Nintendo DS News | Details On Castlevania: Portrait Of Ruin #1 at Nintendo Cubed3

The recently announced Castlevania: Portrait Of Ruin is the follow up to recent DS success Dawn Of Sorrow, in which players take control of vampire hunter Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Orlean, a young girl with exceptional magical abilities, as they wander through a WWII-era setting attempting to stop some pesky lost souls resurrecting Dracula's Castle. As with Dawn Of Sorrow, Portrait Of Ruin will be a 2D-side scrolling action-adventure title and looks to be coming to Europe in November this year.

Courtesy of GameFront.de, we have a host of new information that has been expertly translated with the magic of pure love for Cubed3 readers (read: we used Lycos and then made it into actual English). For your enjoyment:

A vampire named Brauner is the one who is leading the quest of summoning Dracula's castle. He is supported by his twin daughters, Loretta and Stella. Brauner is an artist, specifically a painter, and so the subtitle is a pun on this.

The 'portrait of ruin' in question functions as a teleporter to take characters to different locations, possibly including Egyptian deserts and 'Misty Town'.

Jonathan fights using swords and the Vampire Killer whip.

Characters gain levels and their abilities increase as they do so.

The developers are focusing more on weaponry, objects and accessories than the 'Skill Collecting' exhibited in Dawn Of Sorrow.

Charlotte is a descendent of the Fernandez/Belnades clan, which have strong roots in magic. She is affiliated with the church.

Charlotte and Jonathan grew up together with a strong, platonic friendship.

Michiru Yamane has returned to create the soundtrack. She has been involved with many of the Castlevania titles, but only supplied a few tracks on Dawn Of Sorrow.

Action takes place on the bottom screen, with the top screen displaying character and opponent statistics and a map, as in Dawn Of Sorrow.

Portrait Of Ruin is expected to be longer than Dawn Of Sorrow.

Some enemy design returns from Dracula X: Rondo Of Blood on PC Engine (never released outside of Japan) and Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night on Playstation.

The team involved with Portrait Of Ruin is larger than the Dawn Of Sorrow team was, and some members of the team previously worked on Castlevania: Circle Of The Moon on Gameboy Advance.

The game will run on an improved Dawn Of Sorrow engine.

The stylus is not supported.

Co-op and versus modes are planned for play over Nintendo WiFi Connection. An online shop is also in discussion for buying items.

An animated introduction is planned.

We also have some new screens of the title, although unfortunately some of them are a little blurred. We hope to be able to bring you higher quality versions soon. You can see the screens in our screens album for Castlevania: Portrait Of Ruin below.

Stick with C3 for more details as they come...