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First of all I have to say well done to all developers of this hack.

Where to even start with this review?

The level design that was implemented for this hack is absolutely blast all the way through.

The music... my goodness there are a lot of great picks (especially Battle of The Holy)!

Richter and Maria's moveset and weapons in this hack absolutely improves almost everything from original game across the board. I also loved all the platforming challenges involving Slide Jump / Backflip.

Bonus points also from all the fun extra game modes we got here too.

If you haven't yet played Rondo of Ruin and you are a Castlevania fan do yourself a favor and play it now.

I liked the idea of some of these sequel-style Castlevania hacks to stuff like Circle Of The Moon (extremely jank, but amusing), Harmony Of Dissonance (kinda crap), but Rondo Of Ruin I have alot of mixed feelings with. I love Richter and Maria, but the rewerite of the story just feels kinda flat, and Richter calling everything monster gets tiresome, quick.

Gameplay wise, it's Portrait Of Ruin at it's core, but puts a large emphasis on your special moves, such as Richter's slide kick which I affectionally call Kuuhadan, Andy Bogard's signature special technique from the Fatal Fury series, along with the aerial backflip from Rondo, that I always found extremely cumbersome to use in the original game, is actually pretty well implemented here.

However I think this hacks biggest downfall is the mishmash of many of the room changes. While I welcome the mix-up of new reachable areas utilizing the back flip, and especially the room full of Medusa heads you must Dive Kick bounce your way to the top, some areas that want you to slide kick your way through tiny spaces get old real quick... especially the little "car ride" beyond the Clocktower's boss room with the first sister. That was absolutely aggravating as hell to deal with. Another thing is some of the enemy placement shifts, you're going to be seeing quite a few enemies in places rearranged and it's kinda really annoying, particularly the Cavetrolls. They are no joke, they are usually reserved as end game enemies, but you'll be seeing them super early in this game, and they will rip you apart if you aren't careful. If they manage to trap you with their Lighting attack, it's GG lol.

One of the other annoyances in this is some boss rooms having spikes added to the corners just because for the sake of having even more spikes, which is probably where I draw the line on this hack. Yeah, spikes have been a part of 2D games since the down of time basically, but I can't say I am into the levels of what some games out there are trying to push.

Last but not least, there's the music selection for the game. Most of what you hear are other DSvania tracks which is fine, but then you have music from Lufia (Which is a great series with excellent music, but really out of place), and I dislike that this hack removes some of the best tracks from PoR, because honestly PoR has a really stellar soundtrack, perhaps my fave of the DS trio.

Overall, I don't think it's a bad hack, it's really very good with it's quality and ambition, while trying to maintain consistency, but I find it kinda hard to recommend with it's weird balancing and design decisions. If you're a fan of PoR, by all means, give it a go, it might just be for you.

On the first glance one might think that Rondo of Ruin is simply a reskin of Portrait with few additional hazards scattered here and there across the maps. That's what I've thought and how wrong I was.

Rondo's main feature is, of course, a new storyline. Well, it's not entirely new, it follows the beats and structure of original game, but authors put enough thought in it to feel like something, that could be part of the whole Castlevania saga. New duo are a great team and their dynamic is actually quite wholesome, kudos to writer.

Rondo of Ruin overhauls and tinkers with so many game mechanics in a way, that initially I didn't even notice, but after finishing a playthrough of Rondo, staggered me with all the differences it has. Rondo is faster, allows for greater control over your characters, while some rebalance tweaks make game a lot more enjoyable. Contrary to some other opinions, I've found an addition of platforming-heavy sequences to be refreshing, helping to take a break from usual gameplay loop (maybe it's result of 1.10 update, removing annoyances of previous versions). Challenges being fair and doable also enhances the experience.

And I can't not address new portraits of the sisters. They are awesome.

