Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

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Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is what happens after harsh criticism for the lack of challenge in the recent "Metroidvania" entries, the switch to an anime-like graphical style, and a serious lack of female protagonists in the franchise as a whole. They sure tried their best.

To do: In European version, the filler text of extra Glyphs might have different variations according to chosen game language (Agartha's description will display "French" if system language turns to French in European version, etc). Document as much European text dump as possible.

Leftover Portrait Debugging Dialog Text#

As in Portrait of Ruin, the portrait debugging dialog text also exists in the game. This time, it's located in the last section of the ROM.

{NAME 0x0000}{PORTRAIT 0x0000}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0000}{PORTRAIT 0x0002}苦悩
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0000}{PORTRAIT 0x0001}真剣
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0000}{PORTRAIT 0x0003}叫び
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0000}{PORTRAIT 0x0004}微笑
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0001}{PORTRAIT 0x0005}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0001}{PORTRAIT 0x0007}怒り
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0001}{PORTRAIT 0x0006}焦燥
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0001}{PORTRAIT 0x0008}発狂
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0001}{PORTRAIT 0x0009}幽体
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0002}{PORTRAIT 0x000A}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0002}{PORTRAIT 0x000B}真剣
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0002}{PORTRAIT 0x000C}陶酔
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0003}{PORTRAIT 0x000D}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0004}{PORTRAIT 0x000E}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0005}{PORTRAIT 0x000F}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0006}{PORTRAIT 0x0010}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0007}{PORTRAIT 0x0011}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0008}{PORTRAIT 0x0012}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0009}{PORTRAIT 0x0013}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x000A}{PORTRAIT 0x0014}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x000B}{PORTRAIT 0x0015}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x000C}{PORTRAIT 0x0016}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x000D}{PORTRAIT 0x0017}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x000E}{PORTRAIT 0x0018}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x000F}{PORTRAIT 0x0019}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0010}{PORTRAIT 0x001A}通常
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}{NAME 0x0010}{PORTRAIT 0x001B}苦痛
{WAITINPUT}{NEWCHAR}

The description was removed in the English (US) ROM, but the test routine still exists.

Unobtainable Glyph Coding#

There are four unobtainable Glyph skills that belong to the X/Y-button Glyph section. They have no descriptions, but they're actually the skills exclusive to the Arma Chiroptera and Arma Felix morphs. These Glyphs temporarily overwrite Shanoa's own in gameplay while she is transformed, without replacing the ones the player has equipped. With cheats, they can be placed into the Glyph inventory.

In the Japanese version, they have names: "Cat Tackle", "Cat Tail", "Bat Flying" and "Bat Kick". No descriptions exist.

Cat Tackle functions properly, just like its morph counterpart. This is the only glyph of these four that uses a hardcoded effect, which is why it has no visual oddities.

Cat Tail is glitched; Shanoa will crouch for a while, and its slash effect only shows when tapping the attack button repeatedly while it's being used. This is due to the animation slots being different.

Bat Flying works properly, but starts with an odd floating animation. This is also due to differing animation IDs.

Bat Kick works properly, but Shanoa will crouch for a while. This is the last case of differing animation IDs causing issues.

Japanese	English

Albus's trusted gun Agartha also has a Glyph entry, but it was left unobtainable in the final version. It belongs to the R-button Glyph section. The Japanese version has a description: "Normal bullet. When PL, use your hand to hold Y". The description is blanked out in the US version.

Agartha is somewhat glitchy, without posing motion, and it's missing the auto-fire ability when equipped by Shanoa. This is because in Albus mode, Albus's R-Button Glyph and Y-Button Glyphs are swapped at run time, allowing for the Torpor Glyph to be used with the R-Button, and Agartha's "glyph" via the Y-Button. If the code for Agartha is modified in the Arm9 to be any standard projectile Glyph, Albus is capable of firing those natively. Weapon Glyphs like a Hasta or Arcus will cause animation glitches.

