A direct sequel to Castlevania Bloodlines, Portrait of Ruin takes the "switch a character" gameplay of Dracula's Curse and Dawn of Sorrow's Julius mode and fully fleshes it out.

Leftover Face Debugging Dialog

Of course, Portrait of Ruin wouldn't be complete without, well, portraits. And not only do you have the actual painting in the game, you have, of course, face portraits too. At some point during development, they had a script of dialog that would basically cycle through each and every face graphic. If you notice carefully, "ka," "ge," "ma," and "sa" are cycled through each message. When put all together you get "Kagemasa" (Kozuki) who is the current chairman and CEO of Konami.

The complete text dump for both English and Japanese versions:

Note they changed the Japanese expression name to the "Kagemasa" name placeholders in English.

Unused Item Coding

Mp Max Up	Hp Max Up

The "HP Max Up" and "MP Max Up" items are normally used immediately after picking them up. However, fully-functional inventory versions exist, which can be accessed with the Action Replay code 02111BFC 99999999.

Unused Richter Vampire Killer Coding

Richter's Vampire Killer is coded in the game and functions properly, but is also left unused for some reason. It can be accessed by using the Action Replay code 02111C30 99999999. The description is the same as the usual "true-power-released" Vampire Killer whip.

Richter's Vampire Killer works properly, but looks somewhat odd when used by Jonathan, partly because it appears just below his hand.

Unused Text

Tori

In the game ROM, the text "Tori"("とり" in Japanese ROM) refers to Maria's Dove attack (stored in Weapon slot in the game's memory). In the Japanese ROM it has a description written as "まりあ" (Maria) though in the English ROM the description simply copied its name as one.

• Side note: When Tori is equipped by Jonathan the default value of weapon swing animation is 03 (heavy weapon) though 02 (long sword) is more suitable in animation-wise.

ANOTHER MODE

Presumably a scrapped alternate mode that you once could use different characters from both Richer/Maria team and Stella/Loretta team. Or (possibly) an early name of Old Axe Armor mode.

English

Deutsch

Français

Italiano

Español

Texts for a (possibly) language switch option are present in the game ROM of US version.

Pointer 4BE to 4E6 (4BA to 4D6 in Japanese ROM) are Song (and area) names in Dawn of Sorrow. Portal To Dark Bravery ("闇凛の大扉" in Japanese ROM) track is used in the game, but the rest are not used.

Unused Graphics

Not as interesting as leftovers from recycled graphics, but there's still something shiny.

Holy Water

There're evidences that Holy Water would be using a different NES-style flame for non-mastered version, but was eventually abandoned for final.

• Fake Raplh/Trevor uses a similar one to the smaller Holy Water flame but the palette is grey-ish and the flame is taller.

This is probably the bigger (mastered) version of Holy Water flask but never actually used in-game. Final game uses version 1 (the smaller flask) instead.

B-U-T, this particular frame was actually used in a preview video of early gameplay - for placeholder graphics of relic pickups!

Early Title Menu

There're evidence that the secret modes are originally meant to be selectable in title menu (Dawn of Sorrow style), but since the game engine had been updated to the newer one used in final they are no longer needed and abandoned.

Sprite version of Richter Mode selection graphic.

Sprite version of Sister Mode selection graphic.

Sprite version of the mysterious "Another Mode" selection graphic, misspelled. It's yet another evidence of "Another Mode" itself did exist at one point but being abandoned/replaced by Old Axe Armor mode fairly early.

Fake Trevor

Fake Ralph/Trevor never had an exclamatory mark following partner's action in this game, nor in Symphony of the Night.

A bone made tomahawk-like weapon. Probably intended for Axe sub-weapon for Fake Ralph/Trevor. Even in Symphony of the Night it didn't make an appearance.

Unused Enemies

Ruler Sword/Spectral Sword's graphic data has a strange rope-rod-like weapon that can't be seen in the final version. The grey-ish palette is the closest palette possible for it.

Unused Attack Motion

Richter has an unused air dive kick attack that already has its hitbox properties, but didn't make its debut until Harmony of Despair.

• Even force double jump-air dive kick motion available for Richter, the game can't load this air dive kick graphic and uses graphics of spinning kick (→, ↓, ←, → + Y) instead, meaning further in-depth hack is needed to replace the misplaced graphic pointer + animation of air dive kick to the correct one.


• If proper animation of air dive kick is loaded, the air dive kick move works just as it should, but the leg has rather strange hitbox behavior which makes Richter hard to escape safely from enemies after the hit. This is because the attacking animation itself is executed wrongly; the animation set will load what should be the graphic of start up sprite

thus Richter's leg would retreat after a kick instead of always stretching to its full length when performing air dive kick from high.

• • The air dive kick also didn't have a straight down variant, which is probably the another reason of it being abandoned: it's still not polished enough to pass the final cut.


• The back flip counts as a successful double jump thus player can execute air dive kick during back flip animation should the air dive kick being restored.

Lerajie's unused shooting variant; it's actually a leftover from the preview video mentioned above, though she never shoots bullets without an arc in the final game.

Unused Enemy Behavior

Razor Bat retains the spawner version variant form Rondo of Blood and uses the exact same speed as in Rondo. This may cause it extremely hard to avoid its blade attacks so the reason it got abandoned is probably because balance concerns.

Leftovers from previous Games

A huge portion of leftovers from previous Castlevania games.

Dawn of Sorrow Leftovers

Bullet Soul: Axe Armor Level 2 and 3

The Game contains a leftover of Bullet Soul: Axe Armor (Level 2) from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. It can be accessed in the Japanese version (NDS-0676) by using Action Replay code below:

94000130 000003FB

D3000000 02111C38

D5000000 00000099

C0000000 000000D2

DC000000 00000000

D8000000 00000000

D2000000 00000000

Use the code and press SELECT in-game will make Bullet Soul: Axe Armor (Level 2) appear as Richter's Axe sub-weapon.
Compared with it, the normal Richter Axe sub-weapon sprite, and the Level 1/Level 2 forms Bullet Soul: Axe Armor in Dawn of Sorrow, it strongly supports a theory that Richter's version was borrowed directly from Dawn of Sorrow, and even the abandoned (old/DoS system) leveling system was not deleted.
Julius in Dawn of Sorrow, actually, also borrowed Bullet Soul: Axe Armor for his Axe sub-weapon. Probably it was not cleaned up in the converting process of data from game to game, or they would never bother clean them up.

Here's a text dump comparison below:

...All sub-weapons/soul abilitles borrowed from Dawn of Sorrow, included Julius mode-only sub-weapons, had their description/name untouched, but some may have updated in English text in order to match the description of existing version (?) - Jonathan's sub-weapon.
Maria, on the other hand, used capital M for description placeholder like how capital J was intended for Richter's sub-weapon - which are - actually borrowed from Dawn of Sorrow Julius (!)

• Richter's Axe sub-weapon can be edited through editing tools as an enemy drop/pickup thus can be equipped by Jonathan. If any of skill point need to reach mastered skill are set, Richter's Axe sub-weapon will change its form to Dawn of Sorrow Bullet Soul Axe Armor Level 2 after you mastered the skill, just like the regular Axe sub-weapon.
  
  • The default evolution degree of "Axe Armor Bullet Soul's" damage is the same as Jonathan's regular Axe sub-weapon thus can deal abnormally high damage output to enemies with slash weaknesses or has large body frames.
  
  

• All three levels of Bullet Soul: Axe Armor are stored along with other leftover graphics of Dawn of Sorrow Bullet Souls, even a single frame of Soma is along with them!

Dawn of Sorrow Axe Armor

The folder sc/f_axe00.dat-sc/f_axe01.dat contains graphics of Dawn of Sorrow Axe Armor! It could be anything... it would be intended for a "legit" method to obtain Richter's Axe sub-weapon, or it was just added by accident because its soul ability was there; or it's just they forgot to remove the old Dawn of Sorrow version of Axe Armor enemy.

Old Boss Intros

Intros of Balore and Zephyr from Dawn of Sorrow remains in the game data should player hack them in a more-than-two-screen length room in anywhere other than Nest of Evil through map editor tools, and set their Var A value as 01.

• When the Var A value of Dawn of Sorrow bosses is set to 01, the game will read their variant in Dawn of Sorrow story mode thus may made glitches when placed them to one-screen length rooms.

Leftover Objects

A leftover road blocker object from Dawn of Sorrow, redrawn but didn't get an appearance in the final game. Intended for work in progress demo version.

• There's a preview of early gameplay that actually used this blockade!

• When the blockade object is restored in-game through editing tools, it blocks movement path of both player and enemies that obeys physics as the game reads blockade as solid wall.

The Dawn of Sorrow style wooden wall included within road blocker object graphics.

A single frame of Soma's Bat Company Morph from Dawn of Sorrow is left within the graphic data of Owl Morph for some reason.

Leftover destructible objects from Dawn of Sorrow Castle Top Floor.

• Though Mimic did appear in this game, an ordinary variant of Mimic's treasure chest is not included in-game.

Symphony of the Night Leftovers

Hidden within the graphical data for Amducias are graphics for the Discus Lord from Symphony of the Night. The enemy has two animations for idling and throwing his discus.

• Hitbox properties intact.

Legion's old "berserk mode" laser attack from Symphony of the Night after all corpse parts removed.

Malachi's graphic data contains his old Symphony of the Night fog effect leftover.

A single frame of Owl from Symphony of the Night. Owl didn't appear in the DS title until Order of Ecclesia.

Minotaur still has his Symphony of the Night Blocking animation as a boss.

Richter still has most of his Rondo of Blood graphics in the ROM, including go up/down stairs, attacking on the stairs.

Technical explanations:

• The 2D Castlevania games from Symphony of the Night to Order of Ecclesia all treats stairs like ramps for character's mechanisms (excluding Harmony of Dissonance since that game uses specified NES-era mechanisms for Simon and then re-uses specified NES-era graphics for Simon's animation going up/down stairs).


• The new Portrait of Ruin system defaults Richter's moving animation to running (excluding when Richter is moving the pot in Keremet fight; the pushing animation uses walking animation graphic from Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night but the Keremet fight room didn't have stairs. It's because even in Symphony of the Night Richter's pushing-boxes animation is treated as walking animation.)


• Richter's graphics didn't get a total overhaul following the system moving to DS.
  
  • Despite all the old Rondo of Blood sprite are in the ROM, the animation set is incomplete (lacking animation set when walking down stairs).
  
  

• 
  

  

  
  

  
  

  Complete sprite dump of Richter.
  

  
  

  
  

Richter's unused Symphony of the Night punching/power-up animation.

Richter's Symphony of the Night power-up animation used when he's about to power-up his whip to flame whip.

• Animation set is still in the ROM but left unused.

Richter's Knife Item Crash Animation is still in the ROM, but Richter never uses Item Crash excluding (the sub-weapon version recycled from Dawn of Sorrow Julius) Grand Cross.

Rondo of Blood Leftovers

Old Axe Armor's graphic data contains his shield from Rondo of Blood but never used in-game.

• Hitbox properties intact.

Minotaur's graphic data contains his old boss intro from Rondo of Blood but never used due to he doesn't appear in this game as a boss.

The graphic data of Frankenstein's Creature contains his old stone debris attack from Rondo of Blood but never used since all his attacks are upgraded for the new game engine.

• Hitbox properties intact.

Mummy Man still has his old Rondo of Blood bondage attack in the ROM but it's actually modified in this game to be a heat seeking bondage attack.

Along with Razor Bat's graphics assets the leftover graphics of Rondo of Blood Stage 7 map chip are hidden.

A portion of Rondo of Blood Camilla boss room graphics is stored along with Laura's graphics. All original Rondo of Blood palette intact.

Regional Differences

Typos

US	Europe

Richter's name was spelled as "RICHITER" on the Japanese and US versions' file select screen (Due to an apparently miss in Japanese-English spelling conversion). This was corrected in the European version, and the Japanese revision.

US	Europe

Charlotte's name was missing an L on the Equip screen (also because Japanese-English spelling transition cases). This was also fixed in the European version and later Japanese revision.

Glitch Fixes

There are several glitches and exploits in Portrait of Ruin in other countries that that got fixed for the European release, and Japanese revision.