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Music Plus – Castlevania: Order of the Ecclesia Soundtrack By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman It was an exciting Tuesday evening. I had just gotten off of work and was making my way to my local Gamestop to pick something up. Normally, it would be just some nondescript game or accessory, but today’s purchase was different. I was picking up Castlevania: Order of the Ecclesia. I walked into the Gamestop and was greeted by the regular staff there. In fact, a few of the staff members at that store are readers here and knew exactly what I had come for. “Castlevania!! Rad, man! We just got them into this afternoon…” the young clerk said with genuine enthusiasm. “I hear this one is sick, man… Sick!” He reaches under the counter and pulls out the preorder bonus that went along with the game confirming that I put the game on reserve. “Actually, I didn’t…” I said in a semi-sheepish tone “I figured I could just get the soundtrack for free off the net.” “That’s cool, it happens, buddy” the clerk said as he slipped the CD into my shopping bag anyway. I was truly surprised and touched. After my stoned synapses registered what had just happened, I yelped a “Wow… Gee, thanks” reminiscent of Scottie Smalls from the Sandlot. The situation evoked a strange Legend of Zelda feeling, where after 23 years I finally understood what “It’s a secret to everybody” meant. I was getting hooked up by a moblin, for no reason whatsoever. This gesture also made me want to take back all the bad things I ever said about Gamestop and EB games. Even that biting comment I made after I found out about them stealing the Zack and Wiki puzzles from their boxes (which really did happen, but I can now see past that). Onto the CD itself, I was told that there are 3 different covers for this particular soundtrack. Apparently, I got the most boring one being just the game’s logo on a black background. Though I’ve heard from various gaming sites that there’s a cover with the female lead and one with Dracula’s current lackey; I have a feeling that those said cases are part of an internet hoax, as I haven’t found a picture of them yet. I’m pretty sure that the CD was not a full soundtrack as it only had 6 tracks on the disc (though it could be, since it is a video game soundtrack after all). I feel at this point I’ve played enough of Order of the Ecclesia to have heard the entire soundtrack less 2 songs (most likely this game’s remix of Dracula’s theme and the end credits song). However, every time I listen to the soundtrack CD I can never seem to place where most of the songs are in the game. Actually, I recognize the first song on the CD very well, since it’s the music that plays in the beginning of the game and whenever you die. It’s solemn yet powerful, very appropriate in telling you that you screwed up and deserved to die. The next song on the disc is a standard level’s background music. It has a nice dark electronica feel, however, it is generic sounding. Often times I confuse this track with the song with harpsichord song on Tetris Party’s Field Climber mode. The next 3 songs on the CD run together near flawlessly, effectively making them a very well produced 10 minutes of music. I can almost call these 3 tracks: the blue, black and yellow Power Rangers. While they’re part of the team, you don’t care about them as much as the others and many times they’re just in the background. However, together they add quite a bit to the game’s soundtrack or current Megazord (whatever the case may be). I assume that these are all boss tracks as they sound like classical music redone by a speed addict. They’re edgy, fast pace and make you feel like you should be wielding a whip while wearing black leather. The final song is a remix of some other song, yet it sounds nothing like any song on the disc or in the game. I imagine this song is in Boss Rush mode or the 2 tracks I spoke of earlier in this article, since I haven’t heard this song anywhere before. This time around I’m not going to give out a quantitative score, since there’s no point to it really. The CD itself was more like a sampler and didn’t reflect all the great music this game had to offer. I mean, I’d have been much happier if they left out a few of those boss fight tracks and put in the music that plays in Wygol Village. That song is amazing; it reminds me of a song I heard in a Final Fantasy game, where it’s almost too well produced to be on a video game soundtrack. I also chose not to rate this soundtrack because of its obscurity. It was a preorder bonus and therefore it’s not accessible to everyone. So why did I even write about this? To tell you my story and share my thoughts of the actual disc with you and to link the site that had the CD for download (well, apparently Konami wasn't too keen on that and made him take that down. That's ok, we'll find another one).
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