For purposes of a fair review I should probably write about cons too. The most annoying for me were references without subtlety. I'll just list two examples:

First – Wesker Glasses. Pretty obvious reference from name alone isn't it, especially since it's sunglasses, especially with new main menu sounds. Yeah, but description decides to treat you like a fool and starts nagging you further, referencing "Evil Residence". Please, have some restraint, some subtlety. Either leave "Wesker" or "Evil Residence", please. The lack of subtlety is so painful at times, that I know it's a reference without even knowing what the item is a reference to, quite a few such cases;

Second – Skeleton Gunman's sprite was replaced with some futuristic soldier, probably a Metroid enemy. Why? Also, why is Whip memory a meme enemy? You could put Simon, Trevor, Christopher in there, make something awesome as you did throughout the hack, but instead it's just this joke.

For the life of me, couldn't find a way to pick up HP and MP upgrades in eastern side of Nation of Fools. Am I a fool, or did one of your portals misfired?

Some typos (in a scene after defeating Loretta, one sentence has uncapitalized first word, some others I don't remember) and strange flow of conversations, like one with Alucard. Curing the sisters, Richter tells him about awakening the whip, then, after revisiting Alucard, Richter tells him he was just told about such an option by sisters. The conversation with Dracula also could do with a bit of a rewrite, to sound more natural.

Richter's Tailcoat sprite isn't quite as good as his Saturn appearance.

You may think that since the rumblings of displeasure are longer, it somehow makes hack worse, but honestly, I mention those only in hope of authors further improving their creation. If you consider whether or not to play this hack you only have to answer two questions: "Do you want to?" and "Did you play the original?". First is self explanatory, while second may determine how much you would enjoy the hack, since I would recommend finishing original first.

Feature request? Rebind backflip to L and power first flight to down+L, please. I would also suggest authors to make a rebalance mod for the original game without the new storyline or level additions, these changes alone are worthy of separate hack.

I really like this hack overall, but it can't be fully enjoyed with all the problems. First of all, over-reliance on platforming, puzzles, boulders and spikes... It's great that the creator decided to refresh the game with new room layouts and add more emphasis on platforming, but it didn't quite work well. Spikes, boulders and many pixel-perfect spots are quite frustrating to deal with. Also, in vanilla, you had an option to pick either Nation of Fools or Sandy Grave as your second portrait, and I always went Nation of Fools. Now the option (on intuitive level) is gone, as you're forced to go all the way to Great Stairway's right bottom corner to get the Double Jump. Now, you either go in next room with Sandy Grave, or backtrack all the way to Entrance to finally find Nation of Fools painting, which is now locked behind Double Jump. I also find the enemy placement quite questionable. Prime example is Andras, which seems to be the running gag or a meme of sorts. There're many of those placed already after the first painting, and they are not funny to meet at all. I like that the creator decided to pump the difficulty, but its current level seems "cheap" at times. There're also some smaller problems like inconsistent character portraits: Stella (I know she's drawn by the same person as Loretta, but she looks disproportional and leans unnaturally), Death and Brauner, who look very strange in comparison with Kojima's works. Even though I'm a fan of those, I can't say I prefer portraits present in the game over overly-hated anime ones from vanilla. Icons for Maria's spells and Richter's subweapons are often shuffled too, which may be a local workaround for slot limitations? I dunno. And finally, I'd really like to see a patch with Richter's sprite from Saturn. One made by Serio is awesome, but it looks inconsistent with Maria and is also shorter than her. To summarize, it's a great hack made by a true fan of the series, which is visibly held back by these imperfections. I'm sure it will become even better in future updates.

Cutting this short and sweet!!

Better than expected and just hard enough to force me into grinding, but not too much. Just the way I love it!

BUT!! (Yes there's always 1.) Even though some things are comparable when reading Portrait of Ruin's FAQs and whatnot. This baby needs some attention in the form documentation, some FAQ Love.

(BTW Nice touch with the SIMON mode. ohh how I felt spoiled when I saw that!!)

Either a quick basic explanatory (IE: Like a Game Manual) Or just the differences in between both games, explained.

Keep up the great work, Many Thanks!

Honestly I'd admit that this hack has a lot of potential to top every other pre-existed DS Castlevania hacks in creatively and quality, but the major problem was it crashes quite often when I want to pause and consume potions in several areas consists of very large rooms (e.g.. Nest of Evil floor 5 room 3/room 4). This really ruins the whole experience with the hack (the crash happens on DSTT flash cart in NDS mode through 3DS' Twilight Menu ++ , and I'm not sure if it also happen on emulators. Still, the optimization needs work to get rid of the crash on flashcarts anyway.) Also the difficulty curve contains some problems as the game suddenly became way too hard when first stepped in Great Stairway areas, enemies souped on you at some large rooms of that area, and it's fairly easy to fall onto spikes which deals fixed percentage damages, which is, a complex feeling onto me which I can describe it best as "pain".

Hope the crash issue gets fixed in the next updates, I'm counting on you.

EDIT: After a ton of revisions the hack has been updated 1.0.6 and lots of issues get fixed but the replacement of Axe Armor's second sub weapon in 1.0.4 is still kinda out of logic as the process dodging some specific traps is just frustration (there's one room at Forgotten City which exploration .% clearly requires warp stone/puppet/owl transform to dodge, for Axe Armor it's absolutely out of reach) and it's so dang impossible towards the two Zephyrs in Axe Armor Level 1 cap mode without the sub weapon in question (How is it even a fair battle that passed so many revisions of the hack? Is this fight a troll on purpose? I'm so confused...). So unfortunately my attitude would stay mostly the same. Don't get me wrong, the edits to Richter and Old Axe Armor's * actions * (not sub weapons) are brilliant (I wish the vanilla had Axe Lord's shield available to the poor Axe Lord at the first place!!!), but leaving those changes exclusive to the edited map is a miserable choice. Those edits are more than enough to generate a "Portrait of Ruin: Definitive Edition" or something similar. Shame, shame. Keep going our heroes.

If you are looking for a hack for Portrait of Ruin, this is it. A brand new story, new weapons, new character portraits, and new skills, top it along with some new voice lines, and bam, instant best 48 hours of my life.

The hack definitely has its pros and cons that we can all agree with.

Pro:

• Heavy focus on the whip weapons by giving new elemental whips to play with instead of just fire, holy, and dark.

• New skills that Richter can use that prove himself to be a lot more versatile than Jonathan such as hit slide kick, spin kick, and blade dash.

• A backflip mechanic implemented at the start of the game, which basically gives the player a free double jump, and have it pretty much implemented so well in the game that the player would need to get used to it until of course, they get griffon wing, then its bonk your head on the ceiling for the rest of the game.

• Platforming and puzzles. Need I say more?

• Certain spells being instantly castable and being able to cast it while in the air.

• Giving Maria new weapons that she can play with instead of the basic ones Charlotte has in vanilla.

• A revamped Nest of Evil giving it a true challenge that only those with a will as strong as iron can overcome.

• Tunes from classic Castlevanias such as: "Castlevania The Adventure", and "Castlevania 2: Belmont's Revenge"

Now as with most games and romhacks, it comes with its cons.

Cons

• Early game focuses too much on the whip and not much exploring of other weapons such as swords, greatswords, and spears. The game is too whip-heavy and might need to be balanced perhaps so that other weapons might have a chance to shine. Even though Richter is a Belmont, surely they must have trained in other forms of fighting besides the whip.

• Vincent is still stingy as ever. I hate Vincent. :( (This is not a con of the game I just want to say how much I hate Vincent)

• Vague Quest description regarding Art of Zephyr. I had to fiddle around with it and turns out you had to do it on the stairs in front of Alucard. (I think, I tried it with other stairs and it didn't work)

• Inside the pyramid in the forgotten city changes it to the original music, would've loved to get another Gameboy banger while down there.

Things I'd change:

• If possible, add the sprite of Rebirth Christopher Belmont so that it feels more fitting with the rest of the crew and their modern sprites.

Overall, a really great romhack that you can spend some of your time playing if wanted, and just have a really great time.

It's just simply amazing. From new songs, weapons and level alterations. Both characters have awesome new skills and I especially like how Maria handles compared to Charlotte in original Portrait of Ruin. This was such a welcome surprise to experience. Highly recommended to any big fan of Castlevania.

As a casual, I feel this hack is EXTREMELY unbalanced, and has such a rollercoastering difficulty curve that it feels surreal. Portrait of Ruin was already hard enough- ESPECIALLY in early game, but I feel like they took that and cranked it up to 11 especially during the later segments. Forgotten City being the BIGGEST example of "die".

Let's start with the biggest issues. You die way too quickly, and save points feel very few and far between. Even with some of the best attainable armor you die in two to three hits, and the placement of enemies and spikes in boss rooms (Keremet, Death 1, Dagon...) do not really aid.

The endgame fell apart once I finished the Nest of True Evil, but then again, since that's the last thing you really have to do by that point, does it really matter? You're strong anyway and only really die if you do really dumb stuff like equip the Christopher Armor AND the Hercules ring and almost get one shot because of the bat swarm attack in the final Dracula vs Death fight.

I feel like the hack was less designed around combat, as 90% of the time I died while EXPLORING the castle. It's more about using Maria and Richter's moveset to its fullest, with minor exceptions. The Warp Stone was an unnecessary addition, but I will admit it had its uses in collecting some items.

Some of the slide kick puzzles and backflip puzzles- ESPECIALLY in the Great Stairway- were really mindblowing. And the Nest of True Evil being designed around a mix of both combat AND movement.. I honestly thought it was a much needed change of pace. Except for the Sandy Grave boulders appearing everywhere. Unnecessarily high damage.

I feel like most of the problems I had were forgetting to actually use the backflip since the game straight up tells you that you can use it for I-frames and going through certain attacks... but does it really excuse the really high damage? That can usually 1-2 shot you really early on? Also, the spikes having no I-frames are a problem either. It's Sonic 1/Mega Man 1 all over again. I think other Metroidvanias in the series did this too but I'm too dumb to remember.

Some of the new skills are really neat too. Maria's four guardians are scattered throughout the game, but I feel like they get overshadowed by some of the other better spells you can obtain. Piercing Beam being one of my personal favorites, reminding me of how busted Nitesco was in Order of Ecclesia. Also oh my gosh the references to the other CV games- this hack was made by someone who CLEARLY cared about the series, as well as adding other tidbits here and there. I still lose my sides over the Wesker Glasses description.

I feel like there was definitely some missed potential throughout the game though. Sanctuary being moved behind an extra Aguni fight is REALLY cool, but.. this is the only example of an extra Nest of Evil fight really being used in the game. Which kinda sucks, because Aguni is arguably the easiest NoE boss as his pattern is very predictable. Could've had it protected behind MAYBE Abaddon or even the Castlevania 3 trio.

The music placements are really great too, but my greatest issue comes in replacing Iron Blue Intention with Beginning. All of the other choices I understood and had no qualms with, but using the Julius Mode music... I really think it clashed too hard, and wouldn't have minded if it was kept the same or even changed to something from Symphony of the Night. I mean, there's clearly some custom music in here from the looks of it. Why not Lost Painting? If you can use Castlevania GB music (THANK YOU FOR USING NEW MESSIAH BY THE WAY), why not SoTN?

Minor nitpicks on the dialogue/story having generally the same beats, and minor grammatical errors here and there, but it really doesn't matter too much anyway. They find good workarounds for some plot contrivances here and there.

I'd recommend this hack only if you've beaten the original Portrait of Ruin and can't recommend it as a replacement. It is MUCH more difficult than vanilla and I assume it's geared towards veterans of the series. It's a good hack nonetheless, but I can't say it's a good starting hack due to how unbalanced the difficulty is. I know not all hacks are supposed to make the game easier, but if you're going to increase the difficulty, make it an enjoyable and steady curve instead of a reverse curve.

I'm not saying the hack is ENTIRELY unenjoyable though. It had its moments and I still recommend it. It just has a few things to be ironed out.

I've played this MOD. The story itself is awesome. The characters, new items, new enemies, all of them are very good. However.....

I've noticed that this MOD is not balanced perfectly. Some later enemies appears earlier here. And the stage itself is bit confusing on some areas. The map design especially on Great Stairways, Nest of True Evil, Forgotten City, and the worst: Tower of Death, are TOO CRUEL AND PAINFUL.

Why? Let's think about it. Too many spikes and rolling boulders, and some of those painful areas require precise timing to move through. This is inconceivable hard and not accessible for beginners and casual players that just want to play through and enjoy the game. You should make it more friendly so any newcomers or non-Castlevania veterans could playing it too without make them feel frustrated.

Oh by the way, did I forgot to mention if not only unskilled players will unable to complete this game, but also those (including myself) who playing it on tight controllers such Android Phone? Playing this MOD on your phone will causing some serious trouble since I'm pretty sure that the joypad on Android emulator is not as smooth as playing on PC.

PS ; Just playing Simon Mode. And thanks to those painful areas which requires Warp Stone or Dove Morph, now it's IMPOSSIBLE to get 100% map completion when playing as him since you most likely will die on there due to lack of flying or phase ability. I don't have a choice but to use my Cheat Engine to get infinite health and proceed to move through (which, once again, can be done only on my PC and not on my Android Phone)

If you want your MOD to become better, simply reduce the difficulty and make it more comfortable for all players, not just Hardcore-type ones. :)

Where do I begin. My mind has literally been blown by this hack. There are so many intricate things here that I can't wrap my head around. So many changes from items, armor, weapons, sub weapons, dual crush, to voices, music, portraits, storyline, MAPS!, and backgrounds, characters, and alternate characters, make this hack the most definitive and deeply altered hack of POR to this day.

I can honestly say that I had the most fun playing this hack since the first playthrough of the original POR. It took a great deal of skill and cleverness to achieve everything offered herein. Scouring the map to achieve completion was exiting and refreshing. It reminded me of the feeling I got when exploring SOTN for the first time. And the story made the experience even more nostalgic.

Every person who has played any Metroidvania style game at all should play this hack, as they will regain their second wind for exploring. And anyone who hasn't is missing out on something amazing. Thank you to all of the hackers it took to make this possible. It is truly a new work of art. And playing it made me feel great. I truly hope the future holds more hacks like this one.

This hack is a fantastic labor of love. The entire map was redone with Richter's movement in mind, he has an entire arsenal of weapons and skills, on top of that Adult Maria (his partner) does too! Both characters play flawlessly and things down to the position of weapons in every frame were well taken care of. So many hacks struggle to even get their characters animated right so this alone is an accomplishment that sets it apart. There are combinations of sprites from the many different iterations of these characters too from snes to saturn to psx. It was all pooled together to great result.

The portraits are great to look at and the music is always banger after banger. It really keeps the energy going. You can tell it oozes attention to detail and was made by a fan of the series over a long period of time. Pay no attention to toxic reviewers who feel entitled to to have what they want. There isn't alot of vania hacks worth the time to play but this one was 100% worth it, there just isn't enough wrong with it for me to say "No don't play it" in fact, just play it.

The game may be tough but there isn't a single situation that you cant get past with some thought or just by switching weapons, a bit of common sense can go a long way (when actually applied) I enjoy that the hack made me think about my gear, something the vanilla games sorely lacked. I was reminded that resistance was a thing in these games which is great.

Few hacks go as far or do as much as this one, as a metroidvania fan, saying "No" to recommending this would just feel disingenuous. I managed to beat the entire game from beginning to end on Desmume with 0 crashes at all.

Go in with an open mind and you may even enjoy the story too! :)

Good story plot and great additional changes made to the game. Only lacking is the underwhelming damage for certain dual crush moves like darkgate and dual grandcross, which could be better, hope it gets improved for the next update. It is definitely a great hack to play.

This hack is very good. It introduce new mechanics for the platforming, which significantly diversified and refreshed the game. New portrait maps, redesigned rooms, secrets are all here. Many thanks to the author and everyone who helped him! I definitely recommend this hack all Castlevania fans.

I've helped test this hack, like more other recent DSVania hacks, and I can say this one is very solid. Worth a play, 100%.