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Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for the DS by Last 04/17/2007, 7:42pm PDT
Pros:
* It's a SotN clone, of course.
* Quest system gives the game some extra variety in the mid-late portions. You're still just killing monsters and collecting items, but the quests give you one more reason to do so.
* The glitch that allows you to collect infinite quest rewards.
* Good use of dual screens - action on bottom, map up top. You can also put your stats up top but what's the point.
* It is kind of fun to have two characters instead of one.
* Frequent save spots, teleportation rooms to cut travel time, AND a suspend feature make this game extremely convenient to play for as little as 5 minutes at a time.
* VERY HIGH replay value. There are plenty of unlockable characters to run through the game with after beating it once. In addition, if you play the lvl 1 capped hard mode you'll find that the gameplay is completely different. In the first playthrough you'll use Jonathan almost exclusively but on the second playthrough it's the opposite. There are a lot of spells that Charlotte has that don't become useful until playing hard mode, which is an impressive sign of developer foresight. Playing with Richter is also fun, especially after 30 minutes when you realize that he also has a partner.

Cons:
* Magic powers are equippable instead of being mapped to a button combination. Result: there are at least two spells that you will cast frequently and you spend too much time in the equip screen swapping spells. Each time you see something that can only be reached in owl/frog form then you'll know it's time to stop playing the fun game and to begin fucking around in the equip screen.

* Fucking long sword! Found very early in the game. In-game description is "Just an everyday ordinary common long sword of the type found by normal low-level adventurers in every cave or castle or maybe even dropped by toads." Actual description: "IRREPLACEABLE ITEM CRUCIAL FOR QUEST COMPLETION!! If you sell this sword then just go ahead and delete your save game now or spend time fucking around trying to get near a wifi spot and see if anyone will sell you one, whichever takes less time." Looking back, I am pretty certain that the devs did this on purpose to "encourage"/force people to use the wifi shop system that is otherwise pointless.

* The story/dialogue are bad, but this goes without saying. Playing Castlevania for the story is like beating off just for the sound it makes.

Positive!
NEXT REPLY QUOTE
 
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for the DS by Last 04/17/2007, 7:42pm PDT NEW
    I'm liking this game! by mark 04/27/2007, 2:45pm PDT NEW
        God Fucking Damnit by mark 04/28/2007, 2:19pm PDT NEW
            Got around to finishing it by mark 05/07/2007, 9:54pm PDT NEW
                Really, cakes? by Worm 05/07/2007, 10:16pm PDT NEW
 
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