Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (A Replay, 18 Years Later)

Is it worth it to play Order of Ecclesia in 2026—the last bastion of excellent (handheld-exclusive) 2D Igavanias? Perhaps that’s a bit of a dumb question: of course it is. I forgot what Ecclesia was all about and decided to replay it as part of the Castlevania: Dominus Collection I reviewed seperately so the screenshots here will be of the Switch version. The only thing I could remember from the last of the three DS ‘Vania games was that it was the most challenging one and that was definitely not misremembered. Not only are many bosses hard skill check stops, most of the regular enemies in the game hit hard as well—and continue to do so even though you gradually collect better gear, glyphs, and stats/character levels. At the end, in the heart of Dracula’s Castle, I was level 39, and still felt like a glass cannon. A few missteps and it was crawling back to a saveroom to lick the wounds. If I managed to get there… Fighting a lizardman out in the open! Where's that castle? There are…