I bet that there is a ton of hentai fanart and fanfiction about Charlotte out there…

Even though Konami continues to make Castlevania games in the Super Metroid mold, I still get excited whenever a new one comes out. Some might have tired of the formula, but I’ve played all of them since Symphony of the Night, and I don’t see any reason to stop in the future. Each game has its own little tweaks that makes it stand out, but none have tried to change things so much as Portrait of Ruin with the ability to have 2 characters onscreen at once.

I remember the two character simultaneous action was what really got me excited about the game… but honestly it wasn’t that great of a feature. The AI is horrible and unless you wanted to lose all of your magic points it was just easier to play with one character. Also Charlotte pretty much is useless so I just stuck to Jonathan.

Aside from the 2-character feature being a big letdown, everything else in the game is great. As stated earlier, it’s the same old CV-Metroid formula. One welcome addition is the ability to access remote areas by teleporting through paintings… like a pyramid for example. I mean, you couldn’t do that on the other ones (at least I don’t remember being able to…). Also, Konami removed all of those stupid stylus gimmicks that were in Dawn of Sorrow. (Thank fucking God. You guys have no idea how many times I had to refight a boss because I couldn’t enter in some crazy rune to kill it.)

Portrait of Ruin also seems to be a lot easier than its predecessors. Because of the abundance of teleportation sites, getting around Dracula’s Castle is a breeze. The special attacks are also simplelized. No longer will you have to run around and fight some random ghost 213124 times hoping it’ll drop its power. Instead, you can usually just pick up stuff in shops. Some special weapons are ridiculously overpowered (the combo 1,000 knives comes to mind) while some are pretty useless (Paper airplanes!? Pies!? Do these serve some purpose that I am totally missing out on?). Also, the weapon selection isn’t as diverse. Whips once again play a prominent role. The Vampire Killer is crazy powerful… but my weapon of choice is the Nebula, which is quite possibly the cheapest weapon ever in one of these games. It’s not quite Crissaegrim level, but pretty damn close.

Because it is easier and simpler to play, some might feel that there isn’t as much depth when compared with the other Castlevanias… but I think that there’s plenty to see and do in Portrait of Ruin. I’ve put about 13 hours into the game and I still haven’t gotten even half the items or finished all of the sidequests. Plus I haven’t even gotten around to taking this bad boy online… in there is a co-op mode. (But it is limited to a small area…)

I will admit that at times I actually got tired of “playing the same game over and over”, but for the most part I was entertained. I don’t think Portrait of Ruin is as good as Dawn of Sorrow, but it is a worthwhile addition to anyone’s DS library.

Score: 8.0