Following the release of Dawn of Sorrow, the highly acclaimed Nintendo DS Castlevania game, Konami has managed to produce another handheld Castlevania game within only a year. Portrait of Ruin is the second DS Castlevania, continuing the storyline in circa 1944, during World War II.
The story is centers around main characters Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin on their attempt to take down Castlevania and Brauner, its "master." Brauner is using the souls from WW II's dead to recreate the castle and "revive" his two daughters, Stella and Loretta, who died during the war. In the beginning, Jonathan holds the legendary Belmont family whip Vampire Killer. Jonathon, however, cannot use the weapon's full power in the beginning of the game.
What made this game great, the saving grace of the gameplay really, is the dual-character system. As mentioned above, Jonathan and Charlotte can attack, cast spells and even do an attack together called a Dual Crush. Dual Crushes can be compared to Richter Belmont's item crush in Symphony of the Night, or Julius Belmont's Holy Cross in Aria and Dawn of Sorrow. There are many of these attacks to choose from, and as you explore more areas of the castle, they become better and stronger.
As you move around the castle, you will see these portraits used by Brauner. They are "extensions " of the castle, leading you to completely different areas such as a cursed town, a place that looks like it was shelled and ruined by the world war, and a desert ruin. The castle seems a lot larger because of these paintings.
Early in the game, you will meet a character called "Wind." He died inside the castle, but casted a magic so he can still appear in spirit form. He will help you through the game by offering you sidequests. You need to perform certain actions to complete them. There are 37 quests overall. Not many, but they are not all available at once and can't be finished early in the game. Depending on your position in the story, Wind will give you new quests, so you'll need to visit him once you feel you have done something significant, such as defeating a boss.
What disappointed me about the gameplay were the many, many monsters that have been recycled in Portrait from previous games like Symphony of the Night and Dawn of Sorrow. This is the reason why it only took Konami a year to finish producing the game, in my opinion. There are around 150 monsters throughout the whole game, but almost half are not new. It is a good thing that many of the boss fights are really entertaining. My favorite one was the fight with Death. Next time Konami, please make a bunch of new monsters and try not to recycle old ones so much!
As for Portrait's sound, the orchestral music is as epic as before, comparable to Dawn of Sorrow's music. My favorite Portrait of Ruin tunes are Destroyer, Gaze Up the Darkness and Piercing Silence. Each song fits the background and areas of the game nicely.
The online capability of this game is truly outsanding. With a broadband WiFi connection, you can play with other players in the world either by random, or by getting someone's friend code and playing with them. This is the co-op mode where you are lead to rooms with bosses in them. Your job is to beat them, of course, but with a friend. The other online feature is the shop. You can sell your weapons, items, and accessories to others. Your items do NOT disappear after selling them, though if you are buying, you lose money depending on how much the seller wants it for. Have your best friend sell you anything for 1 gold or something, haha.
After beating the game, you will be given THREE different modes to play. You get to play as Richter Belmont and Maria Renard (so if you didn't get to play as her in the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night, this is your chance) on the first mode. The second mode is the Sisters Mode, where you get to play as Stella and Loretta. This is the only time in the game where you rely on the touch screen to attack monsters. The last mode is Axe Armor mode, a hidden mode. You must beat a thousand Old Axe Armors in Jonathan mode to unlock this.
The Hard Mode is also unlocked once you acquire the good ending. In Hard Mode, you will have three different level caps, 50, 25 and 1. Each level cap has a reward after finishing it.
In conclusion, this is a very welcome addition to the Castlevania series. Maybe you're wondering why I mentioned Harmony of Dissonance in the summary, and that is because that game didn't take that long to produce either, but Portrait of Ruin is nowhere as disappointing as Harmony of Dissonance.
