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> Results: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
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What GamerDad says about the ESRB Content Descriptors:
Blood and Gore: pixilated representation of characters getting destroyed, but there is plenty of blood and gore throughout. Mild Language: perhaps unsurprising that in a game about eternal damnation that the words damn and hell are used. Suggestive Themes: the power of vampires has a strong sexual underpinning, which is hinted at in this game. Violence: pretty much every room is filled with undead, demons and other monsters who want you dead. My review of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow gushed about how the developers had taken the experience of the GBA series, upgraded the visuals and audio a bit, made excellent use of the second screen to have an omnipresent map, and ended up with a truly wonderful experience that was perhaps the best game of the Nintendo DS first year. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin is sort of like that - but better. Taking on Dracula's Castle once again, this time as Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin - yes, you play two characters, something new for the series. It plays wonderfully - the controls and complementary skills make everything work smoothly and before you know it this new addition feels as familiar as everything else in the side-scrolling adventure. Jonathon is most adept at weapon combat - but can't use the vampire killer whip because he isn't a direct descendant of the Belmont family. Charlotte is skilled at magic and has some really cool spell effects that accompany the tomes she finds along the way. Everything that has worked well in the past has been improved; everything that matters is addressed properly; and you are given a tight and solid story coupled with a massive adventure and tense round of combat that will push your skills to the limit. My expectations were that I would be disappointed with this edition of Castlevania - they had done so well with the first DS game it seemed they were bound to disappoint. The results exceeded my expectations and the game is actually better than the first DS game is a number of ways. Even if you've played all of the GBA and DS Castlevania games this will keep you glued to your DS for hours.  
The vampire world is an interesting setting for a game - inherently dark and rife with possibilities for mature content. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow featured dark and foreboding environments, loads of battles and intense fights against huge demonic enemies. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin raises the stakes with some uses of mild words such as 'damn' and 'hell' (and not just in ways appropriate to Dracula's Castle) as well as some mild sexual innuendo during a boss battle.
Based on the dark themes and settings as well as the T rating I have stuck with the 14+ label I gave the predecessor. But I had no issue with my kids trying the game - they are 10 and almost 9. My 10 year old absolutely loves the game and has no issues with any of the scary or foreboding elements - he just loves the nonstop challenge. My younger son, however, played once and was done - he got a bit creeped out by little surprises, found the music disturbing, but what really got him was the creepy graphic of a skull and snake that comes up when you die. This isn't much different than what I had expected - and also why we did this together in the well lit kitchen in the morning. Use that as something to help assess the appropriateness of the game for your own kids. Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin |
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