Finished
Castlevania - Portrait Of Ruin
Good:
- Konami's 'Vania.
- Base gameplay is fantastic, game keeps being fun the whole time.
- Sidekick is an interesting concept (additional attack / support spell).
- Liked most of 2D backgrounds and some 3D backgrounds.
- Leaving the castle was a good idea, since it allows for other than usual themes.
- Some levels (paintings) have fantastic level design (pyramid, circus).
- Story dumps are minimal, much incline after previous 2 games, where characters just couldn't STFU.
- Game is very big (castle + 8 regular areas + arena), IMO without big drop in quality.
Ugly:
- Yet another experiment, after souls-hunting duology (Aria of Sorrow and Down of Sorrow). Some new things are nice, some not, some things were unnecessarily reintroduced.
- Switching subweapons / equipment takes too much time again. Two sets of items switchable via one buttons (DoS) was a great idea.
- Level design in initial stages are p. boring. Game opens up later, thank God.
- Some Wind's quests require metagaming, since you can sell some shit long before you learn about its quest-importance.
- Too much useless shit (esp. skills and gear), most of it totally inferior to 3-4 "best" things. What's the point of this "variery", then? I was using ~4 weapons through the entire game, in linear progression.
- Some puzzles feel totally out of place, plus they're anal AF (motorcycle ride, stopping the train). Had to look on the webz for a solution for those.
- Irritating stage design in some later stages (plenty of teleports / saves in one area, almost none in another).
- Some areas are just boring (linear corridors with meh enemies).
- Character design is too animu for my taste.
- Story doesn't make much sense.
- Fixed set of enemies in rooms. New enemies appearing in old rooms after some time (CotM) was great, yet abandoned, idea.
Bad:
- Shop's "sell" screen is still shit, after all these games. You don't even know if shit you're selling is currently equipped by your character, not to mention useful info like stats +/- etc. What the fuck, 198x RPGs had this.
- It's very easy to fuck yourself out of best subweapon (axe!) entirely, since it's only available via an (rare) enemy drop. Decline.
- For some reason you can buy multiple instances of subweapons in the shop, when you need just one to be able to use it (forever). Don't know WTF is going on here - a glitch?
- Hated final boss fight: first stage is too hard with two fags pummeling you with cheap attacks, second stage is too easy, with Vlad just staying on the ground and soaking your attacks (killed him in less than minute). Meh.
Verdict:
Didn't like it initially, but it grew on me due to solid gameplay / stage design (in most stages, at least).
Only two games in series left: Order Of Ecclesia (NDS) and Dracula X Chronicles (PSP). Disso shitto just can't be successfully trannyslated to the 3rd dimension, IMO.
Earlier nuggets of wisdom from yours truly:
Dawn of Sorrow
Aria of Sorrow
Harmony of Dissonance :shit:
Circle of the Moon
Symphony of the Night :meh:
Rondo of Blood
SC IV :itwas5yearsago: