Games First has a new preview of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, and one particular bit of information sticks out as a potential problem.

Players will be able to switch between Charlotte and Jonathan at any time. There will be times when both characters will be needed simultaneously to solve various puzzles or tag team enemies with attack combos. When both characters are on the screen at the same time, players will be able to control the movement of the active character with the D-pad, and use the stylus to control the movement of the sub-character by dragging it around the screen.

I suppose it would work with puzzles, though I don't like having to pull out the stylus in an action game. But using it in the middle of a fight? Just seems like a hassle to me. The Castlevania series doesn't really strike me as needing the touch screen in any way, except to perhaps manipulate a map or a puzzle. All this other stuff just seems tacked on to justify the game's presence on the DS.