Old School Awesomeness.

Background
Upon getting a DS, I have gotten several games for it already, and the latest purchase I have made has been one of the most satisfying games I have played to date, a return to the good old days where games were complete and total bliss to play. The latest Castlevania title, Portrait of Ruin, is one such game.

Castlevania has a very rich heritage in the annals of video game history, reaching all the way back to the days of the 8-bit Nintendo, whose descendants have manifested themselves throughout most of the video game consoles that have come and gone since the old days of gaming.

The series tells the tale of Dracula, whose castle always reappears every 100 years (although in some of the games that formula is deviated from for varying reasons), and whose lord attempts to subjugate humankind with evil. Always ready to rise up to meet this threat to humanity is the Belmont family, taking whip in hand they fight their way to Dracula's castle to do battle with the dark lord.

The games were notoriously difficult, and played from a side-scrolling view as most games were back in the day. While the games were very much linear in nature, involving only a set path that you rarely deviated from, there were things hidden for you to find, such as breakable walls, and the use of subweapons such as holy water aside from the whip that you used to defeat Dracula's minions.

The gameplay had always been fairly simplistic, involving equal parts platforming and hack 'n' slash, and an unhealthy dose of difficulty (the kind that involves the throwing of various objects not bolted to the floor in frustration). While the game consoles would change over the years, the gameplay rarely deviated from this philosophy, until the Playstaion iteration of the series came along, Symphony of the Night, and gave the series a healthy does of depth and replay value. SotN added a whole slew of entirely new abilities, weapons, and a leveling system that for all practical purposes turned the game into a side-scrolling action-RPG, which helped to abate the difficulty curve that had plagued the series from its inception and make it more enjoyable rather than harrowing, without taking away from the platforming and twitch that the series has always been know for.

Following the success of Symphony of the Night, most (if not all) of the Castlevania games to follow have stuck to this particular formula, and a fair amount of the sequels for the series have come out for the various incarnations of the Game Boy platforms over the years, with one of the latest, Portrait of Ruin, coming to the Nintendo Dual-Screen.

I had played a little of this game on somebody else's DS before getting a DS for myself, and had my doubts at first, although this was because I hadn't played from the beginning. Having purchased the game for myself, I have found this game to follow the same mechanics found in Symphony of the Night, and finding it just as fun, if not moreso, than it's predecessor.

Portrait of Ruin
This installment of the series takes place in 1944, during the second World War, and the appearance of Dracula's castle before it's foretold arrival in 1999. Vampire Killer Jonathan Morris and his assistant, Charlotte Aulin arrive at the castle to take on the task of finding out why it's arrived ahead of schedule and to do what is necessary to banish it once more.

While the plot of each of the games has more or less been irrelevant, and somewhat cliched, the gameplay has always shone through, and that's what really counts in games like Castlevania. And speaking of which, the gameplay takes an interesting twist as you can control two characters, Jonathan and Charlotte. Either by switching between the two of them individually, or by calling them both at once to double-up on your unfortunate foes in a variety of ways.

As in Symphony of the Night, the game plays like a side-scrolling RPG, with enemies giving experience when killed, occasionaly dropping various items (and money), and giving skill points towards upgrading Jonathan's sub-weapons (something new to the series, at least to me). There are various places in the game where you can save your progress, and also various rooms that allow you to instantly transport your characters to other parts of the map without having to backtrack all the time (a definite godsend in games like these).

The key distinction to this series, however, is its namesake: While the castle itself is quite large, there are various portraits strewn throughout that hold within them a sort of pocket reality that must be explored and conquered to help progress through the game, each level being very unique with their own dinstinct layouts and enemies.

Despite some of these features not being totally new to the series (as some of these gameplay mechanics were used in SotN), the DS helps to refine and streamline these aspects a great deal. The bottom screen is used to view the gameplay, and the top screen is used to display the map, and can be toggled with the select button to show the status of the characters on the fly, how much exp and money they have, and the vital statistics of the enemies they fight as they fight them.

