by Gamerforlife Sat Jan 01, 2011 3:02 pm
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin(Beaten IN FULL as I avoided the bad ending this time)
This was a game I had played on and off again in 2010. I finally committed to it recently and had posted it as my last game beaten in the 2010 thread, but I got the bad ending and only saw half of the game. Well I finished it in full today on New Year's Day and I have to say, the game was a lot of fun. I don't really expect much from 2D Castlevania games. I expect them to just recycle Symphony of the Night and provide me with an experience that is fun, but also very familiar(like 2D Mega Man games). In fact, in the case of Order of Ecclesia(the last Metroidvania game I had played before this one), I got a game that wasn't even as good as Symphony of the Night. However, Portrait of Ruin surprised me. It was actually a LOT more fun than Order of Ecclesia. Order of Ecclesia messed with the SOTN formula too much with the annoying Glyph system and the lack of a connected world. Portrait of Ruin keeps the SOTN formula untouched, but refines some things, adds a light hearted anime art style and cooperative gameplay between the two main characters
The tag team gameplay really works well. It's like the 2D equivalent of games like Ico, Enslaved, Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom and Resident Evil 5. It works really well here with certain parts of the game being innacessible unless you get the two characters to work together. The co-op gameplay is also used very creatively in certain boss battles as well like attacking a certain boss from both sides or another boss fight where you can get caught by a trap that will instantly kill you unless the second character frees you from it. For combat purposes, many of the gameplay mechanics here feel like Marvel vs Capcom. You can summon your partner onscreen for an attack at any time like assists in MvC, you can perform team super attacks like MvC and you can summon your partner to stay onscreen permanently and fight with you like the crossover mode in MvC. Your partner's health is determined by your magic points. When they hit zero, your partner is down and out, but can be summoned back when you gradually regenerate your MP.
I used to be pretty dead set on SOTN's art style being the best for Castlevania in 2D and was happy to see it return in Order of Ecclesia. However, I really enjoyed the anime art style in POR and also enjoyed the variety of enemy character designs as well as the entertaining sound bites some of them have. POR officially has one of my fave enemies of all time now. A demon maid who attacks you with kung fu and a demon vacuum cleaner. That's FUCKING AWESOME!
This game's only flaw, like SOTN, Order of Ecclesia and probably every other 2D Metroidvania game is that collecting items is annoying due to low enemy drop rates. Fortunately, being a portable game means you can distract yourself with something like the tv, while you constantly respawn that one enemy who refuses to drop that uber item that you want(like the eye of decay item, which really opens up the game). This is why games with japanese rpg elements work better on portables I think. Other than that, the game is perfect. It feels more refined in many ways than SOTN which I guess shouldn't surprise me given that it's not the first game to copy SOTN. However, it's a better game than Order of Ecclesia(AND Lords of Shadow) despite the fact that Order of Ecclesia came out after it. I'd rate the the game a 9 out of 10
RyaNtheSlayA wrote:
Seriously. Screw you Shao Kahn I'm gonna play Animal Crossing.