Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin DS review

The Castlevania series should, by and large, be held up as a shiny example to other creators of how to keep reinventing a series for die-hard fans, while at the same time making sure that newcomers are well catered for. I’ve dipped in and out of the series (avoiding the 3D ones on advice from reliable others), and have always found it an entertaining mix of the immediately familiar and the enticingly new.

That Old Familiar Feeling

Castlevania has always been about exploring a stonkingly big castle room by room, battling re-spawning creatures culled from every part of the horror and mythological genres, and occasionally going up against screen-filling bosses. There are always lots of things to collect, puzzles to solve, some RPG style levelling up, and usually a measure of hit-and-miss humour. The lead character has a mystical whip called the Vampire Killer, is normally part of the unfortunate Belmont family, and is out to stop Dracula (or someone out to resurrect Dracula, but it amounts to the same thing).

Portrait of Ruin has you playing two characters, warrior Jonathan Morris and mage-type Charlotte Aulin, between whom you switch at will. You’re up against a vampire called Brauner (*snigger*) and his two daughters, flat-chested Emo-mage Loretta and frilly Goth Stella, the buxom battler. That should keep the Cosplayers and those who letch after them happy for decades.

Brush With Death

Brauner is an artist, and he has bound up the power of Castle Dracula in a series of portraits dotted about the building. Each leads to a mini-world, mostly with its own theme and unique bad guys and items. I say ‘mostly’ because one of the environments is largely (and irritatingly) repeated in two separate worlds. Anyway, each world boss needs to be beaten, along with various castle bosses, to access new abilities and the next portrait.

There is a fairly intricate plot that will either engage you or leave you completely cold. I found it fun, despite some clunky dialogue. There’s sufficient reference to the series’ past to keep the obsessive fans happy, and it’s all explained in such a way as to not entirely alienate newcomers. Again, other series creators take note.

Poor old Jonathan can’t actually use the Vampire Killer. His father could, but died in his efforts to combat Dracula. Despite this, he and his childhood friend Charlotte have risen to the challenge of defeating Dracula. The Castle has been brought back thanks to the lost souls of those killed in the war that have been collected and bound by Brauner. However, Dracula isn’t about to be wandering about again, as Brauner wants the big guy’s power not his presence.

Added to the confusion is a ghost calling himself Wind. He helps the two youngsters in their quest by giving them sub-quests, appropriate rewards and advice. He has his own agenda, much like everyone else in the Castle, but it is one that you will want to advance if you want to unlock the good ending.

Looking Good, Sounding Better

Portrait of Ruin is, by and large, nicely paced and well executed. The skills and important items you collect are well placed and mean there’s always something to do next. This can lead to that wonderful ‘just a few minutes more’ mindset that can have you up into the wee, small hours, or missing your train stop.

The graphics and sound are pretty damn fine - from the anime intro movie that you will be showing your friends, to the voice samples that Charlotte bellows out when she’s casting a spell. The manga look is strong with this game, and the character design is nicely realised, particularly with the numerous bad guys. If you’re not a fan of clowns, you’re in for a ‘treat’ on the Nation of Fools level…

The humour in the game is subtle and nicely self-deprecating in places. Hold up on the D-pad long enough and the character you’re controlling performs a ‘damn I’m sexy’ move that will make you chuckle. The fact that there’s a male and female lead means that some of the bad guys react differently depending who you’re controlling. For example, the Henry VIII character will present a thorny rose to Charlotte and declare his love, while attacking Jonathan with a sword thrust. Wait until you hear how the topless succubae react to Charlotte!

The controls are pretty good, making the fighting and spell casting reasonably simple. Swapping between the characters becomes pretty vital for solving certain puzzles, though it’s not entirely intuitive. You have to actively learn how to do things rather than just getting on and doing it. There will be times, however, that you will accidentally do the wrong thing in the heat of battle, perhaps accidentally swapping characters instead of launching the devastating dual crush combined attack. Whether the learning curve is a bad thing or not depends on your patience levels. Speaking of which...

Getting Lost

There’s a point I invariably get to with every Castlevania game I’ve ever played where I get stuck for what to do next. I encountered this with Portrait of Ruin, but more seriously than ever before. There’s always been a lot of backtracking in the game as you unlock new areas through the items and abilities you earn. The map has never been that useful when you get properly stuck, or when you can’t remember exactly where the bit you couldn’t get to without the double jump was. Please, please, please Konami, can we have the ability to mark the map with a note of our own making?!!!

My problem came when I popped into a room on the Sandy Desert level, only to see I couldn’t get any further that way. The map marked the room as uncovered/done, so I forgot about the vital ability that I couldn’t get to. After hours of fruitless searching at a later stage in the game, I finally had to resort to an online guide to remind me where it was I’d been but hadn’t finished. A note on the map could have prevented this.

A couple of the puzzles where you need to swap characters (the bikes and the mine cart) are evil in the extreme. The bike one in particular requires a lot of backtracking if you get it wrong, and it’s the type of puzzle that the vast majority of us will get wrong many times. Very nippy.

Small Gripe

Minor gripe, but the quests you get from Wind can be a real pain. This is because you often get the items you need to complete a quest long before you are told you need them. That wouldn’t be a problem but for the fact that you’ll have sold them in the shop by then, and you can’t buy them back!!!! That would be fine, but for the fact that some of the quest rewards are as near to vital to complete the game as they can get without being actually necessary. You can go online to trade for those items with other players, but that’s just shifting the problem on to someone else.

Of course, some of the clues ever helpful Wind gives you for the quests are so insanely cryptic that you’ll wonder why you’re bothering. Again, you’ll find yourself resorting to online guides to find what items you can safely sell or eat, as well as uncovering the various hidden rooms where some of those items are hidden, stuck behind breakable walls. Those guides will also reveal that there are bonus play modes to unlock that might tempt you to play through the whole thing again!

The multiplayer isn’t a great deal to write home about. Co-op isn’t as exciting as it sounds, as you play through special stages and not the main game. Get that sorted for next time please, Konami, and the review score is an almost guaranteed 11 out of 10. You can also buy and sell items online, should you so wish. Gosh. Well. There you go.

Not A Problem

Oddly, the game is otherwise so well designed and pretty that you can forgive the minor bad points that, with other games, would normally knock great chunks off a review score. OK, there’s more emphasis on thuggery than discovery in this game than there was in the previous DS game, Dawn of Sorrows, but at least the fiddly stylus stuff isn’t there in Portrait of Ruin.

Ultimately, Portrait of Ruin is more than just one of those games that’s just another entry in a long running series that will appeal to fans only. It will also suit those who have never played a Castlevania game. Though it may not be the best example of whip-cracking fun in Castle Dracula, it’s got a damn sight more in its favour than a great many other games out there at the moment.