Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

[Rase]

Konami Announces New Castlevania Game for DS. (http://gba.gamespy.com/nintendo-ds/castlevania-ds-2/)

The second DS entry in Konami's blood-curdling vampire hunter series, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin gives the player control of two different characters. The pair – vampire hunter Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Orlean, a young girl with magical abilities – must work to thwart a plan to resurrect Dracula's Castle and unleash a reign of evil upon the unsuspecting world, all within a new World War II setting.

Retaining the same 2D platform realms for which the series is famed, players can switch freely between Jonathan and Charlotte as they progress through the levels. In addition to Jonathan's weapon expertise and Charlotte's spell-casting, both characters can utilise all-new 'Summon' attacks to raise demons to assist them against the Vampire sisters' army. Featuring all-new locations and a cast of over 100 different adversaries, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin marks a welcome return to the DS for the series. Igarashi's Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow has already enjoyed massive success for the format, and his new epic is certain to wow Nintendo users when it is released later in the year.


http://www.generationmp3.com/generationds/images/news/npowercastle.JPG

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/newsPoster/portrait2.jpg

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/newsPoster/portrait1.jpg

[Zeromus_X]

Yeah, heard about it before.

Yet another reason to get a NDS. :cat:

[DeathKnight]

2D greatness! i'll be getting this one.

[Ballistix Man]

Bringing back the Morris's

[Del Murder]

Oh hell yes. Can't get enough of these games.

[Yamaneko]

With two vampire hunters does that mean we won't get equipable weapons, a la CotM and HoD?

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

I am intrigued and even more thankful that I'll be getting a DS. Eventually.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

I was going to make this thread once the E3 trailer was released, but okay.

Just about every shred of information we have about the game right now comes from the most recent issue of Nintendo Power, which had one of those exclusivity deals as magazines are wont to do. Therefore, if you're interested, it would be highly prudent to read that directly.

WHAT (http://www.inverteddungeon.com/ralphy/villa/img/por0.jpg) IS (http://www.inverteddungeon.com/ralphy/villa/img/por1.jpg) A (http://www.inverteddungeon.com/ralphy/villa/img/por2.jpg) MAN (http://www.inverteddungeon.com/ralphy/villa/img/por3.jpg)?

With two vampire hunters does that mean we won't get equipable weapons, a la CotM and HoD?It's been implied that there will be a full repertoire of weapons. Igarashi has stated that he wants to bring some of the gameplay focus back to equipment (after soul collection dominated AoS and DoS), so it would be weird if that didn't include the offensive variety.

[Strider]

No Belmonts? :(

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

E3 trailer (http://media.ds.ign.com/media/774/774649/vids_1.html)
The way both characters are moving around simultaneously, two-player co-op seems to be confirmed.
Igarashi seems to be paying even more attention to the parallax than he did for DoS. PoR's outdoor desert environment seems to have a good four or five layers going on, whereas I don't think any location in DoS had more than three.
Note how the environment changes as the giant sand worm abruptly appears. This kind of in-game drama is reminicent of Rondo of Blood, which used it to great effect.
If Charlotte's "Go!" is any indication, we'll actually be getting English voice acting for this one.

[Rase]

The way both characters are moving around simultaneously, two-player co-op seems to be confirmed.

:up: :up: :up: :up: :up:

Oh man, that just made my week. That is one sweet trailer.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

GameTrailers.com has a brief video interview (http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=2699) with Igarashi. Among other things, he reveals that the "front world" (meaning the main castle, which doesn't include all the additional maps you access through paintings) is larger than the entirety of Dawn of Sorrow.

[Necronopticous]

Oh my God, yes. When will the DS stop rocking?

[Del Murder]

GameTrailers.com has a brief video interview (http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=2699) with Igarashi. Among other things, he reveals that the "front world" (meaning the main castle, which doesn't include all the additional maps you access through paintings) is larger than the entirety of Dawn of Sorrow.
That's awesome. If I had one complaint about DoS it would be that the castle was too short.

[DeathKnight]

Oh my God, yes. When will the DS stop rocking?

