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Portrait of Ruin drops the touchscreen stuff and hints at Wi-Fi
In having a chat with Koji Igarashi, the man behind the upcoming Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for everyone's favorite handheld, Game Informer managed to squeeze such deliciously sweet juice from the man as if he were a large citrus fruit. On second thought, that analogy is a bit gross. Forget I ever wrote it.So, onto the things that matter then? Game Informer put the man to work, grilling him as if they were the police who were holding their prime suspect in a double homicide. The first thing they started questioning him on was touchscreen functionality in the new game, something that this blogger felt was an unecessary addition to the gameplay in Dawn of Sorrow. Like any respectable individual, he is able to recognize his own mistakes."My concern was over the Castlevania pure action gameplay, which you actually had to stop and let the user use the stylus to do something. So now that it's approximately two years after the launch of the hardware, I took it easy (laughs)." Later on he commented that "It felt a little uncomfortable after beating a boss to get your stylus out and draw a magic seal. It seems to stop the moment of pure action."Naturally, Game Informer would bring up something about Wi-Fi connectivity, and Igarashi commented that he was thinking about implementing a single unlockable level for some co-op gameplay. He also said that he thinks he's able to implement full co-op into the game, but wants to tackle the challenge of successfully utilizing any co-op this time around before attempting such a huge task.
Portrait of Ruin painted
Today saw a huge update in news for the latest vampire-slaying title from Konami. The game takes place during World War II and features not one protagonist, but two. Jonathan Morris plays the role of the requisite vampire slayer and Charlotte Orlean plays the part of the young girl with a knack for the magical arts. Turns out all the victims of the war, whose spirits have been left to roam the Earth, seek to bring Dracula back to life, being led by a pair of vampiric sisters. What's most interesting is the duo dynamic; both characters are free for use at anytime and can even combine their powers to form team attacks to defeat over 100 different enemy types. Each character will have their own equipment and unlockable abilities. Being developed by Koji Igarashi and the development team behind Dawn of Sorrow, you can bet we'll be keeping a close eye on this one up until its release this Fall.Now, all this sounds well and good, but we really need to see this series come back from the horrific Saturday Morning cartoon art style. I really can't take any more of these androgynous characters that look like they were ripped from an episode of Yugi-Oh. Where are the inspired concepts and Victorian beauty inherent in the franchise's previous stylings such as Symphony of the Night and Super Castlevania IV? Dracula looked so menacing and evil, yet held an awkwardly graceful and beautiful presence that almost made you want him to win. What do you think of the art direction?
