown and grey and more brown. That's fine for a game like Silent Hill, but it's getting ridiculous.
Brachyura; Well this is self explanatory. Brachyura is the scientific name for a Crab. This just happens to be a giant one, and according to in game information "A giant crab from the depths of Transylvanian history." If you've watched Sony's 2006 e3 conference then you probably know were this comes from. Don't have a lot to say about this aside from that fact this fight was incredibly annoying for a second boss. Also I've noticed one claw is bigger than the other, probably indicating this is based upon a Fiddler crab.
Or maybe Kingler has a mega evolution.
Maneater; Ah I remember this guy. He used to be called Puweyxil.(spell it backwards) But became Man-Eater when Aria of Sorrow came out. Since then they've dropped the hyphen and went back to the Skull design, though it appears to be multiple Skulls fused to together. Nice touch is that the tentacles will restract into the skull when attacked and they take more damage than any other point.
There is an H Dojinshi of this being drawn somewhere.
Rusalka; Now things are starting to get interesting. Rusalka is based upon the Slavic mythological creatures of the same name. They're often described as sort of a Nymph, Succubus or Mermaid. They would dwell in the bottom of lakes during the day, coming out at night to dance and sing in the meadows. If an attractive man were to walk by, they would lure them with their singing and drag them down to the river bed where they would drown them, not unlike the Greek Sirens.
Rusalki are created by a woman who dies before their time, often in a violent manor. This can range from suicide, unmarried women who are pregnant or even unbaptized children. There are many interpretations and descriptions of Rusalki, ranging from a ghostly human appearance to having flaming green eyes or extremely pale and translucent skin. Sometimes they might not even have pupils. But other interpretations completely cut out water and only focus on the forest aspect and would depict them as large hairy beasts.
So knowing that, Konami seems to have mainly focused on the water aspect, as she will call forth powerful waves and shoot water at Shanoa. Though they did noticeably give her large arms, possibly referring to the more hulking, tree swinging beast Rusalki found in Northern Slavic mythology. She also has a mixture of pale blue skin and dark blue skin. I also like how her tail makes a dress of sorts.
Goliath; Self explanatory. He is based upon the biblical being of the same name, or rather he is supposedly the very same being, as the in game description states:"The only thing more massive than he is the weight of his blasphemies." He has a slight resemblance to the Frankenstein Monster, looking a bit patched up with multiple electrodes in his back. I like to think someone found his body and used the same process Dr. Frankenstein originally came up with to bring his corpse back to life.
Gravedorcus; I really don't know where the hell this this comes from, if anything. Far as I can tell it's not based on anything specific. The 'Grave' in it's name probably is referring to Grave and Acute, in the sense of sound, as Gravedorcus tracks prey though vibrations in the ground. It's also probably a pun on it being underground and anything it hears is sent to the grave. It may also come from Margrave, a title for someone that maintains defence of a border.(The boss is in an area called Oblivion Ridge) Dorcus may be referring to the Stage Beetle and it's large Mandibles, but I'm really reaching for anything here. It's such an odd design and I haven't a clue what to compare it to. It's basically a weird Shark/Dragon/Predator hybrid that swims in sand. I have to give some major credit. I don't know WTF this is.
Wallman; Here is another original. He looks like the gay love child of Humpty Dumpty and Gonzo. There isn't anything else to say about him other than he attacks like Bomber Man and technically has the most health of any boss in the game outside of Dracula. (9999)
Blackmore;Now here is something that isn't based on anything specific, but does have a few inspirations. Shadows and Shades have always been prevalent in various cultures. The Greeks had Umbra, the shadowy figure of a dead person, normally from the underworld. Hebrew has a similar being called a tsalmaveth, literally a death-shadow. Works of literature also had many forms of shadow beings, they appear in everything from The Odyssey and The Divine Comedy to The Twilight Zone. Of course Shadows taking on a monstrous appearance or acting independently was seen in Bram Stoker's Dracula. I really love the way the shadow has symbols incorporated into the design.
Eligor; My favorite design in the game. As mentioned earlier, Eligor is based upon Eligos Duke of Hell, who controlls 60 Legions of Demons. Often depicted as a knight upon a horse, OoE features him as a Centaur being with crossbows attached. He is easily the largest boss in the game and I never even found a legitimate way to beat him.
Audio
As far as voice acting goes we've got the usual grunts and things of that nature. Shaoa herself is voiced by famed voice actress, Michelle Ruff. Ruff was previously the voice of Maria Renard in Dracula X Chronicles and the SOTN remake, but she's probably best known as Cream the Rabbit from the Sonic franchise and her various roles in the Dynasty Warriors games such as Sun Shang Xiang.Ruff's performance is of course limited. Shanoa never speaks in full dialogue, that's all text based. Shanoa does however have a wide if albeit basic vocabulary during normal gameplay. Like Charlotte, Shanoa will occasionally call out spells when attacking. They do a pretty good job at mixing things up so she isn't always saying the same thing over and over again. Each spell seems to have a few lines associated with it such as Ice Bolt; "Ice!" Ice bolt." "Freeze!"
Changing how you attack and what you have equipped will also change the dialogue. For example; Shanoa will normally say "Pneu" when using the wind Glyph(Pneuma), but when dual wield and alternated between rapidly she will say "Gale!" Glyph Unions also have unique dialogue, using two Pneuma in a union will cause Shanoa to say "Ventus" This practically applies to all attack based spell Glyphs, not just a few.
I should note that Shanoa doesn't speak with every attack, so you don't have to worry about the dialogue spamming you when you attack rapidly. Plus with you needing to switch between spells and weapons often, it is unlikely that things should get too repetitive.
