Got a DS recently, and am thinking about getting one of the Castlevania games for it (for, among other things, enjoy its TAS more.) So which one would be the best, as a game?
It seems that there are three possible choices:
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
- Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
IMO don't get Dawn of Sorrow; it's horrifically grindy. Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia are both solid games. OoE is more challenging generally (that is, its Normal mode is harder than PoR's Normal mode; both can be made balls-hard by postgame options), and it's mostly broken up into a series of largely-linear "levels" instead of being one big world. Of the two I think PoR is probably more accessible, but they're both good.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Order of Ecclesia is by far the best one of those three. Portrait of Ruin is somewhat disappointing (but not a bad game). Dawn of Sorrow is in the middle.
Det man inte har i begåvning får man ta ut i energi.
"I think I need to get to Snoop Dogg's level of high to be able to research this post." -Samsara
Read my fanfic, One Piece: Pure Corruption
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
Personally, I would recommend either Dawn of Sorrow or Portrait of Ruin.
I personally liked Portrait of Ruin's gameplay and content more, but it depends on what you think about the tag-team gameplay and the lower difficulty. If you don't feel positive about those aspects, go with Dawn of Sorrow.
I personally wouldn't really recommend Order of Ecclesia, because it's just horribly padded out and repetitive. Also, the difficulty is notched up significantly, particularly for those who haven't played the other games before it.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Interesting. See, those are words I'd use to describe Portrait of Ruin (hello, second half of the game being the first half of the game with different colours).
Det man inte har i begåvning får man ta ut i energi.
"I think I need to get to Snoop Dogg's level of high to be able to research this post." -Samsara
Read my fanfic, One Piece: Pure Corruption
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
KennyMan666 wrote:
Mothrayas wrote:
horribly padded out and repetitive
Interesting. See, those are words I'd use to describe Portrait of Ruin (hello, second half of the game being the first half of the game with different colours).
At least the second set of portraits in PoR actually had variety in enemies and level design.
OoE's first half consists of linear cut-and-paste maps, and most tilesets are also reused once or twice to make more linear cut-and-paste maps. And then in Dracula's Castle, you just get long, repeated corridors which look identical and are continuously filled with the same enemies over and over again. (I can't count the amount of sequences in the dungeon level which consisted of "go down stairs, slay Nova Skeleton/squid enemy while trying not to get hit, rinse and repeat". Must've been at least a dozen. Also in the Library, I can't count the rooms which look just the same as two rooms back, with more Draculina's and Tin Men thrown in. The repetitivity of it all was just getting painful.)
Of course, it depends on how you experience the game. You may have experienced it differently from how I have.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Portrait's... portraits weren't very exciting in general. They were short and linear, and didn't have a ton to explore (I recall getting like 95% map exploration in most of them from just going through them normally). The actual castle part was pretty lackluster too. I saw what they were trying to do with the stages in the portraits, it just didn't work all that well - but what Order of Ecclesia did, with the stages on the map, was a far far far better way of doing separate stages in a Metroidvania. It felt like there was more to explore, more things to find. And once you unlocked the castle proper, it became even more fantastic. So the first part of the game had the feel of a classic Castlevania game with Metroidvania elements, and then the second part of the game is an entirely new, large area for you to go full blown Metroidvania explore the shit out of it in. Yes, the first part of the game had some reused terrains, but there was, if I recall, six or seven different environments, I can't recall any that was used more than twice, and the castle consisted entirely of new areas.
So that's in contrast to Portrait just rehashing the first four areas to make the second four and calling it a day. Not to mention the fact that Ecclesia was the first game in the series since Circle having some actual challenge to it (even if Eligor's a massive jerk).
Det man inte har i begåvning får man ta ut i energi.
"I think I need to get to Snoop Dogg's level of high to be able to research this post." -Samsara
Read my fanfic, One Piece: Pure Corruption
Now what did you expect? Ask three people, get four opinions.
You could of course ask something like metacritic for thousands of opinions, if that helps (spoiler: DoS wins).
I've played all three (on emu) and enjoyed them all for their respective strengths. Why don't you just start with the one you can get the cheapest (bargain bin, maybe used) and pick up the other two later?
They all have their strengths and weaknesses.
DOS - Strengths: Solid gameplay Weakness: Stupid touch screen usage. Predictable plot (if you played Aria). Very grindy.
POR - Strengths: Multitude of modes, each with their own style. Two character in each mode (except 1 bonus mode) make for some fast paced action. Weakness: The 2nd set of 4 portraits are simply rearrangements of the first 4.