To access the unobtainable Glyph entries, use the Action Replay code shown below:

Use the code and press SELECT in-game to access all Glyph skills, including the unobtainable ones.

Max UP Item Coding in Menu#

Hp Max Up	Mp Max Up	Heart Max Up

Similar to Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, the Max Up items also have "use-item" versions coded in the menu that go unused. Unlike in Portrait of Ruin, they're even listed in the "guide", the game's item bestiary.

To access the unused Max Up item entries, use the Action Replay code shown below:

Use the code and press SELECT in-game to access all use-items, including the Max Ups.

Glyph Union Coding#

All Glyph Union moves have unused Japanese descriptions; it's possible that at one point in the game's development, you could check your Glyph Union set in your bestiary along with your X/Y/R button normal Glyphs, but since it wasn't really necessary and adding the pointers to set Glyph Unions to "collected" would spend lots of ROM space, it was eventually scrapped in the final game. Note that Albus's Optical Shot belongs to the Glyph Union slot in the game's memory. (The Glyph Union descriptions were listed in the Japanese official guide.）

No English text exists in the corresponding slots of the English ROM; the localizers might have thought they were placeholders and deleted all of them.

Unused Text#

Vampire Killer Weapon Text String#

A text string for a weapon slot... or a leftover of something. Its initial/original purpose is unknown; the most likely scenario is that the developers could've forgotten to fully remove the Vampire Killer's coding in the game, or left the bare-bones coding in on purpose.

Curiously, it's still possible to place the Vampire Killer in a treasure chest. Since Shanoa does not use weapons, it will be impossible to find in the player's inventory. It uses the icon of the Mercury Shoes with an improper palette. This can only be done with Rom Editing Tools.

Menu Text#

You have no glyphs.

Presumably meant to be used if the player attempts to equip Glyphs or view the Glyph guide, however, the game doesn't stop you from entering either menu without Glyphs, rendering this unused.

You cannot view this yet.

Presumably intended for if the player attempts to view a guide with no data recorded. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin prevents the player from opening empty guides, however this game does not.

Other#

ＥＡＳＹ

Presumably meant for an Easy Mode option to go with the used Normal and Hard modes. This string also exists in the English (US) ROM.

ＧＡＮＴＬＥＴ　＆
ＳＴＯＫＩＮＧ　ＣＯＬＯＲ

Lines for (presumably) a mode to edit the color of your character's gauntlet or stockings, which isn't present in the final game. The reason why it was scrapped is currently unknown. No English text exists in the corresponding slots of the English (US) ROM.

Unused Objects#

An unused golden brick object with spikes on its right side. Its hitbox properties remain intact. This object can deal damage to enemies, but its default attack power against enemies is hardcoded to be 1-3 damage per hit, which is unusual. Enemies defeated by this object only count as enemy kills, which won't give any sort of skill point increase.

Unused Graphics#

A mysterious "LETTER" option is stored along with other sprites for the pause menu sections. It's marked by two question marks, implying that it was removed at some point during game development. The intended function of this option is unknown. No visible remnants of graphic/text data exist that can prove the usage of this function.

Among the tiles for the Arma Machina ability are two other Automatons that Shanoa would have been able to transform into. Only the orange one is used in the game. The taller of the unused ones is incomplete, lacking proper shading on her waist, legs, and guns.

Above is a mockup of what the unused Automatons would have looked like, alongside the used form and Shanoa for comparative purposes.

As Shanoa uses the same tileset as the Ladycat and Black Panther while she is in Arma Felix form, the above animation of her turning back into a human upon death are unused. Notably, the otherwise brunette Shanoa turns into a blonde in this animation, a carryover from the Black Panther's death animation.

Unused Color Palette#

Albus's sprite data contains a golden color palette likely meant for Agartha, his magical gun. It goes unused in-game because the gun uses the same palette as his body instead.

Unused Portrait#

An unused portrait of Shanoa lurks within the files that is clearly incomplete. It reuses the palette used by Shanoa's normal portraits. Included is an in-game screenshot. Curiously, no concept art of this portrait was present in the Castlevania: Dominus Collection.

