Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Return Of The Whip, 4 Feb 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Last year's Dawn of Sorrow was Castlevania's first entrance into the DS library. It proved to be a hit, both in critical acclaim and sales. It isn't a surprise, therefore, to see Konami releasing the next instalment of its popular Dracula-related series, just in time for the Christmas holidays. Portrait of Ruin isn't exactly related to Dawn of Sorrow, but both share similar core gameplay elements. New features are included this time round as well to keep things fresh. The result is an instantly satisfying title that will go down in the books as another great Castlevania game.
The story of Portrait of Ruin is set in the year 1944, during World War II. In the midst of hellish times, Dracula's castle mysteriously reappears. Two vampire hunters, Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin, join forces to investigate the occurrence. This is as simple as it gets when it comes to the game's premise - it's merely an excuse to get your characters to explore a huge castle again. This is not really a bad thing though, since it's what Castlevania is all about. The interesting thing here is, you will get the chance to control BOTH Jonathan and Charlotte. This is something that is uncommon in the series.
As you may have expected, both characters have different abilities - Jonathan is the powerhouse that deals high melee damages, while Charlotte is more of a magic user. Despite their differences, controlling them isn't difficult. The basic controls are similar to Dawn of Sorrow, but you can choose to control only one character, call forth your partner to fight beside you, and even switch between characters. All these options are accessible at the push of a button, which makes this double-team attribute extremely user-friendly. There's even an option to perform combo attacks, giving this team feature a further edge as compared to previous single-character campaigns. The downside of this arrangement is that both Jonathan and Charlotte share the same HP and MP. If you choose to play with both of them, losing health for Jonathan means losing health for Charlotte as well. Thankfully, when your partner is hit, he or she wouldn't lose health. Instead, your MP decreases. This is definitely a friendlier approach, since MP does recharge itself over time. With these restrictions in mind, however, you may have to decide whether it's worthwhile to play with the partner.
I won't go much into the weapons, skills and items that you will acquire in this game, except that the whip (originating from the very first Castlevania) is back. Most of these are recycled from previous games, and many of them are rewards for killing enemies or getting into obscure corners. Some of these, however, can only be acquired upon completing quests. Quests are new additions to the Castlevania fold, and are basically things you do that may not have major consequences to the story. For example, one of the quests requires you to kill a certain number of a certain enemy, another tasks you to perform a sword skill a few times. Quests are also largely optional, except for one. The rewards for doing them, however, are exclusive contents that cannot be found anywhere else. True to Castlevania fashion, skills acquired (not necessary from quests) can help you venture further into the castle. The Lizard Tail, for example, allows you to slide through lower ceilings. The Acrobat, on the other hand, lets you use your partner's shoulders as a launching pad for jumping onto a previously unreachable ledge. They are extremely useful, therefore, if you intend to cover every inch of the building.
The castle is once again separated by various themes. The themes aren't as colourful as Dawn of Sorrow, and appear more generic than innovative. You have the locations like the Buried Chamber and the Great Stairway - places that sound, and look darker than the playhouses and gardens from the previous game. However, Portrait of Ruin also introduces an "alternate castle" feature. These additional castles can be accessed by entering various portraits (hence the title of the game) found in the main castle. They are, of course, defined by different themes too. Areas within portraits are comparatively more colourful, which provide great contrast between both universes. It would be a giveaway to explain why you can enter portraits though, so I would just leave that aspect for you to explore. You will no longer be contended just by achieving 100% map coverage anymore though - with these new areas, it's possible to cover as much as 1,000% map, which REALLY sounds like great adventuring prospects.
To complement said adventures, Portrait of Ruin excels in both graphical and audio performances. The game plays like your typical 2D side-scroller, but the backgrounds are rendered in 3D, which give the on-screen action more depth than ever. The details are magnificent as usual, and even with an overall darker feel to the game, the colors remain vibrant and pleasing to the eye. Like Dawn of Sorrow, this game also features an upper screen map support, which, despite its superb functionality, isn't adopted by many other games of similar genre. Music wise, let's just say that the opening theme is good enough to give us goosebumps (the good ones). Sound effects also maintain the high standards set from the last game.
It seems that with each instalment of Castlevania, Konami are getting better at the job. Like Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin is a candidate for the game of the year on the DS, and it's hard to see how Konami can further better the series in the next instalment. For now, however, Portrait of Ruin is definitely the game that you should get for the seasons.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best Castlevania title since Symphony of the Night, 30 April 2007
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Although I really enjoyed the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS Castlevania games, I never felt (before this title) that they squared up to Castlevania Symphony of the Night. I think my reservations mainly came down to the fact that the handheld titles before Portrait of Ruin didn't seem to build on the Castlevania gameplay in any meaningful way.
HOWEVER! Portrait of Ruin really does do something new and worthwhile with the series: there are two characters that you can control in turns, with one tagging along helping out and use as a combination to do damaging moves.
I really loved the idea of accessing different castles by travelling through paintings too. That was a very Mario 64ish touch and again sets the title out from the other 2D Castlevania titles which are essentially just one or two castles.
I thoroughly enjoyed the game - it's certainly the most original and interesting of the handheld Castlevania titles, and the superior sound and partially 3D graphics really brought it up a notch from Dawn of Sorrow (the previous Nintendo DS Castlevania game).
A perfect title for Castlevania fans and novices alike.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
2D Heaven does exist, 12 Jul 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Dawn of sorrow on the Ds was mindblowing and had a replay value that surpassed the price of the tiny DS cart. Obviously Portrait of Ruin is Castlevania's second outing on the DS and what a fantastic follow up. I was quite fortunate to get this on Import many months ago..and I still play it now. It is that good.
Following in the Castlevania tradition, apart from the fact that you now control two characters at once. Difficult? Nah, a simple button press brings your partner into play. Typically you have all the usual perks of a map screen that unveils itself the more you explore, myriads of spells, equipment and enemies. Portrait of Ruin's beauty is not only the addictive and simplistic gameplay but it looks great too and you cant help but appreciate Johnnys grace as he stands upright in a posing gesture....wicked stuff.
Buy this game. Any Castle fan out there that hasnt is definetely missing out. Some new players to the series might not find what they are looking for-then again you never know. I really cannot wait for the next game to come along but Portrait of Ruin fills many gaps in my 2D game starved life.
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