OOE - Strengths: Challenging. Interesting plot twists. Boss fights that go beyond "whack until dead". Weaknesses: Some may find the challenge cheap. Some may hate the level structures. What's needed to advance the plot beyond the bad ending can be considered by some stupid.
My verdict? Get them all. If you can only get one? Depends on what else you have. Dawn is a great compliment to Aria, Portrait if you have Bloodlines. OOE doesn't really have a compliment, since while part of the timeline it doesn't directly connect to any other title like Dawn and Portrait do. Though if you do have Judgment for the Wii, those games have cross unlocks.
I find all of them to be equally enjoyable - Get OoE if you can get along with the steeper difficulty curve. Unfortunately, all of them are very grindy.
I find all of them to be equally enjoyable - Get OoE if you can get along with the steeper difficulty curve. Unfortunately, all of them are very grindy.
Different kinds of grinds, though. Dawn of Sorrow has grinding for random drops (i.e. souls), which are far too rare, and it has an asinine system that converts souls to weapons. So if you want good weapons then you have to grind for souls and then use those souls up so you don't have them any more. Portrait of Ruin has grinding for subweapon mastery, which is just playing normally while making certain to tag each enemy you kill with your subweapon at least once. But you aren't forced to grind for them except if you want to 100% the game (since a few "sidequests" involve mastering subweapons). If you do want to 100% it though then you're in for a lot of enemy killing, since several subweapons take far too long to master.
Order of Ecclesia didn't have that much grinding that I noticed. There's the occasional glyph drop from enemies, but mostly there's enough enemies, and the drops are common enough, that you can get it without grinding. On the flipside, the game is hard enough that you may find yourself wanting to grind out levels (and/or cash for healing items). Personally I didn't do either and had a hell of a time beating certain bosses. Then I got to the final boss, said "screw it", and ate about 50000 calories worth of food (i.e. all the healing items I'd stocked up and never used) for healing rather than go to the trouble to master the fight.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I find all of them to be equally enjoyable - Get OoE if you can get along with the steeper difficulty curve. Unfortunately, all of them are very grindy.
Different kinds of grinds, though. Dawn of Sorrow has grinding for random drops (i.e. souls), which are far too rare, and it has an asinine system that converts souls to weapons. So if you want good weapons then you have to grind for souls and then use those souls up so you don't have them any more. Portrait of Ruin has grinding for subweapon mastery, which is just playing normally while making certain to tag each enemy you kill with your subweapon at least once. But you aren't forced to grind for them except if you want to 100% the game (since a few "sidequests" involve mastering subweapons). If you do want to 100% it though then you're in for a lot of enemy killing, since several subweapons take far too long to master.
Order of Ecclesia didn't have that much grinding that I noticed. There's the occasional glyph drop from enemies, but mostly there's enough enemies, and the drops are common enough, that you can get it without grinding. On the flipside, the game is hard enough that you may find yourself wanting to grind out levels (and/or cash for healing items). Personally I didn't do either and had a hell of a time beating certain bosses. Then I got to the final boss, said "screw it", and ate about 50000 calories worth of food (i.e. all the healing items I'd stocked up and never used) for healing rather than go to the trouble to master the fight.
That's the problem I find with those games in general. Rather than having the player get 'the occasional lucky drop', it feels more like you're being punished for not grinding. This is especially true with Dawn's weapon fusion system, but completing the questlines in Portrait and OoE can be fairly grindy as well. Bonus points if you are a completionist who likes to fill out the game's bestiary (i.e. get every possible enemy drop at least once).
On a side note, it does feel like the drop rates are higher on items (or souls) that you have already acquired once, however.
Anyhow, Warp, don't let that discourage you from playing one of these games, they are great fun and very engaging. The question is just whether you can live with some grinding to get the best gear or 100% the game..
I want to get all of them but it's pretty hard to find the spanish version of Dawn of Sorrow.
If you can afford only one, I suggest Order of Ecclesia because it has the best music (of the DS games, that's it) and is more open-ended than the others. I also like the glyph mechanic. Its biggest downside is that certain glyph combos are horribly broken and make the game way too easy.
EDIT: The grinding in Order of Ecclesia is only noticeable if you want to level 3 certain glyphs that create familiars, want to get all monster drops without the proper equipment, and if you want to maximize certain rings that become more powerful the more money you have/enemies you have killed/hours you have played the game.
I only have two words about Order of Ecclesia grinding: merman meat
Det man inte har i begåvning får man ta ut i energi.
