Sunday, July 8, 2007

Review Time

Time for a Review folks, I have nothing to do and I just finished my new game: Castlevania:Portrait of ruins and want to review it simply because this game is a masterpiece: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruins. Review by: IHZ Console: Nintendo DS Publisher:Konami Developers:Konami Release Date:December 5 2006 Designers:Koji Igarashi (producer) Michiru Yamane (composer) Yuzo Koshiro P.S: names of the producers comes from Wikipedia so I give them credit sfor that. Let's just begin with a short sypnosis about Castlevania, this series of videogames that began in 1986 on the NES(Nintendo intertaintment system, the first nintendo's Gaming console). Highly inspirated from Bramh Stocker's Dracula novel, Castlevania is a Story about a family Clan cursed to fight Dracula each time he was to be revived using a legendary whip their first ancestor crafted called the Vampire Killer, this weapon is a Whip possessing The divine power of God used to banish everything that is unpure. The first Game was simply Called "Castlevania" and portrayed simple graphics and sprites but an intense and frustrating gameplay. The first belmont we had the honor to play as is Simon Belmont(Castlevania, castlevania II simon's Quest,Castlevania 4, and arcade Game and Castlevania Anthology on the Playstation), but he wasn't the firts Belmont of his lineage. The fight against Dracula began on the Gameboy in the 90's when a game was released telling the story of Sonia Belmont, the First of the Belmont Family to Challenge Dracula in the years of 1400. Since then, Dracula Sweared to return again and again until he could achieve his goal of ruining the world and the Belmonts sweared to always be there once he would come back, so the prophecy was born, once in every century, Dracula would come back to work his Black Magic and revive his Castle, the source of all his powers. Portrait of Ruins take place in 1944, In the turmoil of world War II. Dracula was only meant to ressurect in 1999, However, another Vampire by the name of Braunher Revived the Castlevania(Dracula's Castle) using the tormented souls of WWII's victims. However, the Belmonts were not to touch the whip until their time in 1999, so in the meantime, the Morris family, one of the Belmont's cousin family, was given the burden of standing up everytime a Demonic menace was to raise. and in this time, someone was planning in reviving Dracula before his time in 1999(that was done countless times before). However, the Morris family, Only relative to the Belmont by Blood, cannot use the full power of the Vampire Killer and the latest memeber of the Morris Family is Johnathan Morris, and you're incarnating him in the game as well as Charlotte Aulin and you must stop the Menace that Braunher is trying to revive. You incarnate Johnathan Morris, a young 18 years old guy who is hot headed and rely on his emotions, take quick decisions and like it when it's simple. He might seem dumb but he is not, in time he can show that he is very clever. he travels with his childhood friend Charlotte Aulin, younger than Johnathan with her 16 years old, she is a Magician who use devastating spells in battle, a true scholar, she tends to be unemotional and rely on her book knowledge instead. She likes to detail everything and take careful decisions. she and Johnathan are complete opposites, but they fill the void for each other's lack in emotions or knowledge which makes them a perfect duo. through the whole game they stay as friend and no love story develops between them which is great since it makes things more original. they make a perfect duo in battle and in friendship. The game itself is familiar due to the fact that it is a Metroidvania, this is a term we use since Symphony of the Night(Playstation one 1997) because Symphony of the Night introduced a new system kind of like the Metroid games: instead of having a "jump on plateforms and clear the level" game, which was what the Castlevanias were before, it introduce a system of research through a huge Map(in this case, the entire Castle of Dracula)to find upgrades which allows you to go through areas of the map you couldn't reach before. the game is also based on Level upping your characters like in RPG games. You start at Level 1 and by fighting enemies and gaining experience you raise your levels and get stat boosts which makes you stronger. but the game keeps its 2D aspects and give you free will over your attacks so it's not like the RPG where you have aturn based strategy fights with random enemy encounters, in Castlevania you move in a 2D frame and fight enemies using your weapon with the touch of a button. you also have special attacks and magic speels to help you on your way as well as new equipments, armors and weapons to gain in power through the game which add a lot more to the strategic point of the game, if you're not strong enough and don't ahve the proprer equipment you won't stand a chance against some bosses and area of the castle which is why you cannot freely explore the whole castle at once. Which differ to a hack and slash game where you just have to unleash brute force on the waves of enemies in front of you. In this game, you