HAHAHAHAHAH! I ask myself the same question over and over again:D

Up next, New Super Mario!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:choc2: can't wait.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

Several informal videos of gameplay from the E3 demo can be found here (http://www.gamespot.com/ds/action/castlevaniaportraitofruin/media.html) and here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1jC_kfLmCc). Numerous details both cosmetic and mechanical can be gleamed from this footage; for example, hearts now rotate as they did back in Symphony of the Night, and if you choose to have your second character follow the character you're controlling, s/he'll teleport towards your primary character's location if they get separated.

Additionally, IGN published a brief interview (http://ds.ign.com/articles/708/708195p1.html) with Igarashi yesterday. In it, he reveals that Michiru Yamane, the music composer behind Symphony of the Night, will be returning to compose the bulk of Portrait of Ruin's soundtrack. (She composed less than half of Dawn of Sorrow's soundtrack.) The secondary composer this time around is the renowned Yuzo Koshiro, whose past works include Streets of Rage, ActRaiser, and The Revenge of Shinobi.

[Rase]

The only little thing that bugs me from those videos is the new look of the "Peepers". I much preferred the look from DoS as opposed to thier new, blocky 3D style.

Other than that, it just keeps looking better and better. I especially liked the enemy with the gun, where it showed you the path before firing.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

IGN has two new videos (http://media.ds.ign.com/media/774/774649/vids_1.html) and thirty-six new screenshots (http://media.ds.ign.com/media/774/774649/imgs_1.html).

[Sephex]

Yeah, this looks like this is going to kick so much ass.

[DeathKnight]

loving the fact that's it's OUTDOORS(tired of those DAMN castles). Man and those outdoor stages look awesome...I've always liked creep 2D atmospheres (Ghosts n' Ghouls)

[KentaRawr!]

After playing Dawn of Sorrow, I think I'm going to need this. :p

[Rase]

Watching those videos, I couldn't help but stop and admire the music. Definetly some good stuff right there.

[DeathKnight]

Watching those videos, I couldn't help but stop and admire the music. Definetly some good stuff right there.

Castlevania music: One of the greatests music of ALL TIME.

[black orb]

>>> I wish i had a DS.

[eestlinc]

yea, i'll be buying this.

[Laguna]

Looks good to me. I recently finished Aria of Sorrow and Harmony of Dissonance and now im playing through Dawn of Sorrow. Im really addicted.

[KentaRawr!]

Without counting area's besides the castle, it's an even bigger world than DoS's?

Awesome. Purely awesome. It seems like they are putting alot of hard work into this game. :)

[Reine]

Damn, I really need to start playing these games..ive played one, im sure of it.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

Kurt Kalata of The Castlevania Dungeon has uploaded four arranged PoR MP3s (http://castlevania.classicgaming.gamespy.com/new.html), presumably from an E3 sampler disc. You need to register at FilePlanet in order to download them, but it only takes a second.

[Moon Rabbits]

All post snes Castlevania's sucked.

Well at least the PS2 ones anyway.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

So there was a new Portrait of Ruin demo at the San Diego Comic-Con. In addition to there being more ground to cover than in the E3 build, the menu screen and equipment management were implemented, and the quality of the music was drastically improved. GameVideos (http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/4703) and IGN (http://media.ds.ign.com/media/774/774649/vids_1.html) have got some footage.

Also: a highly brief Igarashi interview (http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/4820) and the revelation of some new artwork (http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200607/N06.0721.2255.01812.htm).

[Necronopticous]

I was a little sad when I found out that the second protagonist on screen was not being controlled by another human player cooperatively via wi-fi, however, this is definitely my most anticipated DS title aside from Final Fantasy III. I already consider Dawn of Sorrow to be probably the best in the series, I can't wait to see where Portrait of Ruin will take it from here.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

New screenshots and artwork (http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=6723) have been culled from a recent issue of Famitsu. And not that it matters to any of us, but the same issue also pegged the game's Japanese release date as November 16.

Some highlights.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/2.jpg
Here's our first look at the status display that appears in the top screen as the action progresses on the touch screen. At the top are what appear to be the active character's stats, any stat bonuses gained from his or her current equipment, and then the support character's stats. Below that are the character's weapon and subweapon--in this case Tetsu no Muchi ("Iron Whip") and Rampage (no idea)--as well as a third icon that I don't believe we've seen before and whose purpose is hence unknown.

Edit: Maybe the third icon is where the elemental properties of your equipped weapon or subweapon are marked? I don't know.

At the very bottom is your condensed bestiary showing the last enemy you touched, looking similar to how it appeared in DoS except for a few refinements: each item an enemy can yield now appears to have its own rarity rating, and you can now view the enemy's HP, how much experience it's worth, and how many of them you've already killed. This is more than helpful considering HP and experience stats were completed absent even from DoS's fullscale bestiary.



http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/4.jpg
See that little diamond icon between the HP/MP bars and the character icons? Yeah, I still don't know what that thing's for.



http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/5.jpg http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/6.jpg
Another first look, this is what the girls call a conversation scene--probably one of the game's opening dialogues considering where it takes place. The portraits are looking good, and that figure on the right may be Brauner, the game's main antagonist.



http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/7.jpg http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/8.jpg
Here's an example of the kind of puzzles you'll have to manage with the character-switching mechanic: hop on the statue as Charlotte, switch to Jonathan to push it into the proper position, then switch back to Charlotte to leap to higher ground. Yes, in addition to slaying the undead minions of the Lord of Darkness, the Castlevania series now allows you to rock it like Ico and Yorda.

Like the conversation scene (and prettymuch all of these shots, really), this is likely to play out close to the beginning of the game, since the tileset appears to be native to the first area of the castle as seen in demo footage, and since the characters obviously don't have the double-jump ability yet.



http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/10.jpg
There's nothing special going on here, but...just look at that setup, man! I'm overjoyed to see this game's designers returning to an ideal that was prevalent in Symphony of the Night but sort of drifted to the wayside as the series continued--specifically, to make the game's environments appear and function as actual physical locations would, as opposed to just having a bunch of platforms hanging in midair as they would in a game like Super Mario Bros. Additionally, the sheer amount of detail and style invested in the graphics appear to be well beyond what we saw for the majority of DoS. I guess what I am saying here is that Portrait of Ruin is all set to be a very pretty game, guys.



http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/art02.jpg http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/art03.jpg
Here's that artwork I mentioned. If you look at the artwork from when the game was first revealed, you can see it's been revised quite a bit.



http://www.gamesarefun.com/games/ds/castlevaniapor/art01.jpg
Oh, no! Zombies ate Jon's legs! =O

[Yamaneko]

Mario & Luigi: Portrait of Ruin, anyone?

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

A metric ton of new video game material was released today from the Leipzig Game Conference--so much, in fact, that it completely overshadowed Konami's own Summer BBQ event. They may want to schedule that thing more carefully next year. Fortunately, the gaming press nevertheless made it a priority to collect a great deal of new videos, screenshots, and information regarding Portrait of Ruin.

GameSpot
Videos (http://www.gamespot.com/ds/action/castlevaniaportraitofruin/media.html)
Screenshots (http://www.gamespot.com/ds/action/castlevaniaportraitofruin/screenindex.html)
Preview (http://www.gamespot.com/ds/action/castlevaniaportraitofruin/news.html?sid=6156293&mode=previews)

GameSpot has the latest official trailer as well as four gameplay videos from the latest demo build. Many new environments can be seen, and even areas that were featured in past builds have now been spruced up with additional graphical details, enemies, and items. Even the instrumentation in the soundtrack has been tweaked yet again since Comic-Con. GameSpot also has a handful of new screenshots, one of which shows of the game's two-player cooperative mode.

GS's preview expands upon storyline details and gameplay systems that were hinted at when Portrait was first revealed last April, most notably pertaining to Wind, the aformentioned "ghost from the past war." In addition to acquiring items and equipment from exploration and purchasing them from the resident merchant, Wind will provide you with unique spoils provided you go out and perform certain tasks for him throughout the game world. While ultimately boiling down to a series of fetch quests, it does add a new element to occupy the player while navigating Dracula's castle and Brauner's paintings.

Another exciting revelation from the BBQ is that, if the trailer is any indication, the game has been given full English voice acting--a treatment not received by a 2D game in this series since Symphony of the Night back in '97. Rest assured that Portrait's voiceovers are much more competent than Symphony's infamous rush job, though.



IGN
IGN has the same screenshots as GameSpot except with an instrusive "IGN.COM" watermark emblazoned upon each one (http://media.ds.ign.com/media/774/774649/imgs_1.html). But you can get the BBQ trailer (http://media.ds.ign.com/media/774/774649/vids_1.html) in .mov format if you're into that kind of thing.