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‘Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin’, a gateway into a franchise and a genre

‘Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin’, a gateway into a franchise and a genre

Portrait_of_Ruin

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’s recent announcement and the buzz surrounding it has set the Internet ablaze with nostalgia and love for the Castlevania series.

It’s easy to see why. From the beginning, Castlevania has been a very beloved series. The very Japanese take on the tale of Dracula, pitting a single warrior wielding a whip against hordes of monsters and demons while crawling his way through the horrifying Castle Dracula (later reconned to be named Castlevania, at least for the English translations).

What made Castlevania what it was, though, was more than it’s use of classic monsters in a new setting. The game was fantastic. With tight controls, awesome music, exciting boss fights and a high difficulty to keep the player invested and interested in getting a little further every time they played, Castlevania was an instant classic. And it does nothing for me.

I never got into the classic Castlevania games. Maybe it’s because I’m a bad gamer and don’t like particularly hard games or maybe it’s because I didn’t play it as a kid, but the older Castlevania games never did anything for me. I’ve dabbled with them, but the furthest I ever got was the first boss in any given entry to the series. I think it was Dracula X, but I don’t remember completely, nor does it really matter.

What does matter is that when 1997 came around, Symphony of the Night changed everything. Instead of the brutally difficult platformers of the past, Symphony of the Night took the precise platforming that defined the series to this point, made it easier to control (something that I’m sure fans at the time were displeased by) and added a Metroid style map to explore. Thus, the Metroidvania genre found its second namesake.

And even after Symphony of the Night, I didn’t play Castlevania. In fact, Castlevania wasn’t even on my radar until after 2005’s Dawn of Sorrow. When that came out, the parts of the Internet I frequented at the time were abuzz with how great it was. I… didn’t have a DS at the time, so I still hadn’t played a Castlevania game at this point.

By 2006, I had gotten a DS and heard about these great Castlevania games I had been apparently missing, so I began my personal Castlevania journey with the then recently released Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.

Portrait of Ruin is often forgotten by many Castlevania fans and many of the fans that do remember it, don’t remember it fondly. It was rather easy and pretty linear, new abilities used to explore the castle were underused, the castle was pretty small and the titular portraits meant to break up the monotony from the usual Castlevania scenery were more or less recycled near the end of the game. For the hardcore Castlevania fan, Portrait of Ruin was not bad, but it sure as hell was a big let down after the rather well liked Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow.

I, on the other hand, loved it. Before Portrait of Ruin, I had never really played a game of it’s kind. I had touched a couple Metroid games, but never got very deep into them because I didn’t own them. I had an idea of what I was getting into, but only a small one. I didn’t expect this kind of complexity from a 2D platformer. Ironic, considering that Portrait of Ruin is actually pretty simple compared to other games of its’ genre.

To this day, I can put in Portrait of Ruin and play through it without skipping a beat. The characters are great, the story is surprisingly solid, even if it is largely filler, and the challenge level feels good, even if it isn’t a particularly tough game, with the exception of a few bosses that will just plain kick your ass and one boss fight that is purely luck based.

The story takes place in 1944, during World War II and 27 years after Castlevania: Bloodlines. Johnathan Morris, a distant relative of the Belmonts and current owner of the Vampire Killer whip and Charlotte Aulin, a witch from a family distantly related to the Belnades clan have been tasked with investigating why Dracula’s Castle has returned 55 years earlier than prophesied in place of the Belmonts as a Nostradamus prophesy that stated that the Castle would rise in 1999 also stated that the Belmonts cannot wield the Vampire Killer until then if they wish to end Dracula’s reincarnation cycle.

In the context of Castlevania, this makes perfect sense. Outside of that context, this is a lot of continuity that meant nothing. When I first played the game, I thought there had to be something I was missing, having jumped in so late. Now that I have played other entries to the series, I realize that Portrait of Ruin adds a grand total of nothing to the greater Castlevania mythos.