fight undeads and tons of classic horror monsters as well as monsters from classic legends such as werewolves and dragons through Dracula's Castle. but this time, the castle was made a lot smaller than in the last games due to the fact that Braunher uses the power of his paintings to incarnate paralel universes in which you have to travel to defeat the boss and unlock its seal. Through the painting. There is 4 worlds incarnated in paintings in which you can travel, a Lodonian style city, an old Egyptian Pyramid, A circus and a scientific Academy, later in the game you'll be allowed to go through the same world but in evil versions such as the 13th street which is the evil reproduction of the Londonian city, The forgotten city which is the evil version of the Pyramid but buried underground and so on... In the game you are allowed a few choices that will change the final ending and it's up to you to make these choices or not. there is 3 endings to the game, a bad one, a good one and the true ending of the story. The bad one is the easiest one to get, the good one involve curing the fake last boss from vampirism and beat Braunher and the true ending needs to cure the fake last boss, unlock the power of the Vampire Killer, beat Braunher and then beat Dracula. Youa re not allowed to figth Dracula until you have unlocked the Vampire Killer's powers and Beaten Braunher. One of the neat aspect of this is that when you are given the choice of going through the trial to unlock the Whip's Power, the Trial is to Fight the Whip's Memory of the Last Belmont that used it. the Last true Belmont to use the Whip was Richter Belmont (Rondo of Blood 1995, Dracula X 1996, Symphony of the night 1997). Richter is my favorite Member of the Belmont Family, he fought Dracula in 1760 and has the neated style of them all. he also have kickass powers. So you need to fight him...a very very tough fight, and once you beat him, you can use the Vampire Killer at full Strenght. The game system is based on cooperation with your team mate Charlotte(or Johnathan, you can switch between them at any time). you can call your partner to fight alongside you depending of who you control, if you control Johnathan it'll be Charlotte and the other way around. you can also perform a combined attack calle dDual Crush which use the power of both characters to perform a giga powerful attack that consume a lots of MP. with Johnathan, you'll be using physical attacks with weapons such as swords, whips, spears or axes Which means that Johnathan is the powerhouse of your group and in every tight spot where you need to go close combat you MUST use him. Charlotte is a spell caster, which means she's not strong at physical attacks, use her to cast from afar and plan on carrying Magic potions. the enemies through the games will be given attributes which means they have weaknesses and strenght, by example a Fire Demon will be weak against a certain number of attacks, then will be very weak to a certain type of element, in this case, Water and Ice, and will be extra resistant to a type of element, the fire, and depending of the enemy it can to to physical resistance to magical resistance. use both characters in consequences. Giving you a hint there: Try to unlock the Power of the Vampire Killer, This whip is not the strongest weapon of the game by hitting power, but it has extremely high holy attributes, and since pretty much every enemies in the game are weak to holy, it will deal lots of extra damage to them. be careful though, some enemies are resistant to holy so against them your whip will deal no extra damage. in their case use Charlotte's magic to defeat them. I'm used to hear great music in Castlevania games, the composers Michiru Yamane and Yuzo Koshiro are geniuses. however, in portraits of ruins, the music is a tad bit less impressive than in the last installments. I must say, though, that there is some of them that are just awesome, The battle against Richter Belmont wa sGiven a remix of Richter's theme, Opposite Bloodline, which is plain awesome, however, the classic titles popular to the Castlevania franchise: Bloody Tear and Vampire Killer were not composed which dissapointed me. the Game has a crapload of extras to unlock. once you get the true ending you can play a new game as Richter Belmont and Maria as well as play a game as the sisters. however, there is way too much stuff to unlock it becomes ridiculous, however the extras are neat. for this game I would give a 9/10 This is indeed a Masterpiece, but like everything, it doesn't deserve a perfect score, there is some inevitable flaws such as the fact the system of research and leveling up is the same as all the games before, the music is not all that good, but the story is good since it's a sequel to Castlevania Bloodline where you were controlling Johnathan's Father John Morris. the sequel is true to bloodline and keeps in the spirit of 1944. In all and all, it's a game that you shouldn't miss if you possess a Nintendo DS. P.S: Don't be fooled by the fact I've finished it in 3 days, I'm just an hardcore gamer that couldn't lay off my DS while playing. the game is actually pretty long.

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