Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia was the third Castlevania game released for the Nintendo DS and was released by Konami in 2008. In this one you play as a member of The Order of Ecclesia – a clan dedicated to defeating Dracula.

Specifically, you play as Shanoa – a woman who is on the verge of graduating to the top of the clan by performing the ritual of “Dominus“. Dominus is a ‘Glyph’ – an artistic symbol that contains magical energy and is used to channel that power when absorbed onto the body. During the ritual a jealous clan member, called Albus, interrupts and steals Dominus and goes rogue, leaving Shanoa unconscious.

As a result of this Shanoa loses her memory and emotions and must be re-trained from the beginning again. So she’s taught how to absorb and use Glyphs again during the tutorial opening and is then sent on a mission to retrieve Dominus and bring Albus back to the clan.

Unlike in previous Castlevanias you can travel to different locations that are shown on a world map on the bottom screen, and a side-view map of the scrolling level is shown on the top screen. Special exits, that return you to the world map, are shown as yellow on the level map, and in these you can return to any location previously visited, or newly-revealed. This allows you to return to the clan’s HQ to heal or to speak any of its members, or go to a nearby village to use any of it shops and services.

When you first reach the village, though, none of its inhabitants (bar one) are actually there, and you’re told that they’ve all been kidnapped and taken to a nearby prison island. So rescuing them is added to your list of tasks. As you manage to rescue the villagers they begin to return to their previous lives and the shops start to open, giving you access to new items.

Order of Ecclesia has some really interesting game mechanics thanks to its use of Glyphs and Relics. The “Magnes” Glyph, for example, allows you to adhere to nearby magnets and propel yourself into the air in any direction you want. The Relic “Serpent’s Scale” allows you to move freely underwater. These two features alone make for some seriously unique gameplay in a Castlevania game and make Order of Ecclesia feel relatively fresh, or at least that the game’s designers really thought about how to make it different.

Additionally, the graphics in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia are among the best in the entire Castlevania series. After Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin – both of which have excellent graphics – you wouldn’t have thought that Konami could have improved the visuals much, but they have in this. There are some stunning 2D background graphics, with parallax scrolling that really gives the game added depth. Also: some backgrounds use 3D polygons in an effective manner, like the ships rolling on the waves in Kalidus Channel. The mist that rolls out of unsealed doors is also very atmospheric.

There’s a multiplayer ‘Race Mode’ and ‘Shop Mode’, plus a single-player ‘Practise Mode’ where you can basically practise races offline. There’s no cooperative mode (like there is in Portrait of Ruin), but there is a ‘Boss Rush Mode’ that must be unlocked before you can access it. Other unlockables include: hard mode, and ‘Albus Mode’, which provides an alternative player character.

Overall, I’d have to say that Order of Ecclesia is my favourite of the three Nintendo DS Castlevania games. It’s more challenging than the other two, looks the best, and is the most unique in terms of gameplay, while still keeping to the traditional 2D platforming of the series. It also has some very memorable boss battles (the Lighthouse fight is tremendous).

All three DS Castlevania games are must-play classics in the series.

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