Nintendo DS News | Details On Castlevania: Portrait Of Ruin

By Mike Mason 25.04.2006 4

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...

    Box art for Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
    Developer

    Konami

    Publisher

    Konami

    Genre

    2D Platformer

    Players

    2

    C3 Score

    Rated $score out of 10  9/10

    Reader Score

    Rated $score out of 10  8/10 (12 Votes)

    European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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    Comments

    no stylus support???!!! How in the world, then does this differ from making castlevania on the GBA?? Besides duel screen of course.

    EDIT: Oh, and enhanced visualls of course...

    ( Edited on 25.04.2006 16:34 by Pie Man )

    Looks good, the fact that the touch screen functions will be removed is great as the touch screen features in DoS seemed gimmicky.

    Co-op and versus modes are planned for play over Nintendo WiFi Connection

    Smilie SOLD!

    Yeah the stylus was a bit pointless really in DoS although i did like smashing the ice but i won't miss it, although i will miss making the little picture on the save fileSmilie.

    XBL Gamertag: James2t3

    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.

    This in particular has got many people salivating already. Her soundtracks are VERY good indeed...

    Adam Riley [ Director :: Cubed3 ]

    UNITE714: Weekly Prayers | Bible Verses

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