Topic: What makes portrait of ruin a load of Castlevania BS?

[Mach 7]

Well I've been seeing a lot of negative reception towards

PoR and I've always wondered. What makes PoR undesirable?

Aside from, the anime drawing style, and the childish dialogue.

I've actually enjoyed the game, and I just wanted to know why other players don't like it, additionaly it has been rated decently at gamespot and the like, further making myself ponder on the question even more.

so Castlevania peeps please
enlighten me and give me reasons why PoR is hated, bashed and what not, opinions will be appreciated!

[A n t r a x x]

In Reply To #1

I am about to write a piece about this very topic for a review site. So I'll link it when it's done.

In a nutsehell,

There's MANY reasons:

- Generic anime style.

- Some truly awful and silly looking new enemies

- The sprites in general aren't even as good as DOS

- Main castle is boring in layout, execution and art. Some rooms have nothing more than a black backdrop, pretty much. Too small, too.

- Portrait stages feature fresh ideas, but fail in level design because they simply repeat layouts too much. If there's a game that feels like what COD did wrong, but in 2D, it's POR's painting stages. They feel too long, linear and uninspired, considering the potential they could have harnessed.

- Jonathan and Charolotte are now the "Scrappy Doo and Cousin Oliver" of the series. Little annoying wonder twins that act like tweenies in their twenties. Their banter is neither charming nor productive, and their portraits are rather lacking in emotion.

- The soundtrack was solid, but most of the treats came in form of Bloodlines', Curse of Darkness and Haunted Castle remixes. THe new stuff was a little underwhelming and quiet (perhaps to match the blandness of the stages)

- The "quests" are confusing and vague.

I could go on...

Portrait of Ruin sounded like such a good idea when the info was first leaked. But it turned out to be a rushed and thrown together attempt at both lowering the age of the target audience and trying to make the castle bigger just because.

[ChibiMaddiChan]

In Reply To #1

I am about to write a piece about this very topic for a review site. So I'll link it when it's done.

In a nutsehell,

There's MANY reasons:

- Generic anime style.

- Some truly awful and silly looking new enemies

- The sprites in general aren't even as good as DOS

- Main castle is boring in layout, execution and art. Some rooms have nothing more than a black backdrop, pretty much. Too small, too.

- Portrait stages feature fresh ideas, but fail in level design because they simply repeat layouts too much. If there's a game that feels like what COD did wrong, but in 2D, it's POR's painting stages. They feel too long, linear and uninspired, considering the potential they could have harnessed.

- Jonathan and Charolotte are now the "Scrappy Doo and Cousin Oliver" of the series. Little annoying wonder twins that act like tweenies in their twenties. Their banter is neither charming nor productive, and their portraits are rather lacking in emotion.

- The soundtrack was solid, but most of the treats came in form of Bloodlines', Curse of Darkness and Haunted Castle remixes. THe new stuff was a little underwhelming and quiet (perhaps to match the blandness of the stages)

- The "quests" are confusing and vague.

I could go on...

Portrait of Ruin sounded like such a good idea when the info was first leaked. But it turned out to be a rushed and thrown together attempt at both lowering the age of the target audience and trying to make the castle bigger just because.

I agree with a majority of your post, though I'll admit, I did like the soundtrack. (The only part I disliked were the so called 'CD' versions of each song.  In some instances, I thought I was listening to a bad fan-made remix.) The bolded reason you gave was the reason I disliked the game the most, though I'll admit, I don't outright hate it or anything. 

[Azmodan]

I'm in agreement with Chibi. I think it would've been a much more solid game if the thick layer of childishness to it all wouldn't have detracted so much from the atmosphere. I can handle cheesiness, like Haunted Castle and portions of the initial Castlevania, but not "combine our powers of heart and friendship to fight the evil!!!"

Now I liked the quests and the environments. The level design wasn't the best, but I didn't find it atrocious.

I also liked some of the bosses. Keremet and the Cleopatra-knockoff were both interesting, and at least they had the decency to upgrade The Creature with some new moves. Sadly, the same cannot be said of Legion or Dracula.

And damn. Dracula and Death. Now I appreciated the Lugosi-look; as big a fan I am of Ayami Kojima, it was a nice throwback to see the classic Dracula back. His anime portrait was laughable, but I like I said, I can stand some cheesiness. Death was just sad. WITH EVEN MORE SAMURAI ASPECTS, and just to compliment it all they gave him Mickey Mouse hands. After his performance in CoD, this was just shameful.

The soundtrack was solid. I didn't think any of it was bad, and yes, at worst it was boring. I liked the new tracks, however; I found the remixes to be charming at first but ultimately kind of forced. The instrumentation to Cross Your Heart and Iron Blue Intention were both iffy, and Simon's Theme came off a bit too laid back- using the MIDI Soundtrack's variation of said theme was also pretty perplexing. Damnit, I want my gloomy SCIV version. >_>

It was a decent title, and surely not loathsome, but it did not live up to the potential it could've had.

[Kamirine]

It was all about the delivery for me.  I don't have a problem with anime, mind you, but as already stated, the anime used for this particular game was generic at best.  The specific art style used was just...awful in my opinion.  A lot of the outfits and designs were just outright tacky or horrible to look at. (All the vampires looked bad.)  And I'll agree, that was a nice throw back for Dracula but must his pants look so damn high-water?

