Game: Castlevania – Portrait of Ruin
Yes, I actually finally managed to get and complete one of the games that I’ve been searching for for ages. Castlevania PoR is the second CV game on the Nintendo DS, it is a 2D scroller with action RPG elements (experience points, equipment, custom skills, etc.). The game’s storyline is pretty lame, just like the majority of castlevania games, but the gameplay is awesome. The dual character system is really tight, quick, and adds a new depth to the game, the game progress is quite non-linear with a lot of extra items, spells, and quests to complete even after completing the game. A new feature that I found really helpful and was actually surprised not many people had it in their games was the ability to mark up certain spots on the map to check certain areas again later. It’s so basic, and the use of the style to position those ‘bookmark-like’ markers was just perfect.
A new edition to the game were the WIFI coop mode and the WIFI shop mode. While the concept itself is cool, in reality I did not enjoy any of these modes. Just like the majority of DS games, online gameplay is not about the community, but about being able to play with somebody you know while you’re away. I do not know if that makes any sense to the reader, but there is no online portal that you login to, see who’s online and then decide to play with those people, chat with them, save them to your list, and ‘play with the community’. All you can do is, either play with people you already know from somewhere, you have to input their friendcode, which is an annoyingly long, telephone-like number, or you can just play with random people, that you connect with during that match only and then never see them online again. I did not think that it was fun, because even for the people that you already know the gameplay is not seamless, there is nothing like an alert that tells me someone I know is online so that I can go and play with them, I just have to check and search every once in a while. If I wanted to play with someone I know, I need to call that person and tell him to search for online people from his list (people he added using their long friendcodes), and I then go online, search for online people from my list and only then I can play with that person. Urgh.
That is not to say specifically that CV PoR online modes suck, because the procedure I described is the same for almost all DS games with online gameplay capabilities, THEY ALL SUCK.
Anyway, CV PoR is a really great game nonetheless, the extras awarded by completing the game are really worth it, there is an extra new gameplay mode that introducing a whole new gaming concept to the CV series based solely on touch in-put, another one with Richter playing in the traditional way but in impressive action-packed speed.
I was really pleased with this game, and I’m looking forward to new 2D episodes in the series, especially the new remake of Dracula X on the PSP. I managed to get this game from a gameshop hidden upstairs in Al Wadi Center in Qurum.