On it’s own, the story is mostly coherent, though it feels like it would have been better had it not been tied to the Bloodlines story, but it adds nothing to the greater storyline. I mean, sure, Castlevania doesn’t have this big metaplot to connect the stories and they are almost non-linear, but Portrait of Ruin’s story really feels like it was written to establish the Nostradamus prophesy that leads to Dracula’s final defeat… which had already been established in Aria of Sorrow, two games earlier.

In short, the compelling part of this game isn’t in the story.

portrait_mary--screenshot_largeIn the context of other entries to the series, Portrait of Ruin did a few things to stand out from previous Symphony of the Night clones. For one, like with the Sorrow games, Johnathan can wield a variety of swords, spears, axes and others, including, unlike the Sorrow games, whips. Charlotte, being a mage, is restricted to magic books and spells.

Sub-weapons are collected and equipped this time around, similar to the souls system in the Sorrow games, but can be mastered to do more damage as they’re used. Really, when it comes to gameplay, this game feels like a Sorrow game without being a Sorrow game.

Where it differs from even Sorrow is the focus on the two character dynamic. Johnathan and Charlotte are both fully fleshed out characters with their own sets of skills and equipment. Johnathan focuses on the traditional whip-slinging and sub-weapons, while Charlotte is a witch who’s main strength are her magic spells, which range from support spells that I never use to destructive torrents of fire and beams of holy light.

The problem is that, nine times out of ten, you’re going to play as Johnathan. In fact, the entire gimmick of giving the player two characters to control is incredibly underused. There are a few moments where the player needs to juggle both characters to progress, but these are so few that they could have been removed and the game would have been virtually unchanged.

There are some things that were good ideas, like being able to jump off the other character’s shoulders for effectively a triple jump, being able to access Johnathan’s sub-weapons or Charlotte’s spells with the R button, plus the other character will automatically attack whatever you’re attacking if you choose to have them both on screen. Problem with the last one there is you partner takes damage in MP and since both health and MP are shared between the characters, you’re likely to leave him or her in reserve until you need their abilities.

It’s like Konami wanted to have a new gimmick for the game after the touch screen gimmicks went poorly in the last game (seriously, the seal drawing dragged down an otherwise great game), so they shoe-horned in the dual-character gameplay partway through development. It’s also possible that the team just didn’t have time to properly implement the feature since Portrait of Ruin was released barely a year after Dawn of Sorrow, but it is still the game’s biggest flaw.

Ironically, despite the flawed implementation of this system, Charlotte is still one of my favorite Castlevania protagonists. She’s not just a lot of fun to control, she’s also a great example of a female protagonist, even if she is playing second fiddle to Johnathan. She has her own personality and skills. She doesn’t enter Dracula’s castle to impress a love interest, she does it because she has a job to do.

Playing as Charlotte does make the game considerably tougher. She doesn’t have the physical weapons and versatility that Johnathan has and her spells take time to cast. Said spells do serious damage and using them well is the key to getting through the game with her. Still, focusing on playing through the game with her is quite rewarding.

The game’s other gimmick, however, works well. The titular portraits are portals to new worlds created by the game’s antagonist, the vampire Brauner, break up the visual aesthetic very well. One criticism I’m surprised doesn’t get leveled at Castlevania more often is that the castle in each game often uses many of the same kinds of areas and aesthetics. Every game has the steampunkish clock tower, the entry hall, the underground catacombs and waterway and so on and so forth.

These new portrait areas change up the scenery by taking the action out of the castle and into areas like an Egyptian pyramid or a bizarre circus with weird gravity and a black hole in the background. While the game still mostly takes place in Dracula’s castle, these portraits do wonders to add things to do that haven’t been seen in other Castlevania games.

Portrait of Ruin isn’t perfect. It’s got it’s share of problems, but there’s still a lot to love about it. Experienced Metroidvania fans that don’t mind it’s relative lack of challenge will enjoy it as a relaxed experience, while it is probably the ideal starting point for newcomers, despite the story being weighed down by continuity. Regardless, I am very happy that I stumbled on this game.

[wpchatai]