Normally I wouldn't give a Castlevania game the time of day, but this one is actually good, especially for a hand held.
That being said, I wasn't a huge platformer fan, and Castlevania of all things didn't fire my rockets, probably due to the massive number of "make this series of jumps or die instantly" sequences and it was just all the same.
Well, in Castlevania : Portrait of Ruin, you do take the old formula that I used to not care for and add in some new elements that add some spice and variety to the game to bring it beyond the standard platforming fare. I first want to talk about the graphics. The graphics in this game are sprite based, but are fantastic. In the small screen, there is so much detail packed in. For instance, if you go into one of the portraits which is like a market, there is food and dry goods and other items hanging in the windows and sitting on tables. If you jump on a table full of goods, debris will fly around everywhere. Hit hanging meat in the meatlocker is swings around. Smash candelabras for coins and hearts (don't ask) and they turn into flaming particles that fizzle out on the floor. In the Forest of doom, the forest itself is quite bleak on a dry dirt road, however there is one tree that stands out in particular as completely black. It's black for a reason. The tree turns red with eyes peering out which eventually reveal that they are individual ravens which fly off and leave a very bare tree behind. The individual sprites are well animated, significantly beyond any SNES era animations. Watch Charlottes clothes when she kind of wavers back and forth, her skirt and shirt move along with her hips as a real cloth would. For sprite based animations the graphics are very good, who says that 3d graphics are the only way to go. Each individual enemy when defeated dies in a very spectacular way, ranging from bursting into flames, crumbling into dust, flashing out of existance or my favorite, from the Invisible Man, turning into a pile of red flesh that melts away. The cutscenes are anime inspired and rather pretty at least for a hand held system, and they really add to the emotional and humorous moments of the game and advance the story (yea, there is more of a story than just "kill Dracula" this time around).
Enemies range from tiny frogs to massive knights who's heads fly around or half eviscerated behemoths, and the DS fully utilizes its power to display up to 12 enemies I counted at one time in the desert.
That being said, I will get into the sound. The sound like graphics has a specific sound effect to go with the death of each enemy. Each attack and spell has a sound that goes with it that, except the biggest detractor I think is that you should hear a "snap" each time the whip is snapped. That was curiously absent. While the musical themes are excellent, I can't say I've remembered any that I hum in my mind or get especially pumped to hear. There is very little spoken words except for a few digitized voices when the characters get hurt or you enter a shop. Having described the aesthetic quality of the game, I'm going to now get into what matters, the gameplay. As I've mentioned prior to this, the Belmont Family has been responsible for keeping Dracula in check, and in this Castlevania, you play as two characters. The first is Johnathan Morris, related to the Belmont Family, he has inherited the famed Vampire Killer whip. It's his duty to prevent Dracula from reviving around World War 2.
With him is Charlotte Aulin as I've already mentioned. She's the obligatory school girl in short skirt, revealing blouse, stalkings and high heel mary janes that drive Otaku crazy. Oh yea, she's a potent spell caster who is the magical brains behind Johnathan's physical brawn. Other than that, I'm not quite sure how she fits in the game other than she's his partner, at least that hasn't been explained well enough to me after 10 hours of play. Anyways, you are determined to defeat Dracula, but oddly there is another vampire named Brauner who is the lord of Dracula's Castle now. I'm not going to get into details about who does what to whom, but there is a story, this I promise you. The game itself consists of lots of whipping, sword slinging, spell casting, knife tossing and jumping. I suppose that's not much different than what most people had in mind with platformers. But instead of just ONE whip, you can get multiple varieties of whips with different lengths, effects and what not. Also there are swords, knives, axes and other primary weapons with different properties among the classic holy water, throwing knives, axes and such (Johnathan's attacks can be mastered after a certain number of attacks that kill monsters. This basically increases the damage done by the attacks, always a good thing). Charlotte uses magical books to summon phantasms that attack, but her real "strength" lies in casting spells which have many different elemental attributes and damage properties and geometries of attack. It's up to you to figure out how they work best against what enemies (her attacks don't get upgraded through use, just how long you perform the incantation though). Needless to say some enemies are resistant to magic (this goes for bosses too), so you should use Johnathan, others are resistant to physical attacks, therefore use Charlotte. Don't worry, you can switch the two on the fly, and can have both on the screen at the same time. You can use the R button to cast the secondary characters special attack while using your main character, however for Charlotte, you cannot charge up to level 2 spells.
Sometimes its better just to use one person as the second character is kind of a doofus that just follows you, attacking only when enemies get close. They can't die, but they can get sent off screen, and if they get damaged you lose MP, which is quite vital against some bosses. With two characters you can push and pull things easier, you can jump off your partners shoulders to reach higher areas and if you press up and X you can do a special attack that hits hard and often called a Dual Crush. Some are straightfoward knife tossing (well, actually 48 knives to be exact) to a Lighting Cross that rotates and zaps everything on screen.
Other abilities involve double jumps and slides and flying attacks. Johnathan mostly has the extra melee attacks and martial arts which you learn on quests. Charlottes magic allows you to transform to move into other areas of the castle better. But believe me, both characters are needed in this game.
My favorite feature is that for pretty much the entire game, you cannot die in one hit or fall into an endless pit. This drove me nuts and still does for any platformer and I am glad to see it go. The game itself allows you to level up from defeating monsters, increasing your MP and HP among str, constitution, intelligence and such. This makes you a better fighting machine, sort of like how River City Ransom allowed for food to permanantly boost your stats. Basically this RPG element adds to the game and makes it easier to track your accomplishments.
Additionally, besides different weapons, you can get different armor and accessories which further boost your abilities. Often you have to buy them in stores, but enemies drop them on occaison (in fact some of the best armor is enemy dropped). You have to get some items from some enemies to complete quests which give you even better armors and weapons.
Basically this game is a platformer with RPG elements to it, making it more of a pick up and play game rather than... say pick up and start from level 1-1 again game. That was one of my biggest turn offs of previous Castlevania games unless you wrote in a password that was case sensitive and exactly right. Oh yes, you can save the game at various points along the map, and for those in need of quitting, quicksaves are available. The game isn't terribly hard except for a certain few points, and for a lot of people the bosses might be hard until you either:
Figure out their pattern.
Get more levels.
Buy lots of healing potions and use them.
Or all of the above. And yea, I've died a few times in this game, but mostly to bosses. After leveling up for like 20 minutes or trying 3 or 4 times, the bosses are quite managable though. If I reach 20 hours of play time, I'd say this game is worth at least another point in value, considering I paid 30 dollars for it. This game is less punishing (while still challenging), has some great RPG elements to it and generally has a good story that is less cliched and is an overall good time, especially for a handheld.
Warning though, any stylus fans should be advised that this game is D Pad heavy and stylus light. That being said, I recommend this game to pretty much anyone interested in platforming games or those who like cross genre, hand held,vampire slaying, scantily clad school girl filled, whip snapping, gorgeous epic adventures on the Nintendo DS.
Anyways, I'm 10+ hours into the game, which is quite good for a non RPG hand held game, so it's fairly sizeable, and there are mulitple endings among other game types (Boss Rush for example) with unlockables.