As for the story, again, it was the delivery that bothered me the most.  It actually wasn't that bad and could have actually been, dare I say, a moving one had it been done in a more serious, dark manner.  As for the main characters, I've finally decided I hate Charlotte the most, because at the very least, I could *tolerate* Johnthan's lame, generic attitude over hers. When she complimented Dracula and Death on their teamwork, all I could envision was her getting sliced in half by Death. (I too, support Serio's cause.)

I agree with Chibi, I actually liked the original soundtrack but I don't know what the hell happened with the CD edit for it.  Considering who composed the soundtrack, I was very disappointed with it's sound.

As for the overall layout for the game stage wise, I honestly wasn't disappointed until we got to the second set of portraits.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel let down that they were just rehashes of the first four, though I think I felt it more when I went to the second Egyptian stage.  At least with the lab, it wasn't too bad.

I rather liked the bosses, there were a lot of interesting new ones (though I still like Dawn's originals better) and while weaker sometimes, I like the new versions of classic bosses, such as the Werewolf and Medusa.

[Saner]

wow many fans of this series are more nitpicky than the Naruto fans of the manga.   I felt PoR is a game worthy of
the Castlevania name, and enjoyed it more than DoS and AoS combined. 

[A n t r a x x]

Now I'll list what I DID appreciate:

- Character switching could be a lot of fun. Some enemies were easier to down with Charolotte's magic, and sometimes you wanted quicker kills with Jonathan's subweapons. At first I was regularly switching but as the game went on and got easier, ... not as much. Still there were definitely times where I ALMOST died. Also it's awesome you can control their attacks at the same time. Having Charolotte in front with her Stone Circle Lv2, and Jon backing her up with the VK and knives was one of my favorite attack/def combos. There's so many ways to experiment.

- Mastering Jonathan's subs became an obsession for me at one point. I'm always for that Elder Scrolls-esque level-as-use system. Even creampie was useful on some enemies. The mastery rings helps a lot. However I was disappointed my favorite weapon, the knife, takes too many hearts/MP.

- There actually was an honest attempt to get some platforming back into the mix. I loved seeing a return of the flip platforms, swinging axes, and falling/rising spiked mechanisms. Too bad these oldschool moments were rare, though.

- With all this content and all these different items, the replay value is actually very big. For instance I started two more saves, where I would just use Charolotte or Jonathan the whole game. It plays pretty different that way since the character's weaknesses are more noticeable and you have to think a little harder.

I will always appreciate IGA's games for replay value at the very least. That's of course if the game is at least decent enough to warrant a replay, and POR is actually no slouch at the end of the day. Could have been a lot better, though.

There's just a lot of unfortunate annoyances along for the ride

[Mach 7]

Well thanks for all the info peeps, i finally got a grasp

what was wrong with it,. Just a thing though: isn't Charlotte

16yrs old, and Jonathan 18 yrs, and not in their twenties?

so making them, or at least Charlotte making thier banter not surprising?

And lastly if not for gameplay, wat do you peeps think of character development for PoR, if they weren't that talkative towards useless things? cause im my opinion they were great, so much character flaws.

[CVfan13]

I also agree with Chibi, the soundtrack was great. And the reason it is so childish is because Iga was having a bad day and decided to direct it towards kids. Just like the kind of day Yamane was having when she composed "Portal to Dark Bravery"! 

[The Silverlord]

I think I can only add that there was little to no immersion.

[shelverton.]

My main complaint is that I've basically played the same game before. But other than that, the level design wasn't exactly inspiring. There are definitely some highlights, but since the game is much larger than the previous games in the series, there should've been more dynamic stuff, like being chased by creatures, stopping trains and so on.

(Actually, the train part was very stupid, but it's better than just an empty corridor)

[A n t r a x x]

(Actually, the train part was very stupid, but it's better than just an empty corridor)

LOL. I actually liked the train part. Because it disappears afterwards, so you know it was just a ghost somehow (you know in as much as FF6 had its ghost train). But it took me awhile to figure out the timing to get past it.

I think it set up the mood of the place.

It's really hard for me to find bad things about that level when the song there just kicked so much ass.

[A n t r a x x]

Only thing I can say on the character development/banter: wasn't PoR set losely in Europe/Germany during the first world war in 1944?

1944. That would make it World War 2. But yeah, that's an interesting thing to bring up, because instead of all this useless bantering and lighthearted storytelling, IGA could have really focused on the time period and implied such horrors as the holocaust. I'd say the circus levels were a metaphor on the subject of war, but he wasted so much potential for relating the dead of Dracula's castle to the horrible casualities of that war.

We could have got a deeper meaning, and even a greater connection through the characters.

The manual states the deaths of World War 2 is what summons the castle, but after the opening prologue, this subject is hardly mentioned again in the game.

What a waste.

[Azmodan]

I expected some more from that as well, but then again, Bloodlines only referenced WW1 in the prologue and the German munitions factory.

Still, fighting undead grenadiers was better than nothing.

[A n t r a x x]

In Reply To #14

Yeah even Bloodlines had its munitions factory. And I mean that level was really themed around modern war, and, what Hemmingway once called, "mechanized doom."

POR takes place near the end of one of the outright bloodiest wars in history and it all but ignores that.