Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

Mario 64 of castlevania... jumping into painting that is. Exploration is isolated in paintings so not satisfying when exploring them as they feel linear instead of interconnected. Bosses are sorta design in a bs way. They deal high damage to artificial create difficulty. While old games damage are fixed which feels more natural and fairer. Another complaint I have is where are the save points at??? Also, funny final boss fight. I just spam dem foods haha.

My favourite Castlevania so far. The biggest standouts are the very cool character switching mechanic and the vast arsenal of elemental abilities that let you target enemy weaknesses and adapt to their movesets. They also toned down the grinding a bit from DoS, although some of the side quests will still require extensive time commitments. I had nearly 19 hours on my savegame and was still missing some enemy drops from the Nest of Evil.

It's hard for me to not get some enjoyment from a Metroidvania Castlevania game, but I found this one blended in a little more generically into the mix of the series than the others.

another step down from the previous installment. the two character gimmick adds very little, and very little is made of the potentially interesting wartime setting. the core gameplay remains the same, but more of the flourishes that made the Sorrow games so exciting have, for the most part, disappeared.