Two Floors - Part Two

 With Aria of Sorrow's Top Floor covered, it's time to look at Master's Keep from Portrait of Ruin.

Relevant Information

Master's Keep is not the end of Portrait of Ruin - merely the halfway point of the game. The player has neither high jump nor flight unlocked at this point. While it's not explicitly stated, they are led to believe that there's atleast one more confrontation before Brauner, the big bad villain of this game. There are also enough hints that the player needs to accomplish something special to truly win. 

The First Floor

The first view of the level is quite impressive, with the elaborate statue in the background immediately standing out. The combination of drab marble and tinted wood with frescoes works pretty well, adding to the personality of the room.

The first room has fairly little resistance, with one succubus patrolling a fairly pointless floor and another succubus poorly guarding the teleporter. The room offers two exits. The bottom merely leads to a save point and a fairly pointless passage back to an interconnecting area. Fittingly, it's also guarded by a sole Wyvern, an enemy that's not a threat in combat since it telegraphs everything pretty early and has a limited range on its moves. The path left is obviously where the rest of the level lies, and thus it's bound to be of more interest for examination.

The very first thing the player will notice is the combination of two Razor Bats and a Malachi. Razor Bats are for the most part static enemies. Their main attack is swinging the sword in their claws, thus making them akin to living landmines. Malachi are demonic creatures that will either cast spells from afar or smack the player strongly up close. Their spells are definitely the deadlier move, as their melee is telegraphed early and has limited range. 

Given all the above, this could have been a formation with great potential. The bats could have

effectively defended the Malachi while it rained spells on the player, forcing them to strategize instead of fooling it by getting up close. Unfortunately, the AI doesn't use it to good effect. The Malachi almost invariably flies too close to the player to be protected by the bats, and this allows the player to simply dismantle the formation with repeated strikes. The second formation of Malachi and Razor Bats fare even worse, as the Malachi isn't even remotely covered by the Razor Bats! The first few encounters are thus a disappointing start to the level, despite showing some promise.

The Second Floor

A weirdly long and empty room afterwards, the player climbs up to the second floor. Here, they are greeted by a Dead Crusader on the platform above, with a Spin Devil right above. This is yet another formation that could have worked with better placement. Dead Crusaders are defensively formidable enemies, yet this one is placed on a platform that doesn't matter. The Spin Devil doesn't effectively chase the player, as it's too easily fooled into going downwards and the player wants to go up here. Placed on the same platform as the right exit, the Dead Crusader would have been effective and introduced the player well to enemies blocking frontal moves. Infact, dropping the Spin Devil would have been an arguable improvement in this respect, as while it could have supported the crusader, it's a fairly weak enemy and only does well when supported by enemies that can deny air effectively.

There are two routes forward. I'll be covering the one leading up first, as that's shorter and simpler.

The Upper Path

The first room has a fairly simple setup. Two succubi guard their platforms. This is unfortunately ineffectual, as they start too far back and there's plenty of room to simply climb up without requiring particularly good timing. The next room is even worse, a sole Dead Crusader standing pointlessly on its platform. This room has an upper and a lower right exit. The lower right features a sadly ineffectual

formation. While the Spectral Sword is a pretty good enemy, it needs support, preferably on the ground, to give players an reason to engage it outside of completionism. Sadly, all it has are two Spin Devils as companions, which I already mentioned are fairly weak enemies and completely fail at their role here.

The upper right is slightly more interesting, as it features a Final Guard - the same mighty enemy in Aria. However, even this enemy is dented by its room being way too large, once again letting the player simply win with enough repeated strikes at fairly little danger. Portrait of Ruin also changed Final Guards for the worse - they have abnormally high defenses now, reducing all attacks to 1 damage and thus forcing 50 hits regardless of player power. While this is perhaps intended to reward fast weapons and skills, it ends up homogenizing strategies a bit too much, especially when the player is essentially forced to either fight it or take damage. I am aware of Jonathan's martial arts - they have fairly limited use, are locked behind optional side quests, and do not reliably stop taking damage from the Final Guard anyway.

The Right Path

The first room is a fairly long, straight path through the keep. Two Flame Demons attempt to engage the player. Once again, they suffer from a lack of support: while they are reasonably strong enemies on their own, they need something to get the player to fight them. Dodging them in this room is pretty trivial as they are not very good at blocking the ground, and their only companion is a Spin Devil.

The next room is little better, all it has is a sole Wyvern which is hardly a threat. The room after,

however, is a bit more notable. A Spin Devil whirls above the player, while a Crusader guards the ground and the Succubus a piece of treasure. Unfortunately the Crusader is once again misplaced, and fails to defend anything. The Succubus does defend the treasure reasonably well, and this is a rare instance of the Spin Devil being relevant, as it can come from unexpected angles in the time it takes to get her in a good position. 

The rooms afterward fail to live up, with the one above featuring two Flame Demons with no support and the next having... a single Dead Crusader on the ground. This is quite a poor showing.

Comparisons

Looking at both levels, it is easy to notice a few trends. Top Floor has carefully placed enemies, that end up effectively accounting for the player's movement and general power. Master's Keep has often ineffectual enemy placement, and fails to make effective formations in many situations. The Top Floor is good at setting up a theme and building on it. The Master's Keep, by contrast, fails to establish a theme with its enemy placement in the first place. Lastly, the Top Floor was rewarding while retaining a degree of challenge. Master's Keep is quite bare, having about three rewards if we count the underwhelming secret room. Master's Keep is also quite poor about spacing, often using significantly more space than is actually needed for its encounters. This ends up hurting both the pacing as well as the threat of the encounters themselves, even in the rare instances where they could potentially be threatening.

It is safe to say that the Top Floor is the better level. Perhaps this shows the value of establishing and building upon themes, but it also showcases how much spacing and placement matter in an action platformer. More space and more rooms are not always a good thing, and it's quite easy to balloon to a size where much of the player's time gets wasted. The excess space also hurts other elements of the level, like giving too much space to dodge encounters or letting the player move almost unchallenged. Finally, it's always worth considering the general function of an enemy when placing it, especially as the room gets more complex or larger.

Portrait of Ruin has some notable moments in its level design. Sadly, the Master's Keep fails to have any.