Having reviewed Portrait of Ruin, I’d been playing it for a couple of months before its fall release. So it wasn’t really a Christmas game per se. It’s just that Portrait of Ruin happened to land right at the thickest froth of my Castlevania/metroidvania obsession, so I played it, well, obsessively.
I played and replayed Portrait several times after its launch, basically maxing out the save files on my cartridge — mastering all the sub-weapons, defeating the arena, completing the game in various forms. Despite it being probably the weakest of the DS Castlevania games. Ah, what a wonder it was to have free time back in those days.
But it was only over Christmas break, when I decided to play the Sisters Mode, that I discovered the secret best thing about Portrait of Ruin: Zombie-slaying for distance. See, all the Igarashi Castlevania games offered some sort of bonus unlockable mode upon completion (or completion under certain conditions), usually allowing players to control alternate characters. Richter in Symphony of the Night, Maxim in Harmony of Dissonance, the rad Castlevania III riff in Dawn of Sorrow… never quite as polished and balanced as the main game, but always a fun alternate approach.
Portrait of Ruin doubled the pleasure. Or… quintupled it, I guess? Sextupled? I don’t know how to count. The entire premise of the game mechanics had to do with swapping instantly between two different characters, and that carried over into the bonus modes. The hilariously misspelled “Richiter” mode let you play as both Richter Belmont and Maria Renard (young version; I am pretty sure, after seeing his look of distaste when we had him play the Saturn version, that the adult Maria sprites added to that version have been permanently stricken from the planet by IGA’s own hand), which was pretty fun. The real treasure, however, wasn’t knowledge; it was “Sisters” mode, in which you could play as the recently de-vampirized “daughters” of the villain, Brauner.
Sisters mode was basically IGA’s apology for making us draw seals in order to beat bosses in Dawn of Sorrow. The sisters controlled entirely with the stylus, but get this: It was bonkers fun. The stylus not only controlled their movements, it also directed their skills. One sister played like a shoot-em-up, wherein the contact point of your stylus determined your target, but the other was where the fun began. Her attacks were input through swipes of the stylus, and in a nice little touch, certain elements had physics attached to them that responded to the direction of your swipes.
This wasn’t a new feature in the Castlevania games; certain enemies came apart in Dawn of Sorrow based on the direction and force of your actions. Zombies in particular: Depending on the sword Soma destroyed them with, they’d crumble to pieces in different ways. That carried over into Portrait, and into Sisters mode, which meant that depending on how you hit a zombie with your stylus, you could send its head flying for distance.
For some idiotic reason, this became my favorite thing about the game, and I spent entirely too many hours of my Christmas break cruising around the zombie-heavy areas trying to see how far I could send a zombie head. There was no point to it, no way to track performance, and no rewards on offer for a skill slice. It was just fun. And really, that should be plenty of reason to do a dumb thing in a video game.
That linked post ends on an unintentionally bittersweet note, as you mention talking to Igarashi about future DS Castlevania games :-(
This was the first Metroid-styled ‘vania I ever really sat down and played, and I loved it– still a favorite.
After having the wind taken out of my sails post game by Richter and Maria, though, I put it down and never bothered with the sisters. Clearly, I need to remedy this!
Yeah, POR *is* a lot of fun. It gets a lot of (not-undeserved) flak for artificially extending the game via recycled level assets, but it’s still a solid experience with much more & deeper content than it gets credit for, and a lot of neat, small touches besides. For instance, I always got a kick out of the atypical-for-Castlevania way Jonathan looks when he uses a whip.
When I played through, I used Jonathan & his physical attacks most of the time, deploying Charlotte & her spells only at key instances or as a special attack. Later, I learned (I think on this site’s forum) that other people did it exactly the opposite. Some unexpected variety there.
I liked POR, but it is the weakest of the DS ‘vanias. Luckily, the music makes up for that since it’s the strongest of all the portable ‘vanias.
Also, the picture. Whoever took that pic was cheating like hell, look at the energy count :P
Well, I had a little help from my friend Mr. Shark.
Mr. Perfect? I didn’t know you visited these parts of town.
Hmm, I just realized that in switching over from anatomyofgames.com I don’t have the blanket screenshot sourcing credit for VG Museum anymore. D’oh!
I unlocked sisters mode and played it for a few seconds before realising that as a lefty I was permanently barred from ever being able to play it comfortably. Such is the pain of touchscreen inputs combined with buttons.
Still, fun game overall. Wish I could play it again, but the cart is lost somewhere in my parent’s house, never to be found again. A shame.
For some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I never managed to get very far into Portrait, despite devouring Ecclesia (and of course SotN). I think I remember running into roadblocks while trying to game the quest system or something. A shame since there seem to be some interesting things in the extras, though going by the above commenter I’d probably have trouble with Sisters mode anyway.
Portrait of Ruin disappointed me in quite a few ways, but the characters definitely weren’t one of them. Both Jonathan and Charlotte have some fun toys to play with.
Didn’t put much playtime into Sisters mode since I’m a lefty and didn’t get adequate at holding a stylus in my right until Pokémon Y, but I did enjoy the secret Old Axe Armor mode. Unlike SotN where it was a joke item that’s terrible at jumping, this one’s designed so you can play through the whole game as it. Good times.
All of these games are my favorite. Iga had that formula down to a science. They all have great variety in locations, RPG leveling elements, tons of worthwhile secrets to find, great music, and sensible level design. Essentially, they tick all of the boxes that games should to keep you interested.