A very slight misstep in this excellent series.
Pros
-Good old 2D fun
-Great music and graphics
-Nice character designs
Cons
-Getting a bit stale
-Redundant second half, uninspired first
-Worthless Wi-Fi mode
Castlevania games are always the crème of the crop when it comes to the DS and the GBA. Taking the perfection of Symphony of the Night on the PlayStation, these games have refined this gameplay, made it handheld, and they have always been great. Does Portrait of Ruin keep up that legacy? Mostly, though it becomes apparent that there is some work to be done in next year's installment.
Taking the page from the Metroid series, the Castlevania games like this (commonly known as "Dracula X" series like in Japan) are very similar in structure. You fight your way through Dracula's castle, through the demons and monsters that guard your way, mainly to the next location or ability. There's also an RPG level system, but only stats are awarded when you do grow more powerful.
Portrait of Ruin is no different, and Konami, the game's developer, has evolved the game very well. Each step in the series is shown here, and all of the other games' imperfections are not to be found. Not only is it one of the best games on the DS, but it's still fun, if it's not a little bit boring by now. Any gamer who hasn't played any before should dive right in, while any returning gamer will still have a ball.
There are a few problems here, though. While the castle is very large and filled with secrets, the game just doesn't have the luster of the first DS game, Dawn of Sorrow. Usually you will be battling your way through a dull string of corridors, and there are little of the typical mix ups that usually happen. Few of the excellent environmental puzzles from predecessors are fleshed out in this game. Of course there are exceptions; the circus area is hilarious in the way that it totally turns the map on its side. But as a whole, it feels very much a soulless iteration of the castle, and it doesn't help that the second half of the game is a remixed version of the first.
But fear not, for the combat and the boss battles that have made the series good are here to return. New and old come back from the dead (old school Castlevania gamers will enjoy the comeback of Legion, a big ball of zombie bodies), and the tactics that are required to take them down are as fun and complex as ever, thanks to the dual character setup. Adding a few new commands for your friend was a great move on Konami's part, and the game is that much more fun.
The game doesn't really take advantage of the DS' features like last year's tried to do, and with the seals gone (symbols you have to sketch onto the screen after a boss) the game is much more freeing. The map is still on the top as always, and the status screen shows more than ever, although you still have to check the paused menu for status ailments, which is a problem. But still, the game loses very little for not using the DS totally through, so it's all okay.
The graphics are finely tuned as the last installment was, though the have changed very little, if at all. A few graphical flourishes top off the game, like several 3D enemies and places, but that is to be expected. Everything moves nice and fast, no slowdown whatsoever. It all looks detailed and impressive as ever, and the DS can pull it off with style. The only issue here is a few stolen utilities from Dawn of Sorrow, as the returning enemies are exactly alike. But that's too small to matter, because the backgrounds and the people alike give off a very good polish that shows that Konami can deliver.
The story and the character designs built off of that polish, and although the story is somewhat weak, the pictures are very nice. The manga/anime look that came with Dawn of Sorrow is back, and although the old sketchy style artist is missed, this does fine. Everybody has nice expressions in the character portraits during cutscenes, and some of the pictures are done very well. Charlotte, the girl, has an especially good range of pleasant to comically angry. The opening cut scene is well animated and as stunning as ever, and looks fantastic; personally I wish Konami has thrown a few more of those in.
As for the story, as mentioned above, it's sort of weak, but there's a nice ring to the effort. Jonathon and Charlotte, two teenagers, have been drawn to the castle to combat the new master, Brauner. Several plot twists involve some of the minor characters, but nothing that will knock anybody's socks off. But in the end it's in the fact that it is there and is functional that counts.
The sound is the same kind of situation. There are some very nice voiceovers throughout, and the music is well done. The only issue is that the quality isn't very good, and seems especially weak when listened to as a soundtrack. The instruments used sound pretty fake and blah, but the melodic themes are very well developed. But in the game, it adds some very nice atmosphere, even without the kind of big bang that Square-Enix did.
The game is long enough as well, giving with one playthrough the typical ten hours of fun from this type of game. There are plenty of bonus modes to do and a bunch of secrets to unlock, however, so be prepared to keep this one in your system for a long while.
But the one mode that didn't work out, the Wi-Fi, needs to be addressed. Basically you battle alongside another player as you fight your way through several rooms, each a screen big and containing monsters of increasing difficulty. This gets boring really fast, as you may expect, and fails to compel me to fire up the computer just to play a round. This shop mode is even more ridiculous, because unlike an online economy like World of Warcraft, Castlevania's items and weapons aren't that hard to get. If anyone buys anything, you'd be lucky. Although it's nice that Konami is trying new things, maybe they need to step it up a bit from this.
The kiddies' level is set to medium high. Although there is a big bit of blood and a few language spots, as a whole the game is fine of anyone over twelve, maybe a mature eleven year old. There are a few suggestive themes, namely low shirts and plentiful drawings, and the violence is no less than a Metroid game, so keep those in mind.
So in the end, this one seems to be s slow beginning of a decline of the folks at Konami, but whether this pattern continues will remain to be seen. I sure hope not, this game is still fun even without the perfection of pervious incarnations, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.