DS Review: Castlevania Portrait of Ruin

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin is the second Castlevania game to grace the DS, following closely on the heels of the critically lauded Dawn of Sorrow. Portrait maintains some of the same characteristics that made Dawn so enjoyable, namely the lush 2d graphics, metroid-vania style world map, and light RPG character building.  However, Portrait takes the series in a new direction on the DS by ditching some of the more frustrating aspects of the first outing, notably the reliance on touch input to vanquish bosses.  Continue reading to find out what we thought about these changes, and why we think PoR is a worthwhile purchase for any fan of sidescrollers on the DS.

Portrait of Ruin is set during the Second World War, when a surplus of dead souls has given a mysterious vampire the power to control Dracula’s Castle through a series of living paintings that adorn the castle walls. Players must locate and defeat bosses hiding in each of the paintings in order to progress through the story and ultimately return the artistic vampire to the depths of hell. Skilled players will be able to complete the story in less than 10 hours, while newcomers might take slightly longer with the game.

Portrait introduces two new playable characters to the series, Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin.  Jonathan has a distant familial connetction to the Belmont family which makes him a potential threat with his whip, the “Vampire Killer”.  Jonathan can also wield a wide array of other blade and staff weapons throughout the game, which he can find scattered throughout the levels and on the bodies of defeated enemies. Charlotte does not use standard weapons, but rather attacks enemies at short range by evoking magical attacks from spellbooks, and at longer range using projectile spells.   

The team dynamic in Portrait goes beyond the obvious tactical advantage of using certain types of attacks in specific situations.  Often, environmental puzzles in the level demand that players switch between characters in order to overcome obstacles.  These puzzles sometimes feel like an afterthought, but are occasionally well-done. Perhaps the most inspired use of the team mechaninc comes when players must alternate between the two characters to guide a pair of motorcycles through Dracula’s castle (a major WTF moment).  Special attacks can also be pulled off using both characters as a tag team.  These powerful attacks are fun to use and effective against a wide variety of enemies and bosses.

Level design in Dawn of Sorrow was lauded as one of its best features.  In this installment, players will still encounter beautifully drawn landscapes and enemy sprites, which are uniformly colorful and well-animated.  However, even though the levels are beautifully drawn, the designers seem to have cut some corners when it came to laying out the stages.  The labrynthine levels, particularly in the paintings, often feel like a lesson in tedium, as pathways weave back and forth without any logical reason. Thankfully, teleporters are provided to ease the amount of backtracking and make navigation through the stages more convenient.  Dracula’s castle is still a pleasure to explore, and contains many nice touches like the familiar clock tower, drawbridge and windmill.

Castlevania games are famous for their light RPG elements, and Portrait of Ruin follows in this tradition more or less successfully. Players will gain experience points for defeating progressively stronger enemies.  With each new level attained, characters level up attributes like strength, defense, luck and attack.  Items and articles of clothing scattered around the game also provide incremental increases to each of these categories.  Players who enjoy collecting stuff for their characters will get a kick out of seeing what exciting new items are dropped by specific monsters, however I found that the improvement offered by new items was often so minimal that it lessened the thrill of collecting.  Nevertheless, returning to early parts of the castle with a level-40 character and dispensing a can of whoop-ass on enemies does provide a perverse kind of satisfaction.

Things we liked:

• Wiping out waves of creatively drawn enemies with a variety of weapons
• Fun boss battles
• Easter-egg hunting for every last object and piece of armor in the game

Things we didn’t like:

• Often linear puzzles
• So many items with no apparent effect on character status

Score: 8.5/10