RolStoppable said:
Unlike most other Castlevanias, Order of Ecclesia has no unfair boss fights. Sure, they can still kill you with a few hits, but the implementation of medals for beating bosses without getting hit basically forced the developers to make sure that this is a real possibility. This takes a lot of the frustration out. The separation into many different smaller levels and one huge castle led to some disappointing areas, but also more variety than previous games. The new type of combat used in this game actually works and instead of only growing marginally stronger with regular level ups, the weapon and magic types level up over time too. The level cap has also been raised to 250 and levels carry over to a new game plus, so you can become a real killing machine. This was also a welcome change to previous games. The sidequests are mostly good too, so the overall package is excellent. The music is fantastic like you would expect from a Castlevania game. Secret of Mana is a mixed bag in many aspects. Weapon and magic levels can be tedious to grind, only to end up being pretty useless anyway (weapons) or way overpowered (magic). The game also gets progressively easier, because the characters learn to dodge/block enemy attacks. There just isn't much of a balance in this game. At times it's also hard to figure out where to go next and the AI is stupid as hell. But what makes it an enjoyable game is the three player mode. It eliminates the dumb AI and a lack of balance doesn't matter as much anymore, simply because you can play the entire game with other people. There really isn't (or rather wasn't) much else like Secret of Mana and this is what mostly earns it a special place in most gamers' hearts. As a singleplayer game it's just okay, but in multiplayer it begins to shine. If only Japanese developers would try to make something like this again, but all we get nowadays are lame games with character editors that focus on dungeon crawling, like Children of Mana or the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles games. When it comes to modern JRPGs, it's either all about epic singleplayer titles or faceless editor games. There should be something inbetween, something like Secret of Mana. And no, the Tales games don't count, because the camera is horrible for multiplayer fights and only Player 1 plays at all times while the others are damned to watch. |
Nice read! Seems I've got to get my hands on Order of Ecclesia.
I won't comment too much on Secret of Mana just yet because it comes up in my list later but I did do an insame amount of grinding in this game. I loved the stronger versions of each spells that would occur once you passed level 8.
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