Castlevania : Harmony of Despair (XBox Live Arcade) - anyone else playing it?
For those who don’t know : Castlevania HD is a ‘classic’ style Castlevania game, in the vein of Symphony of the Night and the play-alikes that it spawned on the Game Boy Advance and DS. The premise is that there’s a dark book of history that’s being consumed from within by the evil its pages records - but there is good recorded in the pages as well, so you take on the role of one of the historical heroes to battle the forces of Dracula and prevent them from escaping.
Each stage is self-contained with one boss and a time limit of thirty minutes.
It allows multiplayer over XBox Live.
You can play as Alucard, Soma, Jonathan, Charlotte, or Shanoa - protagonists of a variety of the ‘Metroidvania’ games. You can also pay a little cash to download extra characters - Julius Belmont, Richter Belmont, Yoko Belnades, and Maria Rendard.
Oh, and Simon Belmont - presented in his original 8-Bit form.
It’s kind of awesome, but I haven’t gotten to try the multiplayer yet.
I tried the demo back when it came out and felt that it did nothing for me.
Dunno, I never really got on to the “metroidvania” version of Castlevania bandwagon - I mean, I loved Simon’s Quest, but Rondo of Blood and heck, original Castlevania stick with me more than Symphony of the Night, which everyone seems to think is the bestest Castlevania game ever, and the one that marked the point where the franchise both A) Went to Metroidvania mode and B) Started going downhill.
But Harmony of Despair just semed kinda…empty for me. I realize it’s a “mashup” game and therefore inherently light on everything except gameplay, but still…
It’s a good game with a lot of versatility and high nostalgia value.
However, maxing out characters requires an insane amount of grinding for items and spell drops(some characters more than others).
Multiplayer is kinda fun, but really involves just faster grinding at higher difficulty levels. The team can only “run” the highest level of difficulty as the lowest level player. So if you haven’t beaten “Normal” the team can’t run a “Hard” level until they help you beat the normal stages.
Usually the team doesn’t want to bother with that because it slows the grinding process, so either the team disbands or you get booted. It makes sense, but is kinda lame.
Overall, I love the feel of the game, and wish they had just created a good single-player game out of it, or multiplayer co-op on the story that started everyone at level zero with no items.
Well, I don’t mind the grind. I maxed out SotN - all familiars to 99, 210.6% castle exploration, both the rare and common item drops for every monster in the game - twice.
I play and love Castlevania: HD. If you ever need a partner for multiplayer item/skill grinding or even just stage completion, send me a friend request. GT: Toldea. I play mostly Alucard and Richter.
I will! Does it unlock more stages if you complete something in multiplayer? Because I’m having a hell of a time finishing off Dracula on Normal. I really want to unlock the extra store options, but even Maria and Yoko, who normally steamroll most opponents, can’t finish off Big D’s third form.
The base game has the first six chapters, once you finish them all on normal you can tackle them on hard, which is basically the same levels but enemies have way more health, do more damage, drop better items and some of the bosses have a new trick or two.
You can play anything in multiplayer that you’ve unlocked in single player, and vice versa. If you beat Chapters 1 and 2 on Hard in single player, you could then do Chapter 3 on hard in multiplayer. If you beat Ch. 3 in multiplayer, Ch. 4 is available in Single Player, etc. If you buy new stages (7 - 11) I believe they’re immediately playable, regardless of whether you’ve finished the earlier stages. Dont hold me to that though, as I bought them after I’d finished the base game.
I can definitely help you with Drac though, shoot me a msg next time we’re both on.
Thanks for the assist last night! As you noticed, I’m still not used to the ‘Yorick jump’.
Now that the expanded store list is open, I should be able to better equip my characters and do some sub-weapon grinding to get them beefed up. And Alucard got a Holy Sword, Alucard Mail, a Black Cloak, and Samurai Leggings from last night’s efforts, so he’s in pretty good shape defensively.
