"Another great entry in the Castlevania series."

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin continues the legendary Castlevania series. Its "Metroid-vania" style of exploration (named for copying the exploration style from Metroid) has been very prevalent in previous hand-held Castlevania titles, and makes for a great time as you explore the legendary castle of Dracula.

Story: 9/10

The story is set in a World War II era, where the massive amount of death once again summons Castlevania into this world. The church quickly contacts Jonathon Morris, and his friend, Charlotte Aulin. Jonathan is the heir to the vampire killer, and son of the late John Morris (from Castlevania: Bloodlines). Charlotte is a talented young magician who grew up with Jonathan. They travel to the evil castle to meet up with a member of the church, and soon find out that the castle is not under Dracula's control at all! What's going on here?

The story presented is quite good, as it ties in directly with Castlevania: Bloodlines. It also features quite a few cut-scenes scattered through-out the game, and multiple endings. Very well written, and for Castlevania veterans, it's not your usual "someone is trying to resurrect Dracula" story.

Gameplay: 10/10

If you've played any of the previous hand-held Castlevania's before (at least the ones after Circle of the Moon), than you pretty much know what to expect here in terms of castle exploration. Basically, your abilities are limited when you first start off, and over time you will gain more and more abilities that enable you to further explore the castle. Now, lets try to find what makes this particular Castlevania unique. First of all, you can now have 2 characters on the screen at a time, controlling either Charlotte or Jonathon. While you can't control both of them simultaneously, there are some button commands you can use to order you partner to do certain actions, like attack the enemy or to stand your ground. This system is nearly flawless in it's execution, but limited to what you can do.

Jonathan can equip all sorts of weaponry, from whips to spears, and also has a large sub-weapon selection to choose from. Charlotte depends on her trusty magic books, which come to life when they are opened to physically attack her enemies. She also has a very large spell selection to choose from, ranging from attack spells to supportive spells like healing and shape-shifting. Some spells take longer to cast than others, depending on the power, and the chanting process is shown on screen so you know how much longer until the spell is complete. There is also a merchant that you can purchase potions and equipment from as you gather money throughout the castle.

The gameplay is very addictive, and I've always enjoyed exploring Castlevania. Alot of the mechanics here are being re-used from previous games, though, so don't be too surprised when you see it. As they say, "Don't fix what isn't broken"!

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics here are very well done, which you would hope so since Konami has produced so many hand-held Castlevania titles. If you've played any of the other titles, you'll notice alot of the enemy designs are being reused here. You really can't blame them for that, however, since they do include alot of different enemies in each game. Are they supposed to make 150+ new enemies every game? I hope not! Some of the enemies are being taken out of their sprite mold and given 3-D qualities, as well. The second screen on the DS is used for either map navigation (which is a God-send), or the status screen. The environments look superb and are given alot of detail, even interacting with the characters in some places. The only reason this didn't get a higher score is because of how much they recycle the backgrounds and area "themes" later in the game, which makes the production seem rushed and lazy.

Music & Sound effects: 10/10

The music is very well done, as usual. Many classic tunes return along with a few new ones. Seriously, I'll never get tired of Castlevania's music. The sound effects are all well done too. Alot of the enemies have different sayings they use while they are fighting, which makes the game just that much more fun to say. Some of them can be hard to hear, though, making you want to kill more of a certain enemy until you figure out what they're saying!

Re-playability: 10/10

Lets just say there's 3 different teams you can play through the game with, once you beat the main quest. Since I don't want to spoil anything for you, I'll leave it at that. There's also a "New game +" mode, in which you can keep all your items, skills, and spells. You can also choose to put a "level cap" on your game, which limits your maximum level to either 50, 25, or 1. As with other Castlevania games, there is also a "Boss Rush" mode and a music player. Oh, did I mention you can play wi-fi with another person in a co-op game, or that you can sell your items to other players with the DS's wi-fi? As you can see, there's alot of potential gameplay here.

Overall: 9/10

I really don't want to label any game as perfect (which would be a 10/10), but this one is right up there. If they had tried to give the environments more variety, I might have been tempted to. As it is, though, this is a great game that I would encourage any action fan to pick up. Have fun & keep playing! Later...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/15/07