Metareview - Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

by James Ransom-Wiley { Dec 7th 2006 at 3:55AM }

Rinse. Wash. Repeat. Castlevania has slipped into a familiar formula on Nintendo's handhelds. As such, Portrait of Ruin doesn't stray far from its forebears' blueprints, but it does lose the gimmicky annoyances found in Dawn of Sorrow in favor of an effective, albeit underused team mechanic.

You want refined? Check out Portrait of Ruin.

Game Informer (90/100) - "Putting two characters in the player's hands proves to be an ingenious way of expanding on Castlevania's bread-and-butter action ... The exceedingly minor irritation of reused environments is the only negative comment that I have about Portrait of Ruin ... this will quickly become one of the most-beloved titles in your DS library."
IGN (89/100) - "The amount of times the two characters will need to partner together can be counted on two hands ... This two-character idea is a neat new way of presenting the Castlevania experience, but it's not explored as deeply as it should ... Even though the sequel's doesn't offer as strong an original design as the initial DS game, it's still immensely fun with a lot of legs thanks to multiple endings, additional unlockable characters, and a focus on multiplayer".
GameSpot (83/100) - "It doesn't mess too much with the formula, but the changes it implements are good ones ... The partner mechanic works well, and it's remarkably easy and intuitive to control two characters at once ... [but you] can finish Portrait of Ruin in four or five hours on your first try".

Tags: Castlevania, Portrait of Ruin, PortraitOfRuin

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Axel @ Dec 7th 2006 4:27AM

It's a shame that the game is so short, however, I do like the multiple endings part. Those are always awesome in my book.

PRguitarman @ Dec 7th 2006 4:50AM

Wasn't the last one just as long? Of course, I spent about 15-20 hours levelling up and collecting everything before fighting the final boss.

I was just playing PoR seconds before reading this post. I'm about an hour into it and loving it thus far. I love switching the characters back and forth quickly.

CHARLOTTE! JOHNATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JOHNATHAN!
...I am easily amused.

And I actually use the two characters together often. Like I'll use Johnathan to attack everybody, while Charlotte stays in the back using Gale Force whenever necessary. Or she'll come up to the action and deliver a few quick blows. That and you sometimes need Charlotte to jump off of Johnathans' back to reach high ledges. So it's not as gimmicky as it sounds, if used correctly.

waxc3 @ Dec 7th 2006 7:09AM

i too liked switching back and forth but so far i really only use johnathon.
i am about 2 to 3 hours in so far and i think it is the second best castlevania ever (as of now, i may change my mind).
i will play for many hours! i put a hundred hours into the last one. i find every item and try to get 9 of each when possible. i level up everything. get 100% or more on the maps....
this game has an insane amount to level up! and lots of places to wear items again like in symphony of the night.
i am psyched!!!

moominsean @ Dec 7th 2006 7:46AM

i'm enjoying it a lot, too. I am slightly annoyed by the 'americanization' of the game (and why would they get rid of the fantastic art of the previous games and replace it with not even decent anime style drawings?). i miss all the japanese sound bites, but at least the dialogue is written a bit better (even though they now converse waaay too much). more of the same overall, but it's one of my fave series, so that's cool.

beardly @ Dec 7th 2006 8:53AM

I just started playing my copy. This will make the flights I'm on go a lot quicker.

darshannon @ Dec 7th 2006 9:53AM

Uhh... Does it have the same kind of clearly overpowered special moves, like Aria of Sorrow?

benjamin @ Dec 7th 2006 10:34AM

Anyone played Kirby Squeak Squad yet? It's fantastic. Like a return to Kirby's Adventure from the NES. Just like in the NES version, you can replay levels to find hidden treasure and unlock more stuff.

chris w @ Dec 7th 2006 11:25AM

is it just me, or does the meta reviews crop up on this site way too early to get a true verdict?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not picking on castlevania, it just seems like every time a game comes out, less than 24 hours, Joystiq "selects" metareviews based on the writers choice.

I believe to eliminate bias, and show true metascores either take an average of all and post it, or post them all; stop cherry picking the ones that are favorable to the writer of the post.

Eric Bostrom @ Dec 7th 2006 1:02PM

I loved DoS for ds, I've been waiting patiently for PoR... however I just picked up FF3, so I feel bad abandoning it for PoR. Plus xmas is coming up.

Yoshi Island2, PoR, Kirby squeak squad; so many good ds games, so much money.

Pince @ Dec 7th 2006 3:22PM

@9 actually, Joystiq always takes one of the highest reviews, a middle range review, and one of the lowest reviews

it just happens that, for this game, all of the reviewes are clusters around the mid-80s to low 90s. I think there is a pretty good consensus established on the game based on reviews. By now, all of the major reviewers like IGN, 1up, Gamepro, Gamespot, Game Informer, etc.

The only big publication that I see missing from Gamerankings right now is EGM, so unless you consider their word to be law, or if you, for some reason, prefer reviews by all the little sites run by some gamer working from his basement, the reviews that we have right now are pretty much the consensus on the game from the online reviewing community.

And, again, take a look at Gamerankings and take a look at the metareviews that Joystiq does and you will see that they almost always try to pick a high score, a middle-range score, and a low score. There just hasn't been a lot of variation on this title.

Papa @ Dec 7th 2006 4:04PM

The pre-order bonus that came with the game is just too damn good.

Teri @ Dec 7th 2006 6:56PM

Did anyone else get cheated out of the pre-order bundle? I put in a deposit over 2 months ago at my local EB, and when I went to pick up the game, they told me they only got 5 pre-order bundles for the 20 people who pre-ordered!
If that were the only thing, I'd only have been slightly miffed, but it's not like the pre-order stuff was *free*. EB and Gamestop were charging $5 more than every other retailer for the bonus. (Check out EBgames.com that just "dropped" the price.)
So I wind up paying $5 extra dollars and getting squat for my trouble.
I'm really ticked. :(

Pince @ Dec 7th 2006 11:57PM

Question on the game itself:

For those of you that have played it I have a few questions:

1.I love secrets in Castlevania games (one of the many reason that I adore SOTN). I get sad when Castlevania has no secrets. Are there secrets in Portrait of Ruin (walls you can break, hidden-ish areas, etc)?

2.What is the difficulty like? How is it compared to Dawn of Sorrow or the GBA Castlevanias? (One of my biggest gripes with Castlevania games since SOTN would be that they are a little too easy sometimes, especially if your character is at a high level)

For anyone that has the game and is currently playing through it, your opinions would be appreciated. thanks.