- Castlevania Harmony Of Despair Drop Rates
- Castlevania Harmony Of Despair Price Guide
- Castlevania Harmony Of Despair Characters
The third entry into Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade promotion was a unique take on the classic 2D adventure series. Instead of exploring every square inch of Dracula’s castle similar to Symphony of the Night, players instead battled through levels with a time limit and collect powerful treasures while partnering up with up to five more players online.
Castlevania Harmony of Despair was one of 5 titles featured in the Xbox Live Marketplace Summer of Arcade promotion. Purchasing all 5 titles was rewarding.
Online multiplayer on Xbox requires Xbox Live Gold (subscription sold separately). + Offers in-app purchases. See System Requirements. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. $14.99 + Offers in-app purchases. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. Kid Dracula is a rare gem in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. Since its original release in 1990 as Boku Dracula-kun in Japan, Kid Dracula is a cute and light-hearted take on the Castlevania franchise and is rumoured to be one of the first times we meet Galamoth, better known as one of the bosses in Symphony of the Night. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is a great title for both fans of Castlevania and for those just getting into the series. The new co-op element will certainly add a layer of depth to the title unseen in previous releases, and the RPG aspects ensure that there is plenty of replay value here. And because assets seem to have been plucked straight from previous games, that $15 price tag is questionable. But, Castlevania fans will definitely have fun with Harmony of Despair.
Harmony of Despair Levels
The six levels featured in Castlevania HD were new in a sense, but each level was seen as a patchwork containing pieces, reused art assets, and even bosses from previous games. Harmony of Despair should have been seen more as a “best of” compilation in the Castlevania series with a new, six-player co-op twist, as opposed to an all new adventure.
Even though Harmony of Despair contained reused assets, clever game design made it feel like new. Gergoth, the laser-shooting bipedal demon from Dawn of Sorrow, shoots lasers across the entire stage, and Death flies around attacking players before they reach his lair. Small changes such as these helped Harmony of Despair stand on its own despite the reused assets.
Another new feature that was sure to please fans was the ability to zoom out and see the entire level at once. This allowed players to quickly see which player is where, and to plan out which route to take. After getting used to this feature, players might have a difficult time going back to previous Castlevania games that offer a much more limited point of view.
Harmony of Despair Characters
Characters featured in Harmony of Despair include Soma, Alucard, Jonathan Morris, Shanoa, and Charlotte Aulin (future DLC will supposedly add Maria Renard and Julius Belmont). Instead of leveling up through experience points, players can increase their characters’ strength by collecting more powerful loot, and through leveling up each character’s unique abilities.
Soma, for instance, collects souls and can increase each soul’s power by collecting more (up to a max of 9). On the other hand, Jonathan Morris increases the power of his sub-weapons by using them on enemies, and as his sub-weapons increase in power, so does his powerful Vampire Killer whip and his martial arts techniques. Each character is different, but the game unfortunately offers very little explanation, so new players are advised to review some Game FAQs before deciding on which character to play.
Castlevania HD Six-player Online Co-op on Xbox Live
Harmony of Despair allows up to six players total to battle Dracula’s minions and search for loot via Xbox Live. Sadly, no option exists to play co-op locally, so gamers without an Xbox Live gold account must fight solo.
Six-player co-op, while a bit chaotic, shows Harmony of Despair at its best. All players receive a piece of treasure no matter who opens a chest, so players can focus on cooperation rather than bickering over who gets the next treasure chest. The game’s difficulty scales up depending on the number of characters, so while some bosses, such as the Puppet Master, are easy pickings for a full team, others, such as Dracula, actually feel more challenging with extra players.
Castlevania Harmony of Despair’s fun factor gets knocked down a couple of pegs for the amount of time wasted simply trying to find a game. The quick match option frequently tries to join a game that is already full, which boots the player back to the title screen. Searching via custom match helps, but the same problem persists. Also, since a team cannot tackle a stage or difficulty level higher than the team’s lowest member, players frequently disband a team when a lower-ranked player joins.
Despite these frustrations, once a full team is found and the game begins, it’s an Xbox Live co-op experience unlike any other.
Limbo offers the same quality over quantity model similar to other XBLA hits like Braid and Portal. While it’s possible to complete the entire game within three hours, it’s an experience that should not be missed, even for the “premium price” of 1200 MS points on Xbox Live Arcade. Limbo was developed by Playdead, a new independent game developer based in Denmark.
Story and Gameplay Mechanics of Limbo
Limbo’s story is an exercise in simplicity. The description on the Xbox Live Marketplace only says, “Uncertain of his Sister’s Fate, a Boy enters LIMBO.”
The story, then, is more about what happens in-game. The player must dodge death and dismemberment at nearly every step, including traps, chasms, spikes, parasites, massive mechanical gears, and more. Numerous environments and varied challenges gives the player the feeling of experiencing the story, rather than simply playing a game and passively watching a story unfold through cut scenes or listening to lame audio logs.
