Konami registers “Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia” with US Patent Office

Here’s an interesting little tidbit which slipped under the radar last week.

Apparently Konami patented Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia at the US Patent Office, according to The Magic Box. Couple this with current Castlevania chief Koji Igarashi’s words several months ago, that the next DS entry of the series would be announced a few months after the release of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles on the PSP, and it sounds like the first info is cropping up about the next game of the series.

But that isn’t all. This discovery may indeed tie it to screenshots (pictured above and can be viewed in larger form here) that were leaked to 2chan a while ago. These could, of course, be fakes, particularly because they point to a female main character, which Igarashi has gone to great lengths to stomp out of the series, going so far as to remove Castlevania: Legends from the series canon.

However, that woman hasn’t carried a whip thus far, and looks more poised to be the cliché magic user than a fully-armed warrior. Also, the screens essentially look like every other 2D Castlevania developed in the past decade, except with a new hero sprite and character portraits. In any other game, this would be irrefutable proof that they’re fakes, but really it’s just Igarashi’s modus operandi. I’m calling it right here. Oh, and it also helps that the character portraits are congruent with Igarashi’s statements in the above-mentioned interview that he wanted to get away from the anime-style character design of the past few games

One thing, though: I do dig the more Valkyrie Profile-ish character design.

Read [The Magic Box] Also Read [DS Fanboy] Also Read [Destructoid]