I am a grown man, but on occasion, I am still afraid of video games. Today's games can sport ultra-realistic graphics and amazingly immersive sound - tools that just 15 years ago were available only to movie studios. You can make one hell of a horror game with that, as liable to scare someone out of their wits as some of the best witch projects that the big screen has to offer. But those aren't the kinds of video games that I am afraid of - I am a grown man, after all. The games I am afraid of are a different breed. They are bad sequels to great franchises. Remember the disappointment of the second and third Matrix? After how great the first one was? That's the kind of disappointment that stays with you for a while. And considering that video game franchises are on the average much longer running than movie franchises [go ahead and wave to Final Fantasy with me, kids - ed.] that disappointment tends to compound that much more.

   Castlevania has been one such franchise to me: a series that started out with some amazing games that hooked me deep and hard, but lately has been throwing some bad apples into the mix, causing that old hook to wriggle painfully in my insides. Like every animal, humans learn fast. Once you learn that a certain action can cause pain, you tend to try to avoid it. Trouble is, if you are real gamer, you can't avoid Castlevania. So you go to the store and pick up the game anyway, and hope for the best.

Where in the world is Count Dracula?

   A reasonable question to ask for any person picking up a Castlevania game indeed. And if one were to guess at an answer? Dracula's Castle, mayhaps? Wrong! Dracula, my esteemed friends, is barely even in this game, replaced by a new villain - an artsy type vampire named Brauner. And lest the surprises end there, the expected main character belonging to the Belmont clan has also been replaced by a somewhat flaky young man named Jonathan Morris - the son of John Morris from the little known Castlevania: Bloodlines, to which Portrait of a Ruin is essentially a direct sequel. Don't worry though, Jonathan can still kick vampire heiny with the best of them. Matters of plot twist and turn from there on: young Morris can't wield the legendary Vampire Killer whip [where is that whip-Viagra when you need it? - ed.]; Brauner has two vampiric daughters who aren't actually his daughters at all; people make other people cry, etc. The plot is fun enough and unfolds elegantly enough to keep your from feeling like a complete action junkie, and thus performs its function as well as can be expected.

   Along with Jonathan, you also have the pleasure of controlling a lovely (and magically endowed) young lady named Charlotte, who, despite stubbornly refusing to make out with Jonathan on-screen [though it's hard to blame her since Jonathan seems to be a mental equivalent of an 9 year old - ed.], is otherwise quite a worthwhile asset in your endeavor to seal the evil of Dracula's Castle once again. Portrait of a Ruin introduces a dual character system where you can control Jonathan and Charlotte simultaneously. You can actually have both on-screen at the same time, with the computer controlling the second character, or can choose to employ them more in a tag-team configuration, with one character on-screen and the other available at the touch of a button. In practice I found the second configuration more practical. Since Jonathan and Charlotte share the same life bar and magic bar, having them both on screen at the same time can be wasteful since you are potentially taking damage on two fronts at the same time. This is especially true given that Charlotte is not really meant for melee combat: her primary business is magic, which you can still conveniently access with a single press of a shoulder button even when only Jonathan is on screen. It was thus an easy gameplay choice to have Jonathan take on the primary role of severing limbs and surgically removing eye sockets, with Charlotte appearing to cast magic and execute powerful combo attacks with Jonathan whenever a particularly naughty enemy required extra spanking.

The beasts within

Poor idiot management

   As it is well known, we are locked in an eternal struggle with the universe, which keeps making bigger and better idiots just as we strive to make more and more idiot-proof video games. So far, the universe is winning. Personally, I believe that this is due to the fact that not is only the universe creating better new idiots, it's also continuously improving its vast army of existing idiots previously produced. Case in point - yours truly, who despite having played a thousand and one games still managed to sell a bunch of quest items to the shopkeeper in order to buy some shiny new weapons, and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, which, despite all the games that have come before it, let me do it. Hey! - I am just sayin'. It didn't really ruin the game experience for me, but did cause a little frustration as I helplessly re-acquainted myself with the far-off areas of Dracula's castle in vain hopes of finding another set of 3 garments from a nun's outfit.

   Speaking of items, Portrait of a Ruin delivers a nice set of weapons, armor and various accessories. Unfortunately, convincing the shop keeper to hold even an occasional 30% off sale was tough business (which forced me into the aforementioned sale of quest items), but other than that I can lodge no complaint. The great thing about the weapons in particular was that Portrait of Ruin successfully avoids the typical scenario where the biggest, most expensive sword is always the best. With so many different types of enemies, my choice of favorite weapon was frequently influenced by the kind of enemy I happened to be fighting at the time. For instance, a heavy, but slow battle axe which deals damage both on the forward and back swing was great for high HP, slow moving enemies like armored knights, but for low HP, erratically flying bats, a homing and quick (albeit lower-damage) whip did the job infinitely better. Similarly, a long-reaching, piercing spear was indispensable against ground-based foes with long reach but futile against enemies that didn't approach straight on. The same rule was true with secondary weapons and spells where a protective gust of wind [all right, who had the pinto beans?! - ed.] could be infinitely more or less useful than a powerful direct blast attack depending on the situation.

My kingdom for a double jump!

   In terms of progressing through the various parts of the game, there are two basic ways in which new areas for exploration open up. The first, as you may have guessed, is via portraits. That codpiece Brauner has gotten his bony hands on some pretty nifty magic that allows him to create portraits that act as portals into different worlds, and Jonathan, of course, is just dumb enough to walk through them. [This, children, is also how you get away with an Egypt level in a game set in 1944 Europe - ed.] Finding a portrait room (there aren't many) means it's time to get a fresh bologna sandwich and cup of jo - you have a whole new area waiting for you. Conveniently, rooms with portraits tend to always be located near rooms with a save point, as well as rooms with a regular teleport point. The latter allow you to teleport to other teleport points that you have previously discovered, essentially letting you effortlessly revisit any areas of the castle that you've already explored.

   The second means for gaining access to new areas of the game is skill based, whereas a certain skill such as a double jump is required to reach a particular area within the main castle (as opposed to the outside environments reachable via the portraits). And until you earn that skill, you will spend many a longing moment staring at lucrative items perched away on platforms too high to reach for your non-double-jumping legs. You will get so desperate you'll even totally forget your manners and try to climb onto Charlotte's delicate shoulders - all in vain. Silly grasshopper.

Tell me I am beautiful!

   Visually, the game is a total treat. The artwork is excellent, and the backgrounds, which are craftily constructed of both static and animated pieces, create an awesome sense of perspective for a 2D game. The only small complaint that can be noted with respect to the graphics is that some of the detail is too fine to see on the small DS screen, but even that is a testament to the game's good looks. Character design is excellent, and levels are generally fun and for the most part manage to avoid the feeling of drudgery as you explore. There is inevitably some re-use of some of the better level ideas from earlier Castlevania games, but that is certainly not a crime. Prostituting yourself for chocolate chip cookies on Christmas Eve is a lot worse, let me tell you. You know, as a purely theoretical example. [Theoretical prostitution is one of the hottest new majors in American colleges. All the theoretical media sources say so. - ed.]

That was a close one

   So in the end, I am happy to announce that my childish fears are allayed - we have a quality member of the Castlevania franchise on our hands. Well, I do anyway. You need to go run down to GameStop and get yourself a copy and then you'll be a cool 30-year old child just like me. Cheers.

       ... Vaga