ew information on Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin has been scarce since the first playable demo all the way back at E3. But now Konami’s ripping the lid off of it. Our demo began with the very first look at PoR’s snazzy anime intro, which we aren’t allowed to show. But to make up for it, we have an all-new trailer and plenty of direct feed of the game in action.
As we all know, Jonathan and Charlotte (a vampire hunter and mage, respectively) team up during the World War II era to take down the latest occupants of Dracula’s castle. It has been revealed that new rivals Stella and Loretta will do everything in their power to make it tough for you to get around their master’s lair (who is apparently not Dracula). The evil boss has painted several evil portraits and hung them throughout the castle, and you must jump inside them to defeat the beasts within. This will actually take players out of the castle quite often. We saw a desert pyramid stage in action and were told to expect even more varied environments like bombed out cities, snow levels, and other “odd dimensions.”
One of the first things we noticed while playing the latest build was the prevalent communication between the two main characters and NPCs. As you come across a priest outside of the castle, he expresses hope that Jonathan can wield the Vampire Killer whip to take down the fiends of the night. Charlotte then teases Jonathan about not being able to use the historic whip because he’s not a full-blooded Belmont. In fact, you can constantly check what these uneasy allies think of each other and the situations around them using the “talk” selection in the menu screen. Plus, it’s just fun to swap characters periodically just to hear them shout each other’s names.
In addition to exploring the game in a traditional Symphony of the Night style, players can also visit a spirit named Wind who will dole out missions to complete. These tasks are optional for the most part, but strongly recommended for the rewards they produce.
While Jonathan uses traditional secondary attacks like the knife toss and axe throw, Charlotte has a slightly different magic system. She will gain new spells from defeating enemies as well as finding them stashed around the castle. Each spell has several weak to strong variants depending upon how long you are able to charge it up without being attacked. We pulled off some impressive special combo attacks as well. Everything from a crazy melee team up to a screen-filling blast of lightening to a menacing tornado of crosses does much to clear out even the nastiest of enemies.
PoR will feature co-op play, but it’s not what you think. Players can team up with a friend over the internet or locally, but only for Boss Rush mode. However, one of the more intriguing uses for the Nintendo WiFi Connection is player created shops. This means that hardcore players who search out every item and powerup in the game will be able to sell them to others over the net for crazy prices. But at least some won’t have to spend countless hours tracking down those last few rare drops.
We’ll have more on Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin as it gets closer to the November release.