Castlevania: Harmony of Despair Review by: Shogun Gamer - 8.5/10
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair - Perfect Present for a Castlevania FanCastlevania: Harmony of Despair - Perfect Present for a Castlevania Fan
PSN Username: Nero955 (Let's play some Castlevania HoD)
Castlevania Harmony of Despair. I was so skeptical about getting this game because at the time, I looked at what the numbers from sites like IGN and Gamespot said about the game. But then I realized, word of mouth, is much better. What was even better, was actually experiencing the game for myself and watching others play. Times has changed for me, and now when I write a review, I try to give "you", the reader, the honest, entertaining approach so you know what you are getting yourself into when trying a game on vizzed, or for this matter, buying a game on PSN or Xbox Arcade.
I took plenty of time to decide when the best time to get Castlevania HoD on the PSN, and that was when I got playstation cards on my birthday, oh you should have seen the look on my face. I am not at all disappointed with Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, well, unless I'm playing alone the whole time and can't defeat Dracula on hard mode. Castlevania brings a remade, fresh, classic feel with multiplayer up to 6 players online. Will this game drive you to the depths of madness? Well, it depends on choice of poison, or perhaps you're unlucky to have both.
Depth: 7
Classic Castlevania has always been very challenging and difficult to beat, the same going to hard modes in the portable Castlevania games from my experience. This game basically overpowers you at first, and it's your job to get stronger by repeatedly failing or succeeding to get the necessities you need to complete stages, or even get the item you are looking for at the end of a level. This Castlevania is by no means an adventure, but rather more of an rpg arcade type game... where you only have a impossibly small chance of getting a very rare item that you can't help but become jealous of players who do have it. The main idea is to go through a huge treasure chest filled stage while you fight the same difficult boss and enemies over, and over, and over to get some sort of valuable item at the end.
Though the game may have such a simple task of defeating the boss of each level, it is by no means simple to actually reach and defeat the boss. Hordes of enemies block your path, traps lie in many rooms, and your character must become stronger to actually defeat the boss. You may even be a Castlevania pro but that'll only help in your survival to avoid being hurt as it's very easy to die in the game unless you are quick and nimble. So what must you do, new or old, to actually defeat this great task at hand? You must "grind" and "farm" as we say!
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair takes from classic and the portable Castlevania, taking difficulty and fragility from the classic games, and rpg stats, items, and stat changing equipment from the portable games. However, new and old to the game is upgrading your spells or sub-weapons, which in turn will make the characters stronger. This feature is absolutely essential to getting further in the game when playing locally, but unfortunately takes plenty of time and without it, you'd be done with the game in only a few hours if the characters had a set strength. Most of the character require a certain way to increase their stats, and others may need to rely how increases the power of the spells and skills the collect to actually be effective in a boss battle. Equipment just as well plays a deep role in helping your character survive enough blows before facing their certain doom to a boos, or even an enemy. But in short, you'll be opening the same treasure boxes, selling repeats of equipment, rinsing and repeating, and failing in succeeding... and playing with overpowered friends to finish a stage quickly for the final rare treasure. This will be the hours and hours that go by as you play Castlevania: Harmony of Despair... technically.
So, you may be thinking now, "Oh, how dastardly! Why would I ever want to play a game that's so very repetitive and so difficult that I have to spend hours just to have the results! VILLAINOUS! VILLAINOUS I SAY!" But that's where you are wrong. Think about games like Sonic, Megaman, or even Super Mario Bros. When you play these games for the first time, you'll end up making plenty of mistakes somewhere down the line, and even losing plenty of lives, but yet you want to get to the next level, so you do the stage over and over again till you can get through it. Oh and now it hits you, it remains so fun and nostalgic that you'll go back to the game again and still struggle to get through it after a year's loss of practice. Am I not correct? Perhaps assumptive would the term. This is how Castlevania: Harmony of Despair feels. You die so many times... yet it feels so very good to have at it again, and again, and again and finally, have your victorious conclusion! When you do it again the next day...things don't go out so well all the time. With multiplayer, the game becomes even better as the experience is always different with new and veteran players. You might even say while you play, "Oh...I didn't know you could do that?" Castlevania: Harmony of Despair will not fail to impress you and keep you addicted by its bloody charms.
So "what" exactly does Castlevania: Harmony of Despair have to offer? In the PS3 version, you start out with seven characters, and seven levels, as well as local multiplayer. Unfortunately, the Xbox version featured only five characters and six levels as the two extra characters and stage were DLC, as well as no local multiplayer. After beating the first 6 chapters, you will unlock hard mode in which the enemies and bosses are much stronger, but the treasures you can achieve are very rare and greater than the treasures you'd receive in normal mode. You can also play up to 6 players online in Co-op mode and survival mode which will be very helpful in your grinding and farming adventure. Within the game itself, there are plenty of monsters to fight, items and spells to collect to further customize and enhance your experience, and even hidden easter egg items to increase your points after completing the stage. These features will engage and challenge your limits, and keep you coming back for more vampire hunting.
The characters in the game vary differently from each other and can offer a completely different experience with each large stage. However, certain characters pair together to fit within a category of what their strengths are in similarity. For instance, Soma and Alucard are the only characters able to wield a huge amount of weapons, but cannot level up in strength only being able to raise their strength through the weapons they equip. However, they are not entirely the same as the two characters stay true to their original titles, Soma collecting magic through killing enemies, and Alucard collecting spells through scrolls obtained in chests or enemies. What separates them even more is Alucard's ability to use special skills with certain weapons and wielding shields as he doesn't have a large range of magic to use like Soma. You also have you classic style whip users, Jonathan, Julius, DLC Richter, and DLC 8-bit Simon who only use their whip, but are capable of martial arts and sub weapon use. They on the other hand are limited to what they can wear but receive special equipment meant for their style, as well as level up in strength through leveling their sub weapons. Then you have the magic users, Shanoa, Charlotte, and Yoko, who are utilized differently, Shanoa having both physical and magical prowess while absorbing glpyhs to be used repeatedly to level up, Charlotte having to absorb spells into her books to become stronger, and Yoko already starting with the spells she needs only having to level them up. DLCs Maria Renard and 8-bit Getsu Fuma are also included and are considered joke characters somewhat but still have their own special strengths. In my experience, the Richter Belont DLC was certainly worth having, and I'm sure the other DLC characters are also pretty fun, but without it as well as Julius and Yoko, the game would be pretty dull.
The one flaw with Castlevania HoD is that stages 8-11 are DLC, 7 as well for Xbox owners. All the stages including the DLC are in my opinion, well done and very fun to experience as a whole. In fact, without the DLC, you actually miss out on the full experience of the game as some new techniques for characters are unlocked in the DLC stages which is very unfortunate, but absolutely worth it. Each stage is a huge labyrinth you must work your way through towards the Boss within half an hour, and within it are treasure chests and monsters that will stop you at a moment's glance from proceeding forward. With friends, each of you will either start together in the same area, or start as opposite sides of the map depending on the stage you chose. Some areas in each stage aren't reachable without a certain skill or a friend to help you out with a simple puzzle that requires the minds of two. Treasure chests are all covered differently to represent what type of item they may carry. For instance, blue treasure chests in multiplayer contain water of life which can be used to revive a fallen friend when they are in skeletal form. All in all, all the stages including the DLC present plenty of entertainment, fan-service, and fun.
Difficulty: 9
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is without a doubt an incredibly difficult game. The game starts off hard, and remains that way unless you have a strong online friend who can help you through, or until you collect the best equipment and level up your characters to do a decent amount of damage. Even so, being powerful will only help you end normal mode sooner, only to take on hard mode where the real challenge and item collecting begins. That's right, normal mode is there just to introduce you to the stages and you are only limited to finding lower rank items, though even normal mode is at first difficult and items are still difficult to get due to the game's chance system.
Achieving items is probably more difficult than the bosses who can potentially annihilate you in a few hits. Final items you achieve after the boss can sometimes only a 1% chance of actually appearing. Many have actually done a stage more than 300+ times and still haven't achieved a certain item they want...I happen fit in that category. It's also rumored that increasing the luck of your character doesn't change your chances of getting rare items at the end of a level. I wouldn't say this is necessarily a bad thing, but it's not a good thing either as this game could literally keep you up late for hours, especially with friends.
The bosses are indeed challenging and will require you to fight them over and over until you memorize how to answer to each of their attacks. However, what I found to be difficult is actually being able to attack certain bosses at the same time without getting hit. Dodging attacks is one thing and attacking an enemy after they finish attacking is another, but if you want to speed run a boss for a high score while not getting hit, you have to be able to attack the enemy at the same time at specific points. This adds to the fun challenger as this game encourages your experimentation with battles and finding better ways to defeat a boss.
The stages in Castlevania: Harmony of Despair are well designed and some stages are fun to scope out and try new things with certain characters. Sometimes there will be a risk and reward situation due to all the spike traps and obstacles that will steal a huge chunk off your health. Other times, the placement of monsters and traps are just plain annoying to put up with when you are constantly being bothered by death, the grim reaper, on stage 5 for instance. Funny enough, on the hard mode actually changes the stage slightly in the fact that all the traps move faster than what they would on normal mode, making it more difficult to get through a trap without making a mistake.
The controls in the game are simple, but take quite a bit of learning to master. At first, you will think you have it all down, but when you see a pro play the game, you will wondering how in the world they control their character so well. You can double jump, back dash, slide kick, dive kick, attack, use a unique skill, throw items or use magic, and dual crush in co-op. All these techniques will come in handy and are a must use to actually pass certain parts of the game, especially the slide kick and dive kick. Already with the firs boss, the only way to avoid being damaged as it charges towards you would be to dive kick off its body to the other side. Learning the controls and techniques is absolutely important to learn from the get go, but can take quite a bit of practice and experimentation. For online purposes, you can also use a message function to communicate to other players if you don't have a microphone.
Addictiveness: 9
If you want addicting, then Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is the game for you. You will literally be driven to the edge of madness ripping out your hair as you fail and fail against a boss, or cry and cry "Oh when will I ever receive those Sonic Boots! CURSE YOU DRACULA! CURSE YOU ASTARTE!" It is true, this game really does center on Grinding and Farming, but in such a good way it's a sin. I found that the game remains incredibly fun all the while grinding and farming as the game does allow you to be experimental with how you play. There are different ways to play a stage, and with the usual Castlevania tradition, food to find in breakable walls.
Graphics: 8
The graphics in Castlevania: HoD recapture that of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and most 2D Castlevania games. Some stages originating from previous 2D Castlevania games are redesigned with better quality art. They actually even gave animations to the ground which you run on, for instance, a room piled with books; books will kick up off the ground as you run or jump upon it. These little details actually make the game nice to look at. There are also several views to zoom in and out of the different parts of the stage to see all the rooms or the one you are in. All in all, the stages are nicely redesigned and bring a sense of nostalgia.
The character sprites are also really nice and for me, bring back that nostalgic memory of playing the castlevania game of which they originate from. Not too much is changed about the sprites for the characters in fact, so all in all, make the game feel like Castlevania: Harmony of Fanservice. I'd assume for someone who's never played a Castlevania game at least from after Symphony of the Night make become interested in what the games are all about after seeing the character sprites and stage remakes.
Sound: 6
I'm not necessarily interested in all the redesigns of the songs for Castlevania Harmony of Despair. They are okay and get the job done, but I'm very sure many will actually love the music remakes based on the originals. I felt other Castlevania games made better remixes than the ones in HoD, but it's all a matter of preference as I'm not entirely a heavy metal fan. I felt in a way, the music just doesn't experiment enough outside the box and some of the songs all have a similarity to each other, eventually making them sound the same unless you know the melody for each song. It stays true to Castlevania in a way, but it could have been executed much better in my opinion perhaps by adding a little more color and variation of different styles.
The voice acting in the game is okay for the most part and each character as a suitable voice actor that captures how they would sound, especially if they didn't have a voice actor before. There is also an option to choose the Japanese voice actors for the character when
selecting the color palette for the character by holding R2 before confirming. Neither dub is disappointing and in the end becoming a matter of preference.
Overall: 8.5
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair strays far from being like the usual Castlevania games where you adventure through a huge castle. However, this is executed quite well and actually will provide plenty of entertainment and challenge as it stays true to the series' other traditions. Anyone who's played Castlevania and loved it will certainly want to add this game to their collection and perhaps even tell their friends to get it so they can play together! Those new to it many find the game absurdly difficult but perhaps my interest themselves in the Castlevania series. I honestly love this game and can't stop playing it since grinding and farming is actually fun and at the same time very difficult.
Unfortunately, the game suffers from DLC as the DLC stages and perhaps even the characters (especially Richter Belmont) make this game twice as fun and give players so much more to do. I wouldn't miss out on the stage DLC and completely recommend it to those who want an even greater challenge to tackle...or a take back to the retro 8-bit age. It's all so good and you have to pay more than the price of what you paid for the game to experience it. Without it, there wouldn't be as much to do so it's definitely worth the money on the other hand, even for those who hate DLC. Not to mention, the stages are come backs from Castlevania Symphony of the Night, the original NES Castlevania, and Legend of Fuma which...isn't a castlevania game but I assume it's similar.
Overall, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair on the PS3 is definitely worth having for those who love challenging themselves and playing with friends especially.
By the way...my PSN is Nero955, message me and I'll play Castlevania with you and help you through!
Graphics
8 Sound
6 Addictive
9 Depth
7 Difficulty
9
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