Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin Review (DS)

Two Vampire Hunters are Better than One
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin is the second Castlevania title for the Nintendo DS where two young vampire hunters work together to defeat the dark lord of the castle.

STORY

If you played Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive you'll know some of the characters in Portrait of Ruin (PoR) because this game is somewhat a direct sequel to Bloodlines. The setting takes place in the 1940's, a time where WWII is happening. You play as Jonathan Morris, the son of John Morris. The Morris family are closely related to the Belmonts by blood so they can also use the Vampire Killer whip with a catch. Jonathan is accompanied by a young female witch, Charlotte Aulin. The two of them went to Dracula's Castle to stop the evil that lurks within. In the castle, they will meet the mysterious spirit named Wind and a priest, Vincent Dorin that will aid the two young vampire hunters on their quest.

I think the story of this game is as good as Dawn of Sorrow (DoS) and it's predictable and not at the same time. But let me tell you there are some childish banters in this game.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is on the bottom touchscreen like DoS. The top screen shows your character stats and enemy info. Press [Select] to change the display of the top screen to view the map. The game devs slightly changed the design of the interface to make it look fresh.

PoR is a Metroidvania game like Symphony of the Night (SotN). You explore Dracula's mysteriously small and kinda incomplete castle to find items, weapons and equipment. The castle may be small and have very few monsters in it but you'll find mysterious paintings in the castle, touching it will transport you to the world inside the painting and boy, they worlds in this painting can be trippy especially the circus related ones. The world in the paintings are different, you'll explore a city, a desert, a dark forest and a "circus". There are 8 paintings and one secret painting. The later four paintings have the same theme as the first four but with different map layout.

PoR have a Partner System, if you played Julius Mode in DoS you'll be familiar with its partner switching mechanics. PoR improved this system making it faster and fun. You can freely switch characters and you can summon your partner to fight alongside you in battle (like a familiar, but human). The Partner System also helps you reach some areas and solve puzzles. There are relics in the castle that unlocks more partner/team-up related skills. The tutorial for the Partner System is easy to understand, you get the hang of it quickly. By the way, you can also use the touchscreen to move your partner.

Your partner uses your MP gauge as his/her HP, reducing it to zero either by using a lot of skills, spells or your partner taking damage, will make your partner unable to fight with you. The MP bar can also flash in different colors, that means you can do a Dual Crush, a powerful combination attack of Jonathan and Charlotte.

Jonathan can also use a variety of weapons (swords, whips, fists, etc.), and throwing weapons (cross, knives, holy water etc.) and can learn command moves with the help of Wind, yes like performing special moves in fighting games. Charlotte can only use magic tomes and can learn a lot of spells, spells by the way have casting time. This means that both of them are unique, but Charlotte should have learn more skills, like gliding in midair using her broomstick (as seen when she's double jumping) or use other magic related weaponry like rods and staffs.

This game heavily borrows monster assets from Rondo of Blood and SotN, it also borrows some from DoS. Lots of recycled materials there, but don't get me wrong, there are new monsters and some old  monsters have different sprites... the best example here is the Peeping Eye that have a 3D model.

The bosses are really challenging, you'll definitely need to utilize that Partner System and make your Jonathan and Charlotte do a lot of teamwork. If you haven't played this game yet consider this a spoiler: expect an epic two vs. two battle in this game.

GRAPHICS

The graphics is similar to SotN. The main character sprites, especially Jonathan, have more animation variety while retaining the smooth sprite animation work. The environment is unique and colorful and used 3D backgrounds on some areas/worlds.

Some areas features scattering litter/debris effect, for example: in City of Haze, grocery items will scatter if you step or walk on the shelve platforms in the general market store part of the map, they're just effects not usable items though.

Like DoS, PoR have anime and more cutesy character design and the dialogue portraits now have facial expression.

MUSIC/AUDIO

Michiru Yamane composed the soundrack for PoR. Great music overall but, weaker than the other games in my opinion. The plus side of the soundtrack is that due to many different worlds in this game the soundtrack have more variety and themes.

This game now have English voice actors, you can clearly understand what they're saying when casting spells and doing moves. Too bad the dialogues are not fully voiced, but there are some bits of short voiced dialogue in this game and hearing it in-game is like finding an easter egg.

REPLAY VALUE

PoR, like other Castlevania games, have multiple endings. There are lots of game modes and they also featured the Partner System. Richter Mode is where you control Richter Belmont and Maria Renard and you have access to their Rondo of Blood skills with the additional special moves of Richter in SotN. Sisters Mode have a touchscreen-D pad combo only gameplay where you play as the overpowered (in my opinion) characters, Stella and Loretta.

Completing the game also unlocks Hard Mode. If you have a friend with a DS and a copy of PoR, you can have your friend play as your partner in this game.

CLOSING REMARKS

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin uses an improved and face paced Partner System making it unique to the rest of Castlevania games. The game really emphasizes on the Partner System and it effectively works. This game have more bonus modes than DoS because of the number of playable characters (six characters). The co-op mode provides better and fun teamwork and occasional frustration depending on who are you playing with. And going to 100% completion will reward more items that you can use in new game +. This is a pretty good Castlevania title, with good and kinda childish story but still keeps that haunting feeling while playing this game.