Enemies also have a decent amount of dialogue. Enemies like the Lady Bats will sometimes be flirtatious with Shaoa saying such things as "Let's play, cute little Kitty" Other times they'll be insulting or aggressive, calling Shanoa a harlot and such. Banshees will scream and even some of the pallet swapped enemies have their own dialogue. Curse Divas for example will appear and say "Where are you my love" It sort of helps them stand out from the Banshee.
Certain Bosses also have dialogue, like Rusalka, who will call forth powerful waves. Wallman, who will comically insult the player during the fight. Other bosses they just got really lazy with in terms of audio. Brachyura, Gravedorcus and Eligor all use the exact same generic monster grunt. They don't even attempt to change the audio around a bit with them.
Dracula even has a bit of dialogue, typically saying a spell's name when using it. He will also make comments on toying with Shanoa or on the players actions during battle.
I also need to point out that Dracula is voiced by Patrick Seitz, probably best know as Scorpion from MK, Agni from Black Butler, Kaptin Bluddflag from WH40K and most recently as Zomom in Sonic Lost Worlds.
Seitz previously voiced Drac in X Chronicles and has voiced Dracula in the CV series more than any other English Voice Actor. I really don't have a lot to comment here since I have heard the voice before, I'll just say I enjoy it and this is what Dracula in Castlevania should sound like.
Now, we also have villagers. Oh boy...
First, let me say that for the most part the villagers sound fine. The voices aren't anything special, but they're diverse. Yet there is one in the game that stands out is the most hilariously awful way, it's the healer of the village; Abraham. This character sounds incredibly out of place. Imagine the Ninja Turtles, Bill and Ted, Wayne and Garth rolled together. He sounds like someone from the 90's got trapped in the 1800s. I'm pretty sure he even said dude at one point. It's incredibly jarring. I can't even blame a voice actor, not entirely. Someone had to approve that shit.
Music wise, the game absolutely excels. I'll go ahead and say I enjoyed this soundtrack more than PoRs.
With PoR we got some new tracks, remixes from other games like King's Valley and some tracks from the past we might expect, like Iron Blue Intention.
Here? I didn't really know what to expect. OoE mostly uses all new tracks but also some rather unusual older ones. But lets start with the new tracks. The big new theme is An Empty Tome, which is Shanoa's main theme.
It does sound great and at the very least I can remember the tune. I couldn't tell you what the fuck Jonathan's theme was supposed to be in PoR right off hand. It's Invitation of a Crazed Moon, which isn't bad, but it's probably one of the more lackluster themes in PoR. So props to An Empty Tome for actually having a memorable(not to mention fitting) theme for the main heroin. My one criticism is that An Empty Tome sounds like it sampled a bit too much from 'Riddle'. But that's not a huge deal.
Some of my favorite tracks from the game include Chapel Hidden in Smoke, Unholy Vespers, The Colossus, Ebony Wings, and Lament to the Master. The last two are easily two of the best tracks in the game. I truly believe Ebony Wings could have been a new reoccurring track, it's that good.
Below that, we have tracks like Hard Won Nobility, Tragedy's Pulse, Emerald Mist. That's not to insult those tracks, they're certainly unique in their own way, they're just not favorites. They're tracks that work well in their respective levels in game, but not something I'd expect to see remixed any time soon.
Reused tracks include Tower of Dolls, Riddle, Enterprising Mercantilism, and....that's it. Every other track in the game is all new. The entire NES/Famicom soundtrack from the original Castlevania is in the game as well, but it's just the original tracks with no remixes and they're only there as a bonus for you to change the music in the game if you so wish.
As far as boss battle music goes, the two main boss themes are Dissonant Courage and Symphony of Battle. They're okay, nothing great, but not bad either. Both are a bit slow for my tastes and don't offer much in the heat of battle which are often more intense than the music would imply.
In contrast, one of the best boss themes is Sorrows Distortion, which is also Albus' theme, it's a really great track.
Dracula also has a new theme by the title of Order of the Demon. It's not quite as good as PoR's theme (Banquet of Madness) but, again it's alright. I like it better than the two generic boss themes, but nowhere near as much as Sorrow's Distortion and Lament to the Master. Truth be told, this probably would have been better as a theme for regular boss battles than for Dracula.
A lot of the music has something of an overall soft feel, not in like bad way and there are "harder" tracks like Lament to the Master. But you've probably noticed that there is a lot of heavy use of piano, flute and harp like sounds throughout the soundtrack which I think matches well with the sombre tone of the game.
Miscellaneous improvements:
Saving is instantaneous now, even faster than PoR.
Teleporting also feels faster.
Oddities
Yeah I don't know where the hell else to put this so I'm using a new category for this.
The text in the game at points use brackets:
I really have no idea why, but whenever something like [Dominus] Or [Dracula] is brought up they use it. It's not really a complaint but it is oddly distracting at first. I can't possibly fathom why the hell they use this.
Final Approach
Order of Ecclessia isn't a perfect game, in many regards the game is lacklustre in some areas such as with the villagers or certain story elements...and yet, the aspects it does well in are so good that I really don't mind the lesser areas. The gameplay is solid and fun enough for me to not care and I wasn't thinking about the negative aspects all that much. Some are unavoidable like the pallet swaps and such, but I was mostly just having fun playing through the levels, and isn't that the most important aspect? I think it speaks volumes when I'm having too much fun to care about the negatives.
In all honesty, if you are to get one of the Castlevania games on DS, make it this one, because it's easily the best one available, or at least my favorite.
+Beautiful animations
+Diverse Levels
+Memorable music
+Challenging but fair difficulty.
-Heavy use of Pallet Swaps.
-Lazy reuse of Audio with certain Bosses
-Tedious and often poorly rewarded side quests.
9.5
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