Symphony of the Night Leftovers#

Graphics of Schmoo from Symphony of the Night are contained in Scarecrow's graphic set (p_scare.dat folder), but it never appears in-game.

Dhuron's old power-up move. It still has its hitbox intact.

Bomb Knight's bomb weapon is included in Rock Knight's graphic set (p_bomb_am.dat folder). It still has its palette intact.

Dawn of Sorrow/Portrait of Ruin Leftovers#

Leftover Text#

The same exact copy of Dawn of Sorrow's Area/Music name text chunks, as seen in Portrait of Ruin. This time, they removed it from the English ROM. "ＢＥＧＩＮＮＩＮＧ" (the leftover track "The Beginning" from Dawn of Sorrow; not available in Sound Mode) and "装具の話" ("Equipment's Tale" from Dawn of Sorrow, re-arranged and renamed to "Enterprising Mercantilism"; available in Sound Mode) are in the game ROM, and the rest are not used.

Leftover Graphics#

For some reason, a portion of Jonathan's leg from Portrait of Ruin is left over within Shanoa's graphics.

The maid statue located in Nation of Fools in Portrait of Ruin, stored along with the Cross in Oblivion Ridge (which is borrowed directly from Portrait of Ruin).

The alternate version after completing the mission The Statue's Tear in that game.

Among the graphics for the three levels of the Ascia Glyph, a redrawn version of Dawn of Sorrow's Level 2 Axe Armor bullet soul graphics is hidden.

The slash effects of Double Axe Armor remain in the graphics file for regular Axe Armor. Additionally, palettes for all three versions of Portrait of Ruin's Axe Armor variant remain in the palette data.

If the Var B value is set to 2 or 3, Axe Armor's red palette from the undead variant in Portrait of Ruin will be loaded (but without the undead status, unlike in Portrait of Ruin).

Fleaman's Ripper variant. Ripper doesn't appear in this game.

The files from sc/f_rire00.dat to sc/f_rire38.dat are the exact same enemy list card graphics from Portrait of Ruin!

/sc2/f_uy00.dat, /sc2/f_uy01.dat

Jonathan's sub-weapons from Portrait of Ruin.

/sc2/f_ub01.dat, /sc2/f_ub03.dat, /sc2/f_ub13.dat, /sc2/f_ub14.dat

Julius's sub-weapons from Dawn of Sorrow. All levels of the Axe sub-weapon graphics were actually re-designed for graphics that are used in-game, though the used variant of the Ascia glyph never morphs into anything similar to the Level 2 Axe Armor Bullet Soul from Dawn of Sorrow.

/sc/f_fens.dat

An unused blockade from Dawn of Sorrow, redrawn in Portrait of Ruin's style.

Leftover Music#

Beginning

There is an unused track that is not available in the Sound Test, titled "BGM Arrange", which is a leftover copy of the "Beginning" track from Dawn of Sorrow. It's likely that this track was included by accident, as the tile set of Wygol Village is actually modified from Dawn of Sorrow's Lost Village and lots of leftover tiles from it weren't cleaned up.

Leftover Animations#

Richter's slide jump kick from Portrait of Ruin and the effect for Richter smashing against the ceiling during a super jump remain in the game data as an animation property, but can only be restored through ROM editing tools.

Unused Sounds and Music#

To do: Verify that all the voice clips are actually unused, and whether there are any others left to document. Note that Playable Albus says his lines somewhat differently than Boss Albus, and some lines that only the latter uses were also recorded for the former.

"Gate To The Underworld" and "Game Over" (from the original Castlevania) are present in the Sound Test, but not actually used in-game.

Gate to the Underworld Gate To The Underworld's internal name is "Cerub", which may imply that it was going to be used in the Cerberus statue room in the Forsaken Cloister area. However, the Forsaken Cloister area doesn't have an alternate value to store two tracks, since it only has one overlay. It could have also been used for the long stairway before Dracula in the Final Approach area; the Final Approach area has a second overlay used for the long stair, but in the final game both parts use the same track ("The Colossus"). In Portrait of Ruin, the long stairway before Dracula is also stored as a separate overlay value for Master's Keep, and it uses a different track than the main area.

