Portrait of Ruin isn't as good as Dawn of Sorrow, but it is still a very solid game none the less.
Portrait of Ruin takes place during the Second World War, World War II, and in Europe in 1944. Brauner and his two daughters, Stella and Loretta are trying to end humankind by using the power of magical portraits to draw power from the castle itself. Another lame story in the books of Nintendo DS Castlevania, but it’s not the worst story out there, and I guess someone else could like it out there, but it still doesn’t interest me a lot. I like how it takes place during World War II, but it would’ve been better if they implemented more things that had to do with the war into the game to make it better. In the game, you play as both Jonathon and Charlotte, Jonathon being almost exactly like Simon from Dawn of Sorrow, and then Charlotte being a whole new character that can use spells instead of weapons. Just a basic sequel upgrade from Dawn of Sorrow, but they still look fantastic, even in 2D for the most part. Lots of backgrounds in different areas have full 3D artwork that looks amazing, but it kind of seems weird when you look to the background and you see a 3D building while you’re in a 2D courtyard... But the sprite work looks outstanding and move smoother than a baby’s bottom with no slowdown wherever you go. Even if there’s 20 enemies on the screen at the same time, no slowdown, at all. Some disappointments include character recycling from Dawn of Sorrow, so you’ll see many, many enemies that you remember from Dawn of Sorrow but mixed in with many new enemies exclusive to Portrait of Ruin. The overall design of the game is outstanding though, it never looks like Dawn of Sorrow barely anywhere, so it looks like they just started new again. Another disappointment though, is that the last 4 areas of the game are almost the same as the first 4 areas of the game just redone to look more new, it truly is disappointing.
Remember the catchy tunes from Dawn of Sorrow? Well, Portrait of Ruin has nearly the same catchy tunes, but obviously altered to be fresh. Explosions, sword swings, and everything else has outstanding sound work and sound almost real. Nothing is vastly improved from Dawn of Sorrow, but it still sounds awesome. Portrait of Ruin does have instances when a character speaks, but there still isn’t voice acting which would be a huge welcome in the next instalment. When you switch from Jonathon to Charlotte, each character says the opposites character’s name, this is one example when a character speaks in the game. Another place where characters speak is when either Jonathon or Charlotte get hurt by an enemy, they scream in pain, and it sounds great. Sometimes bosses make a speaking sound also, and it also sounds 100% like real talking and doesn’t go staticy or anything like that. So overall, and like I said before, Portrait of Ruin does have some great sound, but it doesn’t have any major improvement over Dawn of Sorrow.
Dawn or Sorrow with some more gameplay additions make Portrait of Ruin an amazing gameplay experience. You can play as both Jonathon and Charlotte at the same time, but you have to be one of them, and the AI controls the other character. While you’re a character, you can use the other character’s UP-Y move by pressing the R button, and this is extremely good since I usually us Jonathon, and the AI Charlotte never use her magic. You can also play as one character alone by pressing the A button which I like doing because if the other character gets hit, you lose MP, or magic from your magic meter instead of health. You also lose Magic, or MP from the lower meter just like Dawn of Sorrow when you use the Up Y move, Charlotte’s Up Y moves are always better than Jonathon’s. Another cool addition to Portrait of Ruin is the Duel Attack which is done by pressing Up and X. This is amazing for boss fights and some become so powerful, that it kills most enemies in one hit. You can equip different weapons and different spells to each character, and you can also equip different clothes to both characters which increases any of the many stats of each character. What you do to beat the game is travel to lots of areas of the castle looking for Portraits to jump into, and defeating the boss at the end of each one to get something useful. Once you get the useful ability, you can go to different parts of the castle, and you eventually make it to the last boss. Everything is almost exactly the same as Dawn of Sorrow, but with the Portraits mixed in as well. Wi-Fi, is one of the key elements here. In Wi-Fi, you can do 2 things. One is set up an online shop and sell items that people might want to buy to complete the game easier. The other gameplay option on Wi-Fi is co-op mode where you can team up with a friend, or a random person, and fight boss, after boss, and trying to get to the end. There’s also 3 courses of boss rush added to this year’s Portrait of Ruin and they’re also extremely fun. Plus, the main quest is lengthy, so you’ll be playing for a while.
Like I said, Portrait of Ruin isn’t nearly as good as Dawn of Sorrow which came before, but it’s still an amazing game either way. The addition of the two characters and the new gameplay mechanics are really cool and are really well done, but the lack of intelligent castle and map design, mixed with the recycled enemies and so-so sound make it a worse version of one of the best Nintendo DS games ever made, Dawn of Sorrow.