"I think I need to get to Snoop Dogg's level of high to be able to research this post." -Samsara
Read my fanfic, One Piece: Pure Corruption
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4090
Location: The Netherlands
KennyMan666 wrote:
I only have two words about Order of Ecclesia grinding: merman meat
Oh god.
Fun fact for those who don't know: there are two different enemies in the game named "Merman". Neither of them drop it. It's actually an extremely rare drop by another enemy entirely, which, besides being underwater, has nothing to do with Mermen.
Many, many hours of grinding I have spent, until I finally managed to get it.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
I might have to delay acquiring any of the games to the future. I thought that they would be ultracheap and readily available, but seems that I was sadly mistaken.
My two regular sources for games are play.com and cdon.fi.
- Dawn of Sorrow is 29€ at play.com, not available at cdon.fi.
- Portrait of Ruin, used, is 30€ at play.com, not available at cdon.fi.
- Order of Ecclesia is not available at play.com. 49€ at cdon.fi, not on stock at the moment.
Ok, 30€ isn't all that much, but still...
For what it's worth, I'm ignoring "optional" grinding needed for 100%ing games. In Dawn of Sorrow, much of the interest from the gameplay comes from a) finding interesting souls, and b) trying out new weapons. Both of those are made painfully aggravating by the ridiculously low soul drop rates. 100%ing the game would mean killing every single enemy in the game several dozen times at least; you get practically no souls "naturally" through gameplay (except boss souls of course).
In Portrait of Ruin, much of the interest comes from trying out new subweapons and spells, neither of which requires any random drops; at worst you may have to grind for money but that's pretty easy to do. There's some interesting rare weapon drops but it's not a huge problem if you don't get them. Order of Ecclesia is similar to Portrait of Ruin: you get lots of glyphs (i.e. weapons) from guaranteed sources, and the ones that do randomly drop are fairly common.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Dawn of Sorrow - Just a ridiculous game. Pretty much everything is awful... from the plot to the artwork.
Portrait of Ruin - Nice game. Everything is OK. Not much else to say.
Order of Ecclesia - Awesome graphics and artwork. BUT bosses have absurd amounts of HP and the heroine is crippled by being able to use only magic weapons. Be prepared for long and repetitive boss battles with pauses to refill the MP bar.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
These are just my opinions so read others' posts too for their opinions
Dawn of Sorrow
Difficulty: 3/5
Musics: 8/10
Art: 7.5/10
Story: 7/10
Special mechanics: Magic Seals. Ability to collect souls of monsters and use them as weapons
Stylus usage: Drawing Magic Seals
DoS is good for beginner as it is the easiest castlevania on DS.
Portrait of Ruin
Difficulty: 4/5
Musics: 8/10
Art: 8/10
Story: 8.5/10
Special mechanics: Two main characters that can be swithced between and either hide or "summon" the other one (AI controlled)
Stylus usage: Have a small control over the movements of AI controlled partner (not necessary for completing the game). Attacking in 'Sisters mode'
PoR is harder than DoS but easier than OoE. Level upping is quiet slow because of the low XP yield. It is somewhat important to learn to dodge the boss' attacks. From the two characters the other has higher Attack and Defense, while the other one has higher Inteligence, Constitution and Mind.
Order of Ecclesia
Difficulty: 4.5/5
Musics: 9/10
Art: 8/10
Story: 8.5/10
Special mechanics: Glyph system. All attacks consume MP but it's recorvering fast when you stop attacking.
Stylus usage: Teleporting ('Albus mode' only)
OoE is good if you want some challenge. Bosses are strong and has a lot of HP. It is very important to learn to dodge the boss' attacks because of the slow level upping, unless you want to spend a lot of time in grinding enemies. Playing on a low level is quiet fun when you have intense fight with a boss that you barely survive :)
Order of Ecclesia has a nice gothic artwork and it fits the story. Some difference to the Manga/Anime style of DoS and PoR (not saying I don't like thet style).
IMO Order of Ecclesia is the best one
All Castlevania games are known to be a cut above other games in difficulty (ignoring Lords of Shadow here). This is true of all the 2D Castlevanias on DS. You won't last long if you don't learn to dodge, especially bosses since they deal massive damage and potions are very expensive.
That said, I like Dawn of Sorrow. Portrait of Ruin is okay and Order of Ecclesia is meh. But hey, it all boils down to what your preferences are. Order of Ecclesia is mostly linear levels and level re-usage until you get to the Castle. But the castle feels small, not varied and boring compared to Dawn of Sorrow. Portrait of Ruin also cuts down on the castle for other worlds, which are re-used later in the game.
