History VideoGame / CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin

''Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin'' is a UsefulNotes/NintendoDS game released in 2006 to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' series. It boasts a two-character tag system that allows the two characters to work together frequently, an experience-based subweapon system for Jonathan and casting time-based magic system for Charlotte, and a number of non-castle venues accessible via the various portraits. Extra characters and level limits extend the replay value, including one mode controlled entirely with the touchscreen.

* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: Vincent is ''incredibly'' ungrateful for Charlotte rescuing him from vampirism. About the only thing that changes is his dialogue in the ending, he doesn't have the courtesy to reduce his prices for items.

** [[TheVamp Astarte]], one of the female bosses, has an attack that makes either Johnathan or Richter fall in love with her. In gameplay terms, this means that the player loses control of them and is automatically forced to control the female partner (Charlotte for Johnathan, Maria for Richter). If the player is controlling a girl, the attack has no effect. The charmed male character will help Astarte fight Charlotte or Maria.
** For Zacchino, he always does Touch Damage, but he has an action if he gets too close. If he gets close to Johnathan he will kneel and take out a sword saying "DIE!". If the player is controlling Charlotte he will do the same action but take out a harmless flower. If Charlotte leaves he says "Don't reject me!" but doesn't turn any more hostile than he was before.

* GameFavoredGender: Downplayed. Johnathon has superior physical defense and offense, and late game, gets access to some extremely powerful weapons, but Charlotte's fully charged spells easily outstrip him in damage early game if you can play around the slow start-up. In addition, several of her spells (Raging Fire) are excellent at crowd control, while others (Gale Force, Rock Riot) allow her to cheese out enemies by hitting them from positions where they cannot retaliate.
* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: The boss of the Egypt stage can use a Charm spell on Johnathan. As the boss is female, and Charlotte is straight, benching Johnathan takes part of the difficulty out of the fight.

** While a rather loose example as Charlotte can use (magic-assisted) special attacks, Charlotte is more useful using spells that all have a sort of horizontal reach. Johnathan is usually better equipped to fight close range and has higher defense. Johnathan can also be unequipped with a weapon and he will fight bare fisted, an action that can't be duplicated with Charlotte.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Johnathan is quite quick to treat Charlotte like a child (something she absolutely loathes) and even refers to her as his "kid sister" to the shopkeeper to mess with her, then he doesn't exactly enjoy it when Wind calls him "boy".

* PieInTheFace: Johnathan gets cream pies ([[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant literally not metaphorically!]]) as a subweapon. They do heavy "Dark" damage, and thus at a suficient level, will completely smear the "Light"-aligned OptionalBoss.

A new vampire has taken control of this castle: a MadArtist by the name of Brauner. And things are different under his rule. The castle keep is unassailable; it is blocked by magic produced by a large number of magical paintings positioned around the castle. Brauner is almost impossible to find, and the main evidence of his presence is the occasional appearance of his twin vampire daughters. A mysterious ghost has been spotted, and he seems to be completely immune to Brauner's influence. And not even Death is happy with this sequence of events. (No, wait, make that "Death's ''especially'' unhappy with this sequence of events".)

* BoobsOfSteel:
** Stella has the biggest boobs of the game, and she's also the strongest female character (and the only female in the storyline who uses physical attacks a lot).
** It appears to be a scale for all female characters, as Charlotte while she isn't exactly large in the chest, she is still more developed than the borderline flat Loretta. Charlotte does some physical activity such as physically move for her Tome attack and is able to push objects (though not as well as Johnathan). Loretta does NO physical fighting and she is easily the smallest in the chest department.
** Pretty much all female enemies aside from Loretta are more developed than Charlotte in this area and do more physical activity than her. Astarte has some physical attacks, and the vacuum maid Persephone, while mostly using a tool, can be forced into physical hand on hand combat.

* PeekABangs: Jonathan's hair is like this.

* ShipTease: The game hints at Charlottehaving a hidden crush on Jonathan. Some of the items you can find are a wedding dress and the engagement ring, which are bound to give some fans ideas. From the way Jonathan and Charlotte interact with and tease each other so often — including in the good ending — it is already way too obvious that they are more than just close friends, hinting that they have sincere feelings toward each other. Someone apparently forgot to tell the manual writer, though, since the manual outright says their relationship is "platonic".

* ChestMonster: They can't fool anybody, because in this game, unlike ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]]'', there are ''no regular chests'', just those mimics.

** Richter Mode, unlocked by beating the "[[BonusBoss Whip's Memory]]", has you control Richter and Maria, who use their sub-weapons from ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaRondoOfBlood''.

* BonusBoss: Whip's Memory, which takes the form of [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaRondoOfBlood Richter]] [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight Belmont]]]] and serves as the training needed to unlock [[spoiler:the Vampire Killer's [[InfinityPlusOneSword true power]]]]. The BonusDungeon is also full of them.

* InfinityPlusOneSword: The full-powered Vampire Killer, which requires defeating the BonusBoss. It isn't the strongest weapon in the game (an honor belonging to the aforementioned Golden Axe), but it's extremely fast, has a wide range, and inflicts Holy damage, which most enemies, including the FinalBoss, are weak to.

* NonLethalKO: Getting reduced to 0 HP by the [[spoiler:[[BonusBoss Whip's Memory/Richter Belmont]]]] will simply [[spoiler:boot you back to the castle's dining room with all HP and MP intact instead of causing a GameOver. Any items you use during the fight will not be restored.]]

* PieInTheFace: Johnathan gets cream pies ([[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant literally not metaphorically!]]) as a subweapon. They do heavy "Dark" damage, and thus at a suficient level, will completely smear the "Light"-aligned BonusBoss.

* HijackedByGanon:
** Invoked by Death personally in this game, who was [[spoiler:always waiting for a chance to take down Brauner so Dracula could be revived.]] The only reason that this comes as a surprise at all is because [[spoiler:Dracula's explicitly mentioned as being absent at the start of the game. The end of the game makes it clear that he was never ''absent'', just suppressed by Brauner.]]

* AxCrazy: Lerajie
--> "[[GunPointBanter I SEE YOU]]"

%%** This game takes this trope UpToEleven by having an entire '''gauntlet''' of Castlevania's classic foes return for the game's final stretch. The late-game bosses are none other than several of Dracula's elite minions from ''Castlevania: Rondo of Blood'', most of which hail as far back as the first game of the series. Their boss music is also more intense than that of the game's previous bosses. Basically, the game is telling you that the castle is falling back into Dracula's clutches, and that he and his army are gonna make Brauner look like child's play.

** This game takes this trope UpToEleven by having an entire '''gauntlet''' of Castlevania's classic foes return for the game's final stretch. The late-game bosses are none other than several of Dracula's elite minions from ''Castlevania: Rondo of Blood'', most of which hail as far back as the first game of the series. Their boss music is also more intense than that of the game's previous bosses. Basically, the game is telling you that the castle is falling back into Dracula's clutches, and that he and his army are gonna make Brauner look like child's play.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: The basic exploratory nature of the {{Metroidvania}} titles remains the same, except that now you can enter paintings with their own mini-world levels in them. Some of the paintings depict settings that just don't normally occur in Castlevania, such as a massive underground pyramid full of Egyptian mummies, a twisted war-torn carnival of the damned, or an early 20th Century European city.