Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

Reviewed by:
Scott Jones

Can you believe this is the 20th anniversary of Castlevania games? Man, if that doesn't make you feel like an old fuck, nothing will. After two decades, Konami has the formula down to a science. Dracula gets resurrected. (This guy has more comebacks than John Travolta.) Rotate through a series of vaguely feminine male vampire slayers/Belmont descendants. (This time it's the whip-cracking Jonathon Morris, son of Bloodlines hero, John Morris.) Give him a sidekick (a spell-casting ho-bag named Charlotte). Tweak the 2D gameplay ever so slightly. (You can enter "paintings" in the castle, thus the title. Duh.) Scroll left/right/up/down until Dracula is dead. Roll credits. There's something so familiar about the gameplay at this point, that playing is sort of like smelling your own farts. No matter what it smells like, you can't help but inhale.