Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is the next adventure in the growing line of Castlevania DS games. It takes place after Symphony of the Night, the Order of Ecclesia is trying put together a plan to take out Dracula, who has been terrorizing people for centuries. You play as Shanoa, a woman chosen by Ecclesia's leader, Barlowe, to host "Dominus", a three-piece magical glyph, which I'll talk more about later. Apparently Barlowe told Shanoa's friend, Albus, that he would actually be the vessel through which Dominus defeats Dracula, so while the ritual is being performed on Shanoa, Albus runs up and ruins everything. After stealing the glyphs and disappearing, Shanoa has no choice but to find him and get them back, thus the motivation for the gameplay.

The story is actually pretty cool. There are some nice plot twists, and there's even an alternate ending, which is the first I've ever seen on a DS game. The gameplay is pretty simple - X, Y, and R buttons all perform attacks, or "glyphs". Glyphs are magic or weapons or both absorbed by Shanoa by standing under them and holding the Up button. Apart from having multiple glyphs to use, you can set multiple glyph groups that you can switch back and forth from. All this is to fight various ghouls, monsters, and freaks, just like in pretty much every Castlevania. Killing enemies will then level you up, increasing your attack and defense and everything else. The game has many classic RPG elements to it, even though it's considered a "Castleroid" game -- meaning it incorporates gameplay features first used by Super Metroid, such as non-linear exploration, the ability to unlock new areas by finding items, and side-scrolling.

The game itself is actually pretty damn hard. I found myself dying multiple times before I even got to the first save point, which was a pretty frustrating ordeal. If you don't get stuck on the same part a bunch of times, though, you'll probably have the motivation to keep going. It's not impossible or anything. The gameplay is seriously enhanced in this game; it's smoother, there are better fighting combos, the story is captivating, and the game is just more fun in general than most of the older ones. On top of that, the artwork is totally revamped, going from more of an anime-style to a sort of traditional gothic animation. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is the first canonical Castlevania to feature a female lead character, so enjoy it, fanboys.

5/7