Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DC): Part 1: Lost Memories from a Ruined Ritual

This year of 2026 is the 40th Anniversary of Castlevania! And October has arrived, again! So I have more Castlevania playthroughs to show, and this year I wanted to cover the entire Nintendo DS trilogy, all of which have been released as the main part of the Castlevania Dominus Collection! This will be about the third and final of these three games, the most serious of the three, and has the honor of being the final "IGAvania" of the franchise before Konami changed its direction for home consoles via the Lords of Shadow games. ---------- So here's the start of the story of Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia: Throughout hundreds upon hundreds of years, the Belmont Clan have succeeded in defeating Dracula and his fortress of darkness Castlevania time and time again. However, one time, when the world needed them the most, they had vanished. Fortunately, this was not a complete loss, as their heroic efforts have inspired multiple other clans and organizations to formulate their own methods of defeating Dracula by themselves, should he arise once more. One of these organizations was the Order of Ecclesia, founded by Barlowe. This Order specialized in having its members utilize Glyphs to create weapons and unleash powerful magic from special markings on their bodies. However, there was only one person with enough power to be chosen to wield the Order's ultimate Glyph against Dracula, Dominus... ---------- A young woman named Shanoa... Before she could reach her ritual, she was stopped by her foster brother Albus. Albus resented the fact that Shanoa was chosen to wield the Dominus Glyph over him. He refused to accept that Shanoa was the only one powerful enough to wield it. So as she left to accept her destiny, Albus' rage continued to boil... ---- In the next room, the ritual with Barlowe began. For Shanoa to wield the Dominus, she had to absorb 3 different Glyphs into the markings on her back at the exact same, but before this could complete... ...Albus stormed in an stopped the ritual! In failure, Shanoa lost consciousness... But worse of all, she lost her memories and and all of her Glyph, and thus all of Ecclesia's chances of stopping Dracula... After a brief fight with Barlowe, Albus took the books representing the Dominus and left on his own. It seemed he had his own plans with this power beyond using it against Dracula... Because of this failed ritual, Barlowe had spent several weeks re-training the poor, now-amnesiac and emotionless Shanoa on her fighting capabilities, because she was still Eccelsia's best shot at defeating Dracula... --------- This turns into a Tutorial. Glyphs are the main feature of this game. To absorb them, hold UP, and Shanoa will present her back for the Glyph to be absorbed into, but this takes time to do and you could get interrupted by enemies. From there, she uses the markings on her arms to wield these Glyphs like weapons, and they always use MP. Thankfully, MP regenerates really fast in this game, this time. There are also Glyph Union attacks with are more powerful, but consume limited Hearts instead. ---------- Completing her basic training, Shanoa's ultimate mission involved taking the Dominus back from Albus, bringing Albus back to Ecclesia, and eventually defeating Dracula!