I hate Order of Ecclesia

[Ancient Toaster]

Level design is total crap and the enemies hit you for half your health every attack.
The fact that you have MP to use attacks is just absolute trash too.

Good thing that the other two games on the collection are amazing.

OoE might be the worst Castlevania game ever made.

[DivineLion]

nah its good, but dawn of sorrow is better

[Tall Dark and Gruesome]

I don't think its a bad game, but it is one of the more tedious ones, level design is less inspired and item drop rate is terrible. Glyph system has really powerful unlocks but basically doesn't explain anything so you can easily end up with a bad build and not realize you need to be switching and buffing a lot, sometimes even in the same room.

[Billy Blaze]

Originally posted by Pay Child Suport:

wait I didn't know that no-damage bosses give you another extra drop

Don't stress yourself out over it.
It's just a medal for every single boss as a proof that you've no-damaged it.
I think it counts into the item collection, but it won't help you at all, since these things are just for show.

[0wnz0r]

Originally posted by Mixed Herbs:

Am I the only one that liked OoE's level design?

no

[Bucciarati]

I hate OoE but I'm love with Shanoa.

[Billy Blaze]

There are many things I don't like about this game, but it shares with "Portrait of Ruin" the number 1 place for my favourite Metroidvania.

Since "Dawn of Sorrow", I hate the grinding for stuff, cause it slows down the pace too much.
And here, you have these sidequests, and some require rare enemy drops.

Which brings me to the next negative: The enemy drops.
Gone is most of the cool stuff and enemies drop materials for quests, most of the time.
This stuff is basically completly useless and just there to be sold.
Oh yeah... and food... don't forget the food.

The thing I dislike the most is that you have to switch around your skills for traversal abilities.
The magnet isn't used all that often... but often enough to make you open the inventory, just for a little jumping puzzle.
Or later on the skill that makes you go through some walls.
But these games always have a problem with this.

But I love everything else:
The really fitting Shanoa (compared to the white Soma and the colorful Jonathan & Charlotte).
The locations, which are also sometimes completely outside.
The snappy combat and how you have to manage your MP and build.
I've played through this game multiple times, and each time, I played through some locations with a completely different setup, and it worked always well.

I also like the rings, cause most accessories, especially early on, can be kinda boring in most of these games.
The music is a given at this point, the 3 games before that one also had a nice OST.
What they did to make you fly... every other game suddenly feels super restrictive.
And while I don't enjoy the grind, I like the concept of randomized treasure chest with a chance of rare items.

The difficulty... good god, that game killed me back in the day.
Nowadays, I think this game is easy... but man, some of these bosses really make you concentrate.
How the castle is basically just this big endgame area... don't know, I really like that.

Some say the enemies have too much health to compensate for the combo system... which is a lie.
If would purely attack with only one hand, the gameplay would feel like the other games and enemies would mostly die as fast as in the other games.
Because of the combosystem, you can melt some stuff if you position yourself correctly.

[2seks]

"I will take your shadow."

[Pantoni]

Originally posted by Ancient Toaster:

Level design is total crap and the enemies hit you for half your health every attack.
The fact that you have MP to use attacks is just absolute trash too.

Good thing that the other two games on the collection are amazing.

OoE might be the worst Castlevania game ever made.

Way too dramatic for my taste. I agree on your points to a certain extent, but it's not the worst castlevania by any means.

Level design was mostly meh, I can agree on that (some areas are ridiculously small and/or linear).
The MP system to attack felt bad for me at the begining (years ago), but after playing a bunch of souls (all of them almost), it's just another "stamina bar" to manage. So... now it feels more "natural".
It's harder than other Castlevanias, that's for sure, but manageable.

What surprises me is the lack of complaints about the subquests and/or the random rewards at chests. You need to replay an area over and over so the chest give you the drop. That was a bad idea. I'd rather farm from enemies (you just need to go back and forth between rooms).

Anyway, I was here for PoR and AoS. One because is the best Igavania since SOTN (for me) and the other (AoS) cause is the only one that I didn't finish (played on emulator, I was unable to do the death's seal). But I still like OoE a lot.

Cheers!

[STBiLL]

Originally posted by Marcus:

Git Gud. The game was designed to be difficult

Only clowns give a comment like yours clown awards. I hope my award balances out their scrubiness.
Peace

[Death of Rats]

it's the best of the 3 ds games, but they really did the game a disservice by putting several very linear and boring stages next to each other at the very beginning.

[Bucciarati]

Originally posted by Death of Rats:

it's the best of the 3 ds games, but they really did the game a disservice by putting several very linear and boring stages next to each other at the very beginning.

How can this be the best game if it have very linear and boring stages ?

[Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii]

Originally posted by Ancient Toaster:

Level design is total crap and the enemies hit you for half your health every attack.
The fact that you have MP to use attacks is just absolute trash too.

Good thing that the other two games on the collection are amazing.

OoE might be the worst Castlevania game ever made.

It's a hard game, but ain't no way you just said that. I know you're farming for clowns.

[Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii]

Originally posted by Mixed Herbs:

Am I the only one that liked OoE's level design? I thought it was really cool conceptually, traveling the actual lands surrounding the castle. It was a more linear experience and I get why some people wouldn't like the game but I enjoyed it, different take on the formula. It also is the first time in the Metroidvania's I really felt the need to actually swap between glyphs so I'd argue the balance is the BEST of them. Of course Nitesco kinda throws it out the window but it's pretty much endgame at that point. ♥♥♥♥ Magnes tho.
It was my first time playing the game and I quite liked it.

I am playing through Portrait of Ruin now and man this game is super cool, they really went crazy with the environments and developed the 2 protag mechanic well. My only real gripe so far is the anime art style, why go to that when the series had an incredible artist for previous titles?

Nah, you're not the only one. I liked them too. There's barely any difference between walking around in different areas like in OoE or just exploring the castle like other games. I'll concede that not every map is great, but they work for what they are.

[Dr. Raven]

I'd say this is easily my top choice for metroidvania.

OP complains about corridors but ironically that applies to every metroidvania castlevania title to many degrees. And it's sorta a weird criticism, because the weakest level design is probably Dracula's castle where hallways tend to be broken up with what the OP supposed wants, traditional formula of lots of paths going up and down in between the hallways, but those are standard and boring just like they are in other entries in the franchise. Levels like the swamp are far more interesting than anything you'd see in other castlevania handheld titles.


And then OP complains about bosses only having 3-4 moves making them one note. But that's also a castlevania staple. Only difference is in other games you aren't likely to discover that because they're so easy you can first shot every boss almost always coming in blind and taking every possible hit. Patterns are relatively easy to see, but sometimes hard to dodge, particularly shadow man on hard mode and Dracula's bat swarms.


The difficulty is often just right, especially on hard mode. Where grinding eases things a bit, but a player often feels the pressure to swap their weapons to more type effective ones for the edge given. Only shame is Nitosco breaks the game due to how dual typing works. Same with union attacks/dominus for bosses.

[0wnz0r]

Originally posted by Dr. Raven:

I'd say this is easily my top choice for metroidvania.

OP complains about corridors but ironically that applies to every metroidvania castlevania title to many degrees. And it's sorta a weird criticism, because the weakest level design is probably Dracula's castle where hallways tend to be broken up with what the OP supposed wants, traditional formula of lots of paths going up and down in between the hallways, but those are standard and boring just like they are in other entries in the franchise. Levels like the swamp are far more interesting than anything you'd see in other castlevania handheld titles.


And then OP complains about bosses only having 3-4 moves making them one note. But that's also a castlevania staple. Only difference is in other games you aren't likely to discover that because they're so easy you can first shot every boss almost always coming in blind and taking every possible hit. Patterns are relatively easy to see, but sometimes hard to dodge, particularly shadow man on hard mode and Dracula's bat swarms.


The difficulty is often just right, especially on hard mode. Where grinding eases things a bit, but a player often feels the pressure to swap their weapons to more type effective ones for the edge given. Only shame is Nitosco breaks the game due to how dual typing works. Same with union attacks/dominus for bosses.

OP is absolutely mad cuz bad. its too hard for him so he made up some lame excuses that apply to every igavania.

im goin thru portrait now for the first time n im strugglin to continue. this game feels like corridors to me lol... the more i play the more i wish i was playin harmony of despair instead.