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Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

Started by Baka, September 24, 2007, 06:53:08 AM

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Baka

 A year after Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin steps forward. It retains similar gameplay, but with several unique additions. The modern Castlevania games are known for their undead-slaying platforming gameplay, but instead of being level-based, it is one giant map. By defeating bosses and obtaining certain items, new areas open up to explore. In addition, this game introduces the "paintings"- these lead to various worlds outside the main castle such as an Egyptian-style desert, an old town, and a crazy circus where the map swerves around and you'll be fighting enemies on the ceiling or walls. This solves the problem of "monotonous castle feel" that the past few games have had being located in Dracula's castle. The areas are a welcome change of pace.



The story goes with Dracula's castle has returning again, and its up to Jonathan and Charlotte to stop the evil within. Jonathan Morris has the Belmont's vampire killer whip, but lacks the means to use it. He intends to defeat the castle anyway. It turns out that Count Brauner is using the power of his paintings to bring the castle to life. By going into the paintings and defeating the bosses, they can weaken Brauner's grasp. I shant spoil the rest though.



PoR's main significant change is the element of two controllable characters: the weapon-wielding Jonathan Morris and the magic-user Charlotte Aulin. By pressing "X" you can switch between the two, and by pressing "A" the other character can be called fourth as a computer-controlled ally. The AI is pretty nonexistent, but the main point is that you can have one hitting it while the other cast spells or split up to take on multiple foes. With the touch screen, you can sent your partner a certain direction, or even slide your finger up to have them jump and attack foes. Charlotte comes in handy for casting spells to cure poison, boost stats, and even transform her or Jonathan into a toad or owl. She also boasts a library of powerful offensive spells. Jonathan can use various subweapons such as the upward-flinging axe, the ninja throwing kunai, the cream pie (which is surprisingly one of the best weapons to use on a certain major "light-based" foe due to it being the only dark element subweapon). These can be mastered by filling up their SP meter listed under the guide->skills section in the pause menu. Different enemies have a different amount of SP. All you need to do it hit the enemy one time with the subweapon for it to count. After mastering the weapon it usually becomes bigger to increase chances of hitting or amount of times it hits a foe and deals more damage. Both the additions were good, though the Charlette/Jonathan tag team could've been utilized in puzzles a bit more.



It also introduces the "quest" system. There is a spirit named "Wind" who gives you various fetch quests or "kill X amount of Y", and stuff like that. They can be a fun diversion, and can give you something to do as a diversion, but they are fairly run-of-the-mill, with rewards that don't really seem worth it. Some quests are to gain access to weird button-combo attacks that aren't too hard, but difficult enough to not really be worth trying to pull off in battle. In fact, I usual have shredded up my foes before even realizing that I could have used the special moves. The quests can be fun if you really feel it, or want to collect items, but not all that necessary to the main quest.



The game boast's some impressive 2D graphics, with some 3D thrown it for a nice touch. Lush backgrounds, and nice character sprites fill the game, all adding to the dark, vampire-slaying atmosphere of the game. There are some pretty crazy enemy designs. Many enemies are recycled from Dawn of Sorrow, but its using the same engine, so it doesn't matter. There is still a wide array of original enemies for the game, especially in the portraits outside the castle. The music has some great original tunes, with a few remixes of past games.



The level design is perfect with lots of variety. The difficulty is pretty standard, and the game could be a bit longer, but it does have more length that Dawn of Sorrow. The bosses are usual pretty easy, with a few difficult ones thrown in throughout. After the game, there are numerous unlockable modes, and characters to play as. An ultra-difficult string of bosses can even be found for Castlevania veterans. The games has lots of stuff to do, and should keep you occupied a while after the awesome main quest.

Alucard

Great game, with many great secrets. XD

Macawmoses

Great Review, lots of detail and opinion. Keep it up!