Game Over NES The Game Over fanfare of the very first Castlevania game. Possibly meant to be accompanied by other NES-era music tracks? In the final game, if the player's HP reaches zero while any of the NES soundtrack discs are playing, the regular Game Over music is used.

The game also contains an unusually large number of unused voice clips, all of which were dubbed into English and can be played in the Sound Test. It's worth noting that in some of these clips, Albus calls Agharta by its Japanese name, "Agate".

• Shanoa:
  • 058 - "I've caught you!" (said differently than the used version)
  • 060 - "You won't get away."
  • 063 - "Now is the time of your demise." (performed differently to the version used when Dominus Union is triggered)
  • 067 - "I am sorry... Albus."
  • 068 - "With this... it will be over."
  • 075 - "I'll chop you to pieces! I'm not done yet, not yet! Not yet!"
  • 076 - "I'll chop you to pieces... I'm not done yet, not yet! Not yet!"
  • 078 - "Albus!"
  • 079 - "I see."
  • 080 - "Yes sir."
  • 081 - "Mission accomplished."
  • 082 - "It is over."
• Albus:
  • 099 - "It's no use!"
  • 100 - "Give it up!"
  • 103 - "Just as I expected."
  • 104 - "My theory was not wrong."
  • 105 - "Taking aim..."
  • 106 - "It's over!"
  • 107 - "You won't escape!"
  • 108 - "Locking on!"
  • 109 - "Breathe fire Agate!"
  • 110 - "Roar, Agate!"
  • 111 - "Keep quiet...!"
  • 112 - "Keep it quiet!"
  • 113 - "Glyph Bullet!"
  • 114 - "Stinger Shot!"
  • 115 - "Vertical Shot!"
  • 116 - "Blast Cannon!"
  • 119 - "Lethal Shot!"
  • 130 - "Stinger Shot!"
  • 132 - "Blast Cannon!"
  • 133 - "Optical Shot!"
  • 135 - "Like you can hit me!"
  • 136 - "Useless!"
  • 138 - "Die!"
  • 139 - "This is the end!"
  • 141 - "Die, Shanoa!"
  • 142 - "Pow!"
  • 143 - "Bang!"
  • 144-145 - *laughing*
  • 147 - *laughing*
  • 148 - "Huh... Shanoa?!"
  • 149 - "How do you like that, you puny human?"
• Barlowe:
  • 159 - "Sanctio!"
  • 173 - "Give it to me."
  • 174 - "Give it to me!"
  • 175 - "GIVE IT TO MEEEE!"
• Death:
  • 189 - "You shall not pass!"
  • 190 - "I will not allow you to go any further!"
  • 192 - "Thy time to die... IS NOW!"
  • 210 - "Game over. Mwahahahahaha!"
• Dracula:
  • 219 - "You're good."
  • 225 - "Soul Blast!"
  • 226 - "Life Steal!"
  • 227 - "Dark Metamorphosis!"
  • 232 - "Giga Demonic Megiddo!"
  • 235 - "Hm?"
  • 238 - "Silly woman..."
  • 242 - "This is stupid!"
  • 246 - "You seem to be quite good woman, but the time for games is over."
  • 248 - "You make me laugh!"
  • 255 - "Surely, you did not come here to invite me to dance?"
  • 256 - "Silly woman!"
  • 258 - "Come at me."
• Laura the Jeweler (?):
  • 277 - "Albus? That man is awful, but I like the way he looks."
  • 278 - "Oh my! It seems-"
  • 279 - "It's a lucky day for you today."
  • 280 - "It's an ordinary day for you today."
  • 281 - "You better not go outside today - how ominous."
  • 282 - "That is what the Tarot cards say."

Regional Differences#

Title Screen#

Japan	International