Although the stylus is not used very much, it is used to create a save emblem each time you start a game (and each replay), which is a unique bit of novelty that I wish I'd see in more games (the last being on Vagrant Story with the renaming of your weapons). The stylus can also be used in the main menu and the pause menu, although it is not necessary.

The graphics are sprite based, as they always have been, but are rich and full of detail, especially the surprising amount of vibrancy I noticed in the backgrounds, matching or even surpassing the artistry in SotN.

The music is good, but not as good as Symphony of the Night, although on it's own is still quite pleasant and matches the tone of the game well enough.

And of the course the gameplay is quite excellent, staying true to the series while at the same time tightening it up, and adding some added depth to mix-up the gameplay and keep it from getting overly repetitious.

The game allows (through the use of various Relics ala SotN) the player to control both Jonathan and Charlotte, either controlling one at a time, or both at once, with the computer controlling the actions of whichever you are not controlling. The process is seamless, hitting one button to switch off, and hitting another to have them join you. Later you are able to hit a button to summon them to perform their sub attacks (either using special weapons with Jonathan or various magic with Charlotte).

Each character is quite distinct, with their own pros and cons. Jonathan is the tough guy, with an emphasis on close-range combat and a wide variety of different weapons, and Charlotte, with her frail appearance belying a great deal of powerful magics that can obliterate enemies or help to strengthen herself or Jonathan, among other things.

Together they are also capable of performing a "Dual-Crush" attack, a special attack that requires them both to execute, usually doing a great deal of damage in varying ways, which range from throwing a flurry of daggers at enemies at high speed, to raining holy water down on the undead, and calling forth a volcano, among others.

Also, there are many puzzles in the game that rely both characters to solve, or complete, although these usually don't involve anything more cereberal than moving obstacles, standing on switches, and switching off between the two on the fly to get around other obstacles.

As I said before, the game uses a leveling system that helps to abate the difficulty curve, with weapons and armor (among other things) that can be equipped to decrease the margin of error when fighting enemies. Although the game is still very much a matter of twitch and platforming, with enemies having various patterns to follow, although there are many little nuances that the player can exploit to help mitigate damage and turn the odds in their favor.

The game itself can last a good while, especially with the emphasis on exploration, and the undertaking of quests from a certain individual the characters find early on in the castle, that bestow weapons, armor, spells and various other things. There is also a monk that sells weapons, armors, and various other things.

The game also has a replay mode upon beating the game, which allows the player to either play as other characters (providing you have met the requirements needed), to replay the game on a harder difficulty, or to start over again with most of your subweapons, spells, and most of your armor, weapons, and items retained in your inventory (relics must be found again, as well as a few spells that would allow you to sequence break otherwise). Further helping extend the gameplay is simply the sheer amount of things to find; secret rooms, breakable walls, floors, and an unlockable dungeon that contains enemies harder than those found in the castle.

Along with these things, are the uses of the WiFi mode on the DS that allows the player to open a shop to sell things to other DS players, to play a Cooperative Mode with other DS users, and a run-the-guantlet mode fighting various enemies and bosses. Unfortunately I haven't been able to take advantage of the former features as I do not possess a WiFi router.

Ever since getting this game over a week ago, it has all I have played, I haven't even touched my PS2 to play games in the least, and Portrat of Ruin is the first game I have sat down, and played from start to finish in a very long time, which is saying something for me lately. It's that enjoyable to me.

I think the great irony is that despite the advent of greater technology, and improved graphics, all I have ever really wanted for a long time was to go back and play all those games that I grew up playing, the Marios, the Zeldas, the Castlevanias, and many others. The DS has given that back to me (via being able to play GBA games), and is a refreshing look back, and ahead to good old days where games were games, and the games were fun, and there was no excuses needed to justify it.

Castlevania Portrait of Ruin is one such game, and I think I'm gonna go back to playing it now that I am finished with this review.