Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin -- Initial Impression.

It's on to the Nintendo DS for the next game with Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. The latest installment in the long-running Castlevania series is another entry in what's been come to be known as the metroidvania style. It's an action game backed up by action-RPG elements such as leveling up and item collection. From what I've played of Portrait of Ruin so far I can tell there are some changes in store to the fundamental systems for this entry as usual. Mainly in the tagalong NPC gameplay and the puzzle element it represents. I'll get into more details in a future entry of course. The graphics have never looked better. I'm not so sure about the animation level. It might be a bit lesser than this time. The NDS is capable of impressive full motion video segments as witnessed with the opening to Portrait of Ruin. The music level sounds good from the one or two tracks I've heard so far. The story seems to be still on the same level as all other Castlevania titles thus far. You know, cheesy and irrelevant. The general impression though is that I'm in store for another very solid Castlevania experience in an overall if it's not broken don't fix it kind of way.