Any of you lucky DS owners playing Order of Ecclesia?

[Gamerforlife]

I don't have a DS, but I've been playing a lot of Casltevania:Symphony of the night these days and even picked up a PSP and Dracula X:Chronicles recently. I heard Order of Ecclesia's story picks up after SOTN and it seems to have gone back to a similar artistic style that SOTN had. It looks awesome and I envy DS owners. Who's playing it and what do you think of it? And who else thinks it's awesome to see a Castlevania with a woman in the lead role?

[MrPopo]

I support strong female roles in games, so Ecclesia was win from the word go. Unfortunately, my copy doesn't arrive until tomorrow, so tonight I'll have to just waste time with my PS3 copy of Eternal Sonata. And maybe some Zillion (which also arrived today).

[Doctor Fugue]

As the only person on earth who thinks Cvania games are getting better with each release, I am quite excited....although I've only been thinking about Ketsui and forgot about this game. Thanks for reminding me.

I don't care what gender the character is, but I really enjoyed PoR's tag team (male/female).

The new water level looks great.

[Mozgus]

I beat all 3 GBA entries, but it seems I'm stuck big time in the first DS game. In fact, I've been stuck half a dozen times until I just gave up. I really think it's level design is weak compared to the earlier ones. I cant decide if I just need to skip to the 2nd, go right to the third (this new one), or just forget about them all.

[Haruspex]

I didn't play that much yet, i beat the first two bosses but the key changes are

1) Although the level design is Castleroid style and not old school Castlevania this time you don't have a big castle to explore but separate stages which you access with a world map system. Portrait of Ruin had something like this with the use of portraits but this time the gameplay is much more linear. But as i said it retains the Castleroid style just way more linear.

2) Female main character (duh!)

3) You can find/buy and equip different accessories, armor etc. but not weapons. You can equip weapons which you acquire from enemies via the glyph system. Basically this works somehow like the soul system in aria of sorrow and dawn of sorrow. You can have three glyphs equipped at a time in Y, X and R buttons. From what i seen the glyphs in Y and X buttons are attacking glyphs and those on R button are something like support glyphs.

4) You have something like a stamina bar and each time you attack with the Y or X button this bar decreases. If it reaches zero you can't attack. However from what i heard at a later point in the game this bar doesn't decrease and besides if you stop attack it fills almost instantly.

5) From what i heard this game is the hardest in the Castleroid series. I don't know i didn't played much but i didn't find that difficult but maybe later in the game is. This surprised me because in an interview i watched IGA said that a reason he used a female character is because he wants women to play this game and also the hard mode isn't that difficult as past Castleroid games.

I beat all 3 GBA entries, but it seems I'm stuck big time in the first DS game. In fact, I've been stuck half a dozen times until I just gave up. I really think it's level design is weak compared to the earlier ones. I cant decide if I just need to skip to the 2nd, go right to the third (this new one), or just forget about them all.

IMO Dawn of Sorrow beats circle of the moon and harmony of dissonance by miles, although i admit that aria of sorrow was just a bit better than DoS. PoR has more modes and more replay value than DoS however it's easier, more linear and not as polished as DoS.

[Gamerforlife]

I have a lot catching up to do with the Metroidvania games. Symphony of the Night just got me interested in trying some of them and Doctor Fugue seems to love them all. Plus, I'm kind of on a 2-d kick right now. I don't have a DS, but I have a Gameboy Advance and a Gameboy SP. I have Circle of the Moon. I tried playing it a couple years ago and it didn't hold my interest, but maybe I could give it another chance. I keep hearing that they really nailed it with Aria of Sorrow and that it blew away the previous Gameboy Advance entries. Maybe I should just start there. I'm partial to Ayami Kojima's style too, which I see in Aria.

Order of Ecclesia is now officially the first game to make me want a DS. Maybe I'll drop some hints for people buying me Christmas gifts this year

[Doctor Fugue]

...linear...

Man, that sounds great. I'm one of those guys who can't stand wandering around and wants stages. PoR was definitely my favourite of the later games simply because of the portraits acting as levels. I'm damn near extremely excited for this game to see exactly how the balance works out over the whole game.

I'll throw this in here again: why the hell can't we have console releases! Konami...listen up and follow Capcom's lead into XBLA/PSN/WiiWare!!!! ARGH!!!

Who else wants new true-bit sequels to Contra, Castlevania, Sunset Riders, X-men and Axelay??!?!?!

[MrPopo]

So I finally hit the big castle in Ecclesia. You can't even get it unless you are on the path to the good ending. Before now, it has been split up into many small levels. Some are literally a linear path akin to the NES Castlevanias, while others have some twists and turns, so they play like a Rondo level.

So far, it's been a blast. Unlike the previous DS games, this one really gets you to think about what weapons/magic you're using on enemies. I have my glyphs set up so I can bring down basically every different kind of pain, and I find myself flipping through them all the time. When I played DoS and PoR, I found myself being able to brute force my way through most situations, so this is a refreshing change.

[Haruspex]

So I finally hit the big castle in Ecclesia.

Don't spoil anything just tell me this, is the big castle non-linear?

Also don't you agree that the boss in Lighthouse was fucking awesome? Shanoa is scary xD

[MrPopo]

Yes, the big castle is non-linear. So you basically get two Castlevania games in one. The first half is a Rondo style game, the second half is a SotN game.

And yeah, the giant enemy crab was awesome, even though the trailers already spoiled the fact that at the end you attack its weakpoint for massive damage.