You know, having initially dismissing Portrait of Ruin — I only played for maybe half an hour before rejecting it; hadn’t played it in a year and a half — I went back to it the other day. And… it’s actually pretty good, once you’re past some of the initial tedium. Thanks to Mr. Koshiro, the music is the best since Harmony of Dissonance. It controls really, really well. The animation is pretty good, actually. A lot of the enemies are redrawn — though there’s a big disparity in style between the new ones and the recycled ones. The new ones all look like they’re by the Circle of the Moon guys, and the old ones are so clearly Sorrow carry-overs.

There is actual, legitimate level design in places — which is novel. More of it than in Dawn of Sorrow, in fact! It’s just, 1/3 of the real level design in DoS was right at the start, whereas in PoR it doesn’t come in for a couple of hours. (Until then it’s a combination of tutorial and convoluted system introduction, against monsters-on-shelves design.)

And it does actually feel different enough as not to just feel like another GBA/DS Castlevania — which is the fate suffered by Dawn of Sorrow.

I’d say this is definitely not the worst handheld Igavania. Harmony and Aria still compete for the best; Harmony for its feeling and Aria for its reason. I’d have to play some more, but I think I’m now enjoying this about as much as Circle of the Moon…