Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

Visual Novel Community Anime/Otaku Discussions
#1

For those who don’t know, next Castlevania is going to be on DS. Logo for it was registered at the US patent office some time ago.

2chan has these “leaked photos” of it going around. Faked though. If you look at the “female Belmont’s” lower body in one picture, its EXACTLY like Charlotte’s lower body. While Iga recycles sprites, he doesn’t do it with the leading characters. So I’m skeptical to the extreme. There’s other issues, but I’ll just let others make their own judgment.

The 2chan images claim the title is Akumajo Dracula: Ubawareta Kokuin… translates as Castlevania: Stolen Emblem. Given that the US and Japanese titles don’t match for the Castlevania series, that probably doesn’t mean much…

#2

Interesting… the game has been rated Teen by the ESRB, which means there’s a full beta for them to actually rate:

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/04/14/esrb- … -ecclesia/

Odd that Konami has made no official press release for this title. No pics, no teasers, no nothing. It would appear that Iga’s priority to focus on making Castlevania for the NA market, rather than the JPN market, is long finished: Japan has far less info on the game, than the American offices.

In any case, Iga claimed he has two ideas left for Castlevania: the whole Final Battle of 1999 and the return of Drac’s niece (Bartley from Bloodlines). Maybe this is one of them?

#3

Turns out those leaked photos were authentic images from the beta copy. :oops:

Story takes place right after SoTN - Richter Belmont is missing and Dracula is on the prowl again. Sidenote: Richter REALLY sucks… this is THREE resurrections of Dracula in his lifetime; Simon only had it twice, and Julius put the bastard down for good… well… technically. Anyways, Belmonts aren’t the only vampire hunters in the world, so others rise to the challenge - hence the new girl Shanoa being the player character. This entry will explain why Richter was the last Belmont wielder of Vampire Killer, until Julius found it and destroyed Dracula in the Battle of 1999.

I was hoping it was the Elizabeth Bartley entry… but I guess that will have to wait until later. Unless of course, Elizabeth is the one causing the havoc this time. No twincest return, because they aren’t even born yet. :frowning:

#4

Official site opened:

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/dracula_ds3/

The slow loading flash video is the highlight. Shows the game’s intro movie, and some footage of actual gameplay.

Looks nice. Real damn nice. No twincest or Dracula’s niece… but there’s fan service potential with this new girl. :stuck_out_tongue:

EDIT
I mentioned it before in another thread, but some time ago Iga mentioned that future Castlevania titles would be targeted towards a North American audience, since it sold way better in the West than it did in Japan (similar to Devil May Cry). Given the title naming and voice acting, it appears that time is now. :slight_smile:

#5

i think the animation is a bit too smooth for the NDS hardware to handle :stuck_out_tongue:

keep in mind that it may have to do (partially at least) with the fact that paul anderson is making a live action movie of the franchise. but given most of his previous movie releases, i wouldn’t be too optimistic about it :stuck_out_tongue:

#6

I’m kinda wary about that live action movie… Castlevania doesn’t seem like something that translates on the big screen very well: and its not like video game to movie conversions do all that well anyways (Super Mario, Street Fighter, DOA, Final Fantasy, etc). I guess we’ll just wait and see, then pray the damage isn’t permanent.

#7

You guys see the new second demo video for Ecclesia? I can’t stop wetting myself in anticipation:

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/dracula_ds3

On the other hand, the new Castlevania fighter makes me cry inside. It might turn out cool though… graphics look nice for a Wii entry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN-MxjFC_b4

Death Note artist did character designs.

As someone on Youtube pointed out:

I assume the demo was only a beta version, so they recycled stuff to have something to show. I suppose we’ll find out in the final version.

I wonder if the vampire twincest will be in it?

#8

I’m not keen on the fighting game Judgment. Besides, I think Whip (Muchiko) from King of Fighters owns Simon Belmont for free with her whip action.

#9

Hmmm… I admit that I’m not all that keen on the Wii fighter, but it doesn’t look that bad for a Wii fighter:

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=KKeE9xWsp6I

Seems they’re still not done with the sound samples (all those fx and music are from other Castlevania games).

#10

Soundtrack is gonna be out earlier than expect! YES!!!

http://www.konamistyle.jp/sp/dracula_ds3/list.html

Also this new Castlevania has 20 different zones to explore. That’s almost as many as SOTN. It be kickass if they were NOT 10 normal and then 10 inverted/mirror worlds of the normal… although given Castlevania’s history, I doubt that… but here’s crossing my fingers!

