Continuing the Castlevania franchise's very successful outing on portable platforms, Portrait of Ruin once again serves as a direct followup to an earlier game in the franchise - in this case, the Sega Genesis outing Castlevania: Bloodlines. But does its new two-character gameplay and a heightened focus on puzzles and sidequests add to the experience, or does the Portrait get ruined by its own ambitions?
The "Metroidvania" style Castlevania games were of course quite popular on the GBA, so when Nintendo's new handheld system rolled around it wasn't long before they began to appear on that platform too. The first, Dawn of Sorrow, was a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow, utilizing similar gameplay with a couple new features mapped to the face buttons (being able to swap between two soul and equipment sets on the fly being the notable one) and some touchscreen gimmicks added; most annoyingly requiring you to quickly draw out a seal on the bottom screen or the bosses would regenerate a big chunk of health and continue the fight - a pretty annoying thing when the battles were already pretty difficult to begin with and fumbling with a stylus while focusing on dodging and attacking got to be pretty frustrating.
Portrait of Ruin thankfully largely exhumes the touch screen gimmicks (only utilizing them in a couple of bonus game modes) and instead builds on the idea of having multiple movesets, though this time it's in the form of two separate characters to control. Jonathan is the more archetypal Castlevania protagonist, utilizing various melee weapons and sub-weapons like throwing daggers, axes and boomerangs (as well as temporary stat-boosting "stances"), while Charlotte is more of a mage-type character, with a weaker primary attack and generally lower physical stats, but with the ability to cast spells that can really lay on the damage (and be charged up for greater effect). Not all of her spells are offensive, though - some can also heal, cure status effects, buff your characters' stats temporarily or even morph them into different forms. Both characters share experience levels and the same health and magic meters, but have separate stats and equipment pages, with many items usable by one character but not the other. Jonathan's subweapons gain SP when enemies are defeated with them, getting a power upgrade when you earn enough points. These can be a bit grindy if you want full completion, but most players can get by just picking one or two that they like and focusing on using those. Ironically I found the Shuriken to be one of the most useful sub-weapons despite it being among the quickest to master.
As in some earlier Castlevania titles, you can swap between Jonathan and Charlotte on the fly by pressing the X button, letting you adapt your strategies to traverse certain obstacles or deal with enemies a particular character is more suited to. However, Portrait of Ruin expands on the concept by giving you a variety of ways to utilize both characters in tandem. You can call out your partner briefly for one quick attack with the R button, or press A to have both characters active at once - generally to solve various puzzles by having them do things like stand in one spot to activate a switch, help push a heavy object or jump off their shoulders to reach a high ledge. Pressing Up + A also does a team-up attack that generally drains a large chunk of your magic gauge and roots you to the spot while it's active, but can deal heavy damage when timed well. While both characters are out only the one you're actively controlling takes damage, though if the other is hit they'll deplete some of your magic gauge instead; if the magic gauge hits 0 they'll be stunned for several seconds, locking you out of any ability to swap out or use any special or team-up moves until they recover.
Shops return once more so you can buy new equipment or potions for the boss battles, but new to this game are sidequests. These are given to you throughout the game by the "Wind", and are rather bizarrely referred to in the menu as "studies" (and the act of working toward completing one is "studying"). Most of these are optional (you must do the first one to progress as it unlocks a key move), but they are are worth doing because they earn you powerful equipment, items or new skills.
Something else relatively new to the series is that there are multiple areas to explore now; not just one huge map. Portraits serve as portals to sub-areas, giving the game a wider variety of locales than just "another big labyrinthine castle". There's nine of them in total, ranging from a twisted circus to an Egyptian pyramid to a medieval village with numerous houses and shops. Something slightly confusing is that rather than giving each map its own completion percentage, it simply accumulates them all together on the menu; so by the time I was most of the way through my first Portrait the completion counter was over 100% and kept going up as I continued in the game. It tops out at 1000 once you've explored all ten maps, though you'll have to return to some areas to get items that aren't accessible the first time through, so backtracking is a definite requirement if you want full completion.
Portrait of Ruin is a game I didn't really pay much mind when it released, but giving it another shot on the Dominus collection made me realize I was missing out on something great. It's a solidly designed game, and unlike Dawn of Sorrow, the new gimmick actually complements the gameplay quite well - swapping between two characters and tactically teaming up to take down foes and get past obstacles is surprisingly fun and intuitive. The series of course maintains its usual high standards for visuals and music too, with the dark yet fun atmosphere of Castlevania fully represented even in the strange new locales you visit. Even the voicework is surprisingly good, and of high quality for the DS. Koji Igarashi strikes gold once again.
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Released: 2006
Platforms: Nintendo DS. Also rereleased as part of the Castlevania Dominus Collection for PS4, XBox Series, PC and Switch.
Recommended Version: The Dominus Collection port is an emulation of the DS game, with right-stick (or touchpad) emulation for the touch screen features.