Reviewed: Castlevania: Harmony of Despair
As the majority of us gamers know that as far as the Castlevania sequels go in this modern gaming generation they have easily lost their momentum. Konami have tend to end up recycling previous titles mainly the iconic Symphony of the Night. Nothing has changed and still isn’t feeling as unique as the previous titles.
Graphical wise the game hasn’t really gone anywhere and feels like It’s all been up scaled to suit the 360’s fancy high-definition potential, though, this means all those recognisable sprites (Mr Blue Knight) are smaller and a bit more crisper. A positive remark we can give to the game is the ability to control the camera all at a click of the right stick. You can zoom in, out and also have a view of the castle map, you can’t see anything other than lots of small sprites running around.
Harmony of Despair has single player and multiplayer modes, the single player is worthless and actually isn’t needed since everything that you do in the single player can be done with 5 other players. You will find the game easily frustrating when you start the game as you will constantly die from bosses. After a while you will beat the learning curve and manage to pick up more weapons and items. The boss’s are actually one of the only gameplay elements that make this Castlevania game exciting due to their excellent designs. The character roster is back and is packing Aria/Dawn of Sorrow’s Soma, Jonathan and Charlotte from Portrait of Ruin, Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia or Symphony of the Night’s trusty old Alucard. Now I’m bet your sitting there thinking… 5 Characters? but its a 6 player game? Its something we can overlook since its not that important but the idea of the 6 player adventure has lots its creative incentive which has lead to a poorly researched outcome. Its not a major issue and everyone will mainly choose Allucard or Soma.
Harmony of Despair goes back and is a pre-Symphony as you have to encounter Dracula slaying the escapades. This then causes you to having to manoeuvre your way through the gigantic castle. Each boss has several different paths. Each path will cause you death and confusion. It will take minutes for you to master how to jump to certain areas in the game to progress further. If you don’t know what your doing and are playing solo then expect some challenge. Through out the Castle you will notice some well crafted architecture on your path to the boss’s, its a shame though that the design it self doesn’t really have much of a appeal.
If you do decide to choose single player then your making a mistake – its a waste of time – simple. The game’s is fed and bred of the online play is the games main focus. No local co-op mode is provide, so Xbox Live is the only way for you to play. Expect yourself to die a lot of the time, Harmony Of Despair will decimate your HP bar if you take one wrong turn. Having a full team of 6 players on hand is essential as the enemies – especially the bosses are humongous, hard and require allot of amounts of manoeuvring of solid attacks to finally have defeated the boss. A lot of the levels have shortcuts and treasure which can only be accessed by the use of working as a team. Your first run-in with each boss will likely end – very quickly – with a messy defeat, which is understandable, but so will your second, third and fifth attempts. It takes a lot of knowhow to understand how to take out the bosses and what’s the best attacks and strategy to take the bosses down. The last two bosses Death and Dracula are very frustratingly tough.
One you die you, provided your not playing by yourself, will reincarnate you into a skeleton form. If one of your fellow players have a ‘Water of Life’ they can bring you back to your original character form. Every time you die as a skeleton you will continue to return as a skeleton. Skeletons are weak pretty much useless in combat, if none of the fellow players have a ‘Water of Life’ expect to be countlessly throwing bones at enemies that hardly do any damage. When you die you’ll be docked five minutes from the timer – fail to kill the boss before a half an hour timer hits zero and you’ll all be kicked back to the title screen.
Characters are important, well it is very essential to understand what your character is best for/the best character to choose for combat. Jonathan and Charlotte work as a pair, so you will probably would want to stay away from them, instead its best focusing on somebody that can require on a character that doesn’t need assistance from another. It mainly comes down to the magical Chanoa or Allucard the weapon-fanatic, you will notice online these characters are far more used compared to the others.
Its not all about focusing on the characters individual talents, you should mainly focus less on their unique abilities and aim for weapons and equipment. Konami have gone back to basics this time around. Soma may be able to pick up magical spells but when it comes to weapons your mainly in the same boat as everyone else. There’s no solid levelling system, its all just about the money for new equipment to boost your stats. If your lucky and manage to pickup something spectacular from a random drop, expect to be spending the cash.
Don’t get me wrong, it can be a very addictive game, but it doesn’t mean its been competently crafted. The shop system even though how inelegant loot and shopping is you will be left with the bare minimum of incentive to continue and progress further. Its nice picking up new equipment, but the equipment select is nothing of the extraordinary and is a bit sparse. Getting new magic spells is more exciting but also frustrating. The game is mainly a win and loose situation between frustration and enjoyment, majority of the time frustration.
One major issue I have with the game is the speed – its so laggard due its basic walking speeds. Although the other Castlevania games gave you the ability to significantly boost your way around your momentum in, Harmony of Despair no longer use’s such perk as the game likes everyone to feel like they are permanently walking through a river of never ending glue. Death seems like an easy option instead of walking around at snails pace. We have to say though, even though walking like a snail is thurelly frustrating,the soundtrack really brings peace to the ears and does set the mood for the title.
Overall 4/10
Castlevania hasn’t gone back to its classic roots, its does not feel like the classics we once have had the enjoyment out of. The game is made for Co-op and that’s it, single player fans will not enjoy this title as its far to frustrating playing the game alone. Konami have really taken away everything that makes the series as good as it was to begin with. As a big fan of the series I have managed to play almost all of the previous titles, sadly this title can not hold any of their former glories. You should pickup Symphony of the Night instead.