#11

well for portrait of ruin its like 8 zones but the latter 4 is a semi rip-off from the former, and generally those zones are pretty short too :stuck_out_tongue:

#12

I’m honestly not sure how you could run out of ideas for Castlevania. All you really have to do is take one of the previous plotlines, append another “… AGAIN!” to it, and release the next game. Even when they started trying to include a more in depth story, they (by and large) didn’t succeed. Who really cares about the ‘storyline’ in Dawn of Sorrow? Yeah, me neither :smiley:

So here’s one. In the year 2483, Soma Cruz’ reincarnation appears! Yes, he’s the rereincarnation of Dracula, and he’s got to (save/destroy) the future. Except this time, Dracula’s Castle reappears … in space! So for most of the game, you have to stay in the innermost parts of the castle, because gravity isn’t normal in the rest of it and there’s no air. As the rereincarnation of Dracula proceeds further down his path, the castle organizes itself more fully, until at the very end you discover … it’s all been animated by Daffy Duck. The whole time.

#13

In order to be successful, all Castlevania has to do is:

#1: Have lots of gothic 2D sprites.

#2: Have lots of gothic music.

#3: Have lots of lengthy gothic stages with interesting level design.

#4: Have lots and lots of gothic monsters.

#5: Be challenging with the gothic boss battles.

#6: Some sort of gothic fan service (the vampire boss, maiden to rescue, the hunter, etc)

#7: Have lots of gothic weapons, armors, items, special abilities, and magic to collect.

#8: Throw in tons of gothic mood (cathedrals, ghost towns, haunted ships, etc)

#9: Be gothic.

#10: Dracula and Death.

Belmonts and plot are optional. We know the drill: Dracula has resurrected himself or someone resurrected him early. Current teenaged Belmont goes to kill him. If no teen Belmont is around, find an adult Belmont. If no Belmonts at all, then the Catholic Church has secret agents of their own and/or they can send a Belmont cousin in the mix. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. :stuck_out_tongue:

It is kinda funny, that considering Castlevania is about VAMPIRE HUNTERS, there are so few vampires around. I think one of the N64 titles had the most vampires present in the series. I’ve been waiting for a Castlevania, where Camilla and Elizabeth Bartley are in it together to help Dracula. Probably would be the 1999 Battle…

#14

Exactly. Castlevania is little more than an excuse to throw as many mythological creatures as the creators can look up at the library into one game, and then you kick all their asses. It gets the “action movie” pass as far as story goes: If some implausibility in the story allows for more awesome, by all means.

It doesn’t matter one whit what the “story” is. All that matters is, is there mythological ass being kicked? After all, as Penny Arcade once said – the world needs more games where you whip things in a dungeon.

#15

Anyone else finish Ecclesia? Overall a great game.

For some reason, I like the gameplay of Portrait more… however the boss battles and level designs in Ecclesia are MUCH better.

No Persephone (the kungfu maid) and Alura Une (the naked girl in the rose) makes Narg sad… but they had Werecats and Draculina. Oh and Laura too. :mrgreen:

#16

I have gotten through 1 and a half levels so far. They seem to have flattened the level a lot more than the previous Metroidvania titles. The glyph system I like, but the Magnes glyph I hate hate hate. It has taken away a lot of the challenge of fighting the bosses. I have not had to break a sweat beating the bosses, it just took a painfully long time.

#17

i think im still pretty early in the game but so far i dont really like the glyph system to be perfectly honest. it kinda limits the choices and variety of attacks you can use, and consuming MP for regular melee attacks im not so sure about. and like narg said i liked the 2-partner system in portrait more since its more interesting

and i am still disappointed in that all the games since the alucard title still have limited and mediocre weapon system; i still very much like the wide variety of equipment and effects that symphony offered.

now…friendcodes anyone? :stuck_out_tongue:

#18

Castlevania Judgment sucks. It sucks. It sucks. IT SUCKS!!!

Music is pretty bitchin (heavy metal remixes of Castlevania tunes; sorta like the PSP Dracula X) - but everything else sucks. Don’t get.

Returned mine to the store only 24 hours later. It sucked.

DS doesn’t support WPA. Makes Narg sad. :frowning:

I’ve tried getting a 100% with everything in Ecclesia, but the more I play it, the more I wanna play Portrait… so I’ve given up on a perfect Ecclesia save, and gone back to repeating my Portrait achievements.

#19

Hunted this down for the L-man. Maria and he share the same obsession:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYTPWAavALg

#20

thanks :stuck_out_tongue:

i realized after making the post about friend codes that i too suffer the same problem with WPA. while i do have a USB connector, i prefer not to use it honestly (as it literally creates another layer of firewall on the machine which seals it from file sharing/home networking). but if you buy the new dsi then it will have WPA support but ya it sucks that nds can only support wep

i reached a perfect save about a year and a half ago for portrait already :stuck_out_tongue:

im currently trying to beat hard mode lvl 1 for ecclesia. i do have all the enemy drops already from the previous play, as well as 65535 slash attribute which helps alot :stuck_out_tongue: