Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

"Great Game Following A Great Formula With Some Flaws"

This is a very pragmatic review of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. It's short, and unlike many other reviews that shift from LOVE to HATE, I promise this review will be pretty much unbiased to how I see the Castlevania series as a whole. Honestly. I don't explain the game itself, just review it - so read another review if you want to learn about the partner setup, the portraits, and all of that first. I'm merely evaluating the game as opposed to teaching you about it.

Story (7/10):
-----------------
The story is just about as good as any castlevania game. They've never really been that great in my opinion as a whole, compared to something like a Final Fantasy game. It does the job though, and I like that Konami is pushing for more story-element sequences with bosses, your partner and other characters within the game. This is good for the most part.

My only beef is that the characters are a little annoying. This is a bad thing. I don't like my main character. The sidekick is a little better, but barely. The dialog kind of fits the Anime feel they are going for, but I dunno, it doesn't work for me, and maybe that's because I'm 27 years old.

Graphics (9/10):
----------------------
I'd have to say these graphics are fantastic. The enemies are fantastic-looking - just wonderful and fluid 2D sprite-based animations. Also, some of the enemies are 3D, like the Peeping Eye. It all looks wonderful.

The backgrounds of some of the levels look fantastic. I love the multi-layered backgrounds when your in the woods or castle, or the 3D houses and statues. This just makes the game much more atmospheric.

Every area itself is very high-quality for the most part, although the castle itself kind of looks like the same in most of the areas. To offset this, since you use different paintings to get from level to level, it gave the designers more leeway to design different kinds of environments. Among those, the Egyptian pyramids and the forest are the best, mainly because they don't look anything like a castlevania game yet still retain its flavour. Also a lot of the levels and outside areas remind me to the days of Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest - a good throw back to the good old days (yes, I liked this game).

I ding one point because the actual characters that you play look a little too cartoonish for my liking. I dunno... they just look like blue and red blobs with very little detail. Comparing them to the enemy sprites, I'd have to say I'd rather play as the enemies.

Gameplay (9/10):
-------------------------
If you've played any of the recent Castlevania games, then you don't need to know that the gameplay of whip-slinging, casting spells, and using sub-weapons is totally solid - it remains the same here. There are a variety of things both characters can do in the game, and you'll need to take advantage of them to kill different enemies more efficiently.

Also, the boss battles are harder than in Aria of Sorrow or Harmony of Dissonance (I have not played Dawn of Sorrow). I died on almost every boss before I figured out its patterns. This is good! I thought it was a fair and fun challenge. And luckily save points are always close by to avoid frustrating repetition.

The partner setup is pretty cool, and doesn't detract from the game in anyway. My big complaint is that you'll have no real need to use female magic user. There's only part in the game where their weapons are about equal in power, and it's actually better to use her... but when Johnathon gets better swords and whips, the female character is basically side-lined to using spells.

The actual puzzles to be solved are very minimal. This could have been an excellent game mechanic, but was never used to its potential. The best one was both characters riding the motorcycles and you having to switch between them to dodge various obstacles at a high speed. It wasn't too challenging or long, and it was kind of cool.

Overall, the gameplay is very good, and it's getting a little stale despite the changes.

Level Design (6/10):
--------------------------
I guess this should be part of gameplay, but whatever. I think the level design in this game is really terrible. Unlike Aria of Sorrow where each area in the castle was unique and had a certain flare to it, most of the areas in Portrait of Ruin are not very unique looking. Maybe it's because I've seen it all before, but the tile sets and room designs all the look the same.

This is compounded when you factor in the levels of the actual portraits. Most of these have really stupid layouts, and are extremely repetitive and similar within the level, as well as between levels. It just feels like your moving through one corridor or room after another, fighting the same boring enemies and everything.

I don't know how to put this in words, but the levels actually don't make any sense either. For example, you go into a butcher shop (which looks like all the other shops), and they are HUGE! They look nothing like the entrance. And then the actual design of the shop has all these weird designs to traverse up and down through in one big area. It makes no logical sense and is very unlike previous games - maybe more of a throw back to the NES ones.

But even worse, these levels are designed the same in all the portraits, and just have different tilesets and backgrounds. Fundamentally, they are the same level. I might be exaggerating, but Aria of Sorrow was more unique and better designed.

Game Mechanics (5/10):
--------------------------------
I guess a sub-section under Gameplay. Here, I just want to talk about the random loot system, and like other recent castlevania games, I hate it. It's great that Konami wants to give us things to do... it really is. But I just don't understand random drops and collections. They don't make the game challenging. They don't make it harder. All it does is add more time you put into the game. And sometimes the long-laboured results on an individual level result in a mushroom.

Now, I wouldn't complain too much if it were just soul collection to get a ring that allows you to cast infinite spells. But now they have this new "side-quest" system that a character has you do. Many of these quests rely on you finding random loot.

My big problem is this. For some reason enemies, even if you put that +30 luck spell on, you will have to kill it 98 times for it to drop anything, sometimes you might only see a $10 coin before your item drops. This is not a good game mechanic. This is a waste of time. This is not a multiplayer game. Players don't want to sit for hours killing the same enemy over and over - it's just not fun, even if the payoff might be good.

I'd suggest to Konami to start finding better ways to get optional content than randomness.

Side-Quests (5/10):
--------------------------
My next beef is about the side-quests, and is kind of related to the above points. There is one quest that asks to find 4 random cards (club, heart, diamond, spade), and they are dropped from enemies. In a natural playthrough, you might 2 of these, but most likely not all 4. The big problem is that there is no way to know which enemies you have to kill to get these cards to finish the quest. Why not? I should not a need a strategy guide to find these cards Konami! Put this info in your game! And this is how most of the side-quests go - accidentally finishing them by finding a random item or room, or a special area.

So if I don't want to use a strategy guide, I have to insist on killing every creature in the game for "their special drops" just to make sure I don't miss anything (namely the one card I need to complete the quest). Sure, this is good for raising money when you can sell the excess items, or they may complete quests on their own, or they may net you a whip or armor that is far beyond your current gear... but that's not the point. The point is that it's all random and mindless and dreadfully time-consuming. The lack of in-game support makes the quests unachievable by most people without a guide - dumb. I don't want to use a guide.

My other beef is that to get these cards, you will have a lot of killing to do, and that's just one of the dozens of quests to do! I had to kill a Treant about 20 times to get the stupid card, and that's with a +30 luck spell! Not fun. Maybe for a 13 year old, but not for a 27 year old.

Music and Sound (8/10):
---------------------------------
I really like the music in this game. I don't give it a 10/10 because none of the tracks are hummable - they just don't have that quality. But the sound itself is great. It's distinctly different from Aria of Sorrow (also great soundtrack), but also has that very old-style Castlevania feel to it, like it's a beefed up score from the NES games (it has a nice mixture of feel from all of the NES games).

The sound is also very good. The effects are great, the little voice acting that is there is also pretty good. Everything is just solid all-around.

Overall (7/10):
-------------------
Overall, the game is pretty good and won't disappoint. Just don't expect a revolutionary game. The level-design, lack of in-game quest support, and random drops make this game a 7 instead of a 9 or a 10. Otherwise, it's good Castlevania. Not the worst outing, and not the best either.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/07

Game Release: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (US, 12/05/06)