Portrait of Ruin takes place in 1944, 27 years after the only Mega Drive Castlevania game Castlevania: The New Generation (known as Bloodlines in the US). The millions of deaths in World War II have caused the powers of good to become weak, and the power of Dracula's castle (but not ol' Drac himself) has returned for whoever can harness its power – in this case a fellow with a fetish for painting cursed landscapes named Count Brauner, and his two possessed daughters. The main protagonist is Jonathan Morris, son of Bloodlines hero John Morris, himself the son of a character from Bram Stoker's original Dracula novel. Bloodlines, while a decent game, did an extremely poor job of linking the Castlevania series in with Stoker's original story,and was ultimately unfaithful to both sources – it incorrectly represented the book, and messed up Castlevania history. Portrait of Ruin puts in some effort to rectify at least the latter, attempting to explain the link between the Belmont and Morris families and a bunch of other oddities of that game. The story is still utterly ridiculous, and there's an odd comedy line to it that doesn't sit too well with the rest of it's themes, but it's interesting enough to keep you going.
There's some nice use of 3D in both the backgrounds and enemies
In much the same way Bloodlines silly premise allowed for more variety of environments than the usual Transylvanian countryside of older Castlevania games, the painting angle allows Portrait of Ruin to finally move beyond the basic castle setting of the 'Metroidvania' games. It seems Brauner is an aspiring artist, and has painted images of certain cursed areas which you must enter and defeat to break his power. Also like its prequel, there's a second playable character in the main game, and finally taking the recent androgynous character designs of the series to their logical conclusion, the character is female – young magician Charlotte Aulin. You play as both Jonathan and Charlotte simultaneously, having the ability to switch between them at any time, or play both at once to achieve certain goals. It's not particularly well implemented, as apart from a few puzzles where you switch between them, functionally they're simply the regular magic and attack abilities split into two characters, but at least it adds some variety to the gameplay. What adds even more variety are the paintings you can enter with Charlotte's magic abilities, themselves self contained areas somewhat in the vein of old style Castlevania levels. It's actually quite fun to play these slightly more linear levels, because the gameplay has finally been balanced to a point that it's actually fun to play from an action perspective.
Charlotte's 'magic book' based attacks can be amusing
Graphically, Portrait of Ruin is great. Jonathon and Charlotte look good and all their movements and attacks are well animated, as are most of the bosses and enemies. There are unfortunately quite a few recycled enemies (maybe 30%?), some from over a decade ago, but they still mostly look good and fit in well. There are a lot of details in the backgrounds, including some nicely integrated 3D elements, and the larger variety of levels via the paintings allows for a larger palette and more interesting settings all round. The main castle is your usual Symphony like one, but the paintings really add spice to the tired look of the series. Two of the levels are among the most creative in years, and all four of the initial painting levels look stunning on the DS Lite screen. Sound is also top notch. The game features a great soundtrack with a mixture of upbeat new tracks and remixes of some classic themes. Sound effects are decent, and while the limited voice acting can get annoying, there are options to switch to the original Japanese voices or even turn them down or off. The patchy-quality anime character portraits from Dawn of Sorrow return, but they fit the game better this time.
However, after reaching the now standard false conclusion things start to fall apart somewhat. The second half of the game involves re-treading the same graphical motifs in four new paintings, which after the initial creativity of the game is a bit of a letdown. The extra levels have new music and new palettes, new layouts (to differencing degrees) and sometimes new enemies, but only infrequently shrug off the feeling of being a re-tread. One in particular is a near carbon copy of its first iteration. The extra levels are at least a cut above Symphony's surprising (but in retrospect shallow and badly implemented) upside-down castle, or Harmony's boring and pointless 'mirror castle', but it's still disappointing that so much content is repeated.
Even regular enemies can be huge and well animated
Progression throughout the castle is also as artificial as ever. Unlike Metroid and Zelda games, you'll almost never see interesting objects or environmental features that seem confusing, but that make sense later on when you return with the correct equipment. Pretty much every area is opened up with an environmental switch, a new jumping/flying ability or a new pushing ability, all of which (apart from the minor convenience of double jumping) are separate from the gameplay itself. There's never any mystery about progression, and a seasoned Metroidvania player will see a path blockage and know exactly what will be needed to pass it, such as a 'mystical door', which always means 'wait for a cut-scene.' The non-linear Castlevania games have never matched the Metroid series' ingenious way of opening up new areas with abilities that are useful for something other then simply passing a hall or doorway, and Portrait or Ruin is possibly the laziest example of the formula so far.
This laziness flows over into the series' continued reliance on tacked-on RPG style equipment, ability and stat upgrades to feign gameplay depth. Turn based RPGs are essentially about stat management, and so sub-menus full of items that do nothing but affect stats make sense in that context. In an action environment, the presence of eighty different capes that have no non-mathematical effect is just clutter. Even the weapons and spells become somewhat meaningless, since you'll only ever change when you have to because it's so cumbersome. There's something to be said for customised characters, but has anyone in their right mind ever bothered to put on a 'fire ring accessory' to have +2 defense against an ice enemy, only to change it again for the next room? In Dawn of Sorrow you at least had the ability to switch between two customised set-ups with the touch of a button, allowing access to more abilities without entering the menu screens, but this advantage is lost with the two character dynamic - since only Charlotte can perform spells, the main assignable actions needed for progression. The elegance of having every necessary ability available without pausing the game (ala all Metroid games) would certainly be appreciated in the sections where you must use several abilities in a row.
Johnny and Charlotte launch a combo spell
That said, previous Castlevania games (Aria of Sorrow, and Curse of Darkness) had attempted to integrate the item pick-ups into the level progression and failed, since it was either so trivial as to be meaningless (some abilities in Curse), or you would often not know how to pass an area even though you already had the item necessary because it got lost in a series of collections (a few of the souls in Aria). So the non-integration here (as it was in Symphony) is appreciated over half-integration. Gone too are Dawn's gimmicky touchscreen features (outside an unlockable mode), an exclusion that lifts Portrait above its predecessor. You could even say that Portrait has stripped the convoluted elements from the main game, but left them all here optionally for those that want them. An interesting 'quest' mode which is entirely unnecessary for game completion seems to back up this theory, as it adds some longevity and extra exploration to the game for those that want it. There are also a bunch of excellent unlockables available after the game is completed, as well as a couple of rudimentary online modes.
Often a review of a franchise game will conclude with the reviewer stating that a game may be 'good overall, and even better for fans of the series'. With Portrait of Ruin, this formula has been reversed. If you're tired of finding double jump boots and exploring just to fill out map percentages, then take a full point from the total score. If you haven't played all the other GBA/DS Castlevania games (or either of the excellent GBA Metroid games), then the stylish graphics, interesting settings and characters and great music may win you over enough to wonder what the others are complaining about.
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