Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

[BeeZee]

Is out today. Against my better judgment after Portrait of Ruin, I'm going to pick this up, because I still have a raging hard-on for the series at large.

I have every intention of fully documenting my first playthrough of it in this thread.

So I'll probably be complaining a lot, mostly.

[RPGD]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

We would never expect anything less.

[BeeZee]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

I never know what to post about if there aren't any new 2D NES-holdover platformers or Final Fantasy games.

[Loki]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

I am looking forward to this thread.

[Magus]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

As am I.

[Gustaff 13]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

Let's use some spoiler tags, too.

[BeeZee]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

So to kick things off:

I should be home, hopefully with this game, in about two hours.

I'm not entirely sure what to expect. If you've read my past rantings, you know that I think IGA is something of a douche nozzle. With Portrait of Ruin, he changed the level structure used since SotN, proving that he knew SOMETHING was wrong but that he wasn't entirely sure what it was. Now, instead of boring interconnected stages, we had boring segmented stages.

Ecclesia looks like it's going to continue the trend of segmented stages, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I LIKE the MetroidVania setup, particularly if it's done well. I think it has a lot of promise. And hey, empty halls are empty halls, whether or not they connect to empty halls with other tilesets.

The trailers so far actually look kind of interesting, though. There's a chase-sequence boss fight, some CVIV-esque grappling, some tipping platforms... maybe not groundbreaking stuff, but it looks like there's hope for the levels playing differently from each other.

And supposedly, the game is really hard! Does this mean that jumping and dodging will be more important than they have been in the past few entries?

But then I'm like, man, cautious optimism SCREWED me with Portrait.

[Duel]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

Wha? Another Castlevania game!? Eh, whatever, I've only played SotN 8-)

[Vonwert]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

I am actually looking forward to playing this game. I just wonder how the spell system plays.

[BeeZee]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

So I'm maybe half an hour in, and I just cleared the first stage. The stage itself was everything I hate about IGA's Castlevania level design: flat, featureless, and devoid of any distinguishing features or interaction. The sole exception here is the Magnet Glyph, which acts as a kind of grapple beam-type thing. This is actually pretty cool, and it's even required to beat the first boss. I'm really hoping they expand on its uses, because aside from the boss fight, you basically use it to climb a tall, empty room.

That boss fight is actually pretty cool, though! I ran in the first time and got slaughtered in four or five hits. The second time wasn't exactly difficult, per se, but I did have to pay careful attention to dodging and waiting for the right opening to attack.

[BeeZee]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

There's a small stage after the first which is literally 100% flat. Like, the game isn't even PRETENDING to have interesting level design there- it's literally a giant straight line with a few monsters.

But then, right after that, there's a stage that begins with some interesting stuff! And then, when you get a little further in, it has MORE interesting stuff! I'm being vague so as not to spoil it, but it's... well, it's not super-exciting level design, but for an IGA Castlevania, this is the best we've gotten in yeeeeears.

[Toaster]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

Interesting stuff?

You don't say.

[BeeZee]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

Oh my GOD the third boss is FANTASTIC.

[RPGD]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

It seems a paradigm shift is occurring.

Sound the klaxon.

[Kire]

Re: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

I don't get it. I try and try. I beat the last one and felt like I just ate a Hot Pocket...unsatisfying and I wasn't glad I played it. It was the same w/ the Castlevania before that. I won't be fooled again.