While the obvious objective is to avoid dying to the myriad of deadly obstacles when moving from point A to point B, the player will inevitably die – many, many times. However, nearly every obstacle or puzzle surpassed offers a checkpoint. So while the game challenges the player with life or death situations at every turn, the numerous checkpoints relieve frustration and allows the player to progress without too much repetition.
Graphics and Audio in Limbo on XBLA
Limbo’s stark black and white graphics gives it a unique look on the Xbox Live Marketplace, which complements the unique gameplay experience.
Castlevania Harmony Of Despair Drop Rates
Players should not be put off by the idea of black and white graphics, as Limbo’s incredible attention to detail makes it one of the most striking and beautiful in the Xbox Arcade library. Heavy objects crash loudly and sprays dust every which way. Water pours realistically. Bright butterflies twinkle in rays of light, and parasites cling to the poor boy with some horrifying sucking noises.
A casual glance at a low-resolution gameplay trailer will unlikely impress. But once a player sits down and tries out the demo on a nice HDTV, it will show some of the most impressive visuals and art yet seen on an XBLA game.
Looking back, I'm not really sure what I expected from Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. Online multiplayer has been uncharted territory for the series so far, especially since the 'Metroidvania' gameplay is so well ingrained as a single-player device. However, if there is a magic formula for integrating online play into the classic Konami series, Harmony of Despair isn't it.
Unlike the rest of Xbox Live's 'Summer of Arcade' lineup, Castlevania: HD doesn't really feel like a complete game, even if you ignore the fact that it takes little more than a few hours to beat the six levels that are offered here. Unlike most Castlevania titles, HD has no story and no character development whatsoever. There's no central plot guiding your actions, no tutorials to be found, and very little voice acting or hilariously heavy-handed dialogue. At the start, you're given only a whip (or sword), a huge, confusing map, and a ticking clock.
Each of the six levels is a mash-up of rooms from numerous other Castlevania titles, with tons of classic enemies filling the corridors of each map. Throughout the game, you'll have the option of choosing from five Castlevania series protagonists -- Jonathan Morris, Soma Cruz, Alucard, Shanoa, or Charlotte Aulin -- each with their own abilities tailored to represent the way they played in their respective games. At face value, everything in Harmony of Despair is crafted with extensive detail in the series' trademark 2D pixel artwork, and when first taking in the full scope of all the fine details, it's incredibly impressive.
But over the course of my time with it, Castlevania HD's flaws became more and more pronounced. While it looks and sounds like Castlevania on the surface, the entire experience is crippled by odd design choices and poorly implemented features that are very un-Castlevania-like.
For example, in most Castlevania games, character progression is based on experience, which you gain from slaying any creature you come across. Moreover, it's a basic RPG element that's been a series staple. Not only does it constantly reward you for re-treading previously covered ground, but it gives the player the consistent feeling of becoming more powerful with every step. Harmony of Despair throws the first curve ball by eliminating this feature altogether -- you can only raise your character's stats by collecting weapons, armour, and other loot from the treasure chests scattered across every map.
This is incredibly frustrating. When you first start playing Castlevania HD, you'll collect a lot of the same weak loot over and over again, which makes the single-player game a nightmare. It takes at least a few repetitions of the first two maps to get a decent armoury built up, and the in-game shop offers little help beyond a quick way to fill your pockets by selling piles of useless junk. When you join up with some friends, the loot gets a little bit better (everybody gets something regardless of who's opening the treasure chests), but you'll fall right back into a painful grind-fest the minute you go back to adventuring alone.
Unless you know the Castlevania series like the back of your hand, gaining new abilities isn't much easier. In fact, I had completely forgotten that Charlotte could absorb and learn enemy magic with her spiritual shield until I saw one of my teammates doing it -- and that's because the game made no effort to remind me. In this sense, Castlevania HD seems like it's built for people who have memorised the previous games' instructions booklets, which meant that the newcomers on my teams had no idea how to collect Shanoa's Glyphs, or how to strengthen Alucard's 'Summon Spirit' ability.
All of these problems are capped off by the six levels, each of which are punctuated by boss fights that are ridiculously tough alone, yet disappointingly easy with even a moderately powered-up team. Enemies do get stronger with more characters on the map, but the overall change is so minor it's almost insignificant. Every one of the six 'chapters' in the game is a labyrinth, made up of multiple rooms with secret compartments and dead ends. Navigating each map isn't a huge problem if you have a competent team voice chatting directions to each other, although you will have to make multiple trips through each section in order to plot a route that makes the best use of your time.
By myself, it took about ten to twelve hours to get through the game, due in equal parts to the soul crushing difficulty curve and constantly running out of time to scour the different levels. Repetition set in early on, and each area wound up feeling like an absolute chore to get through, even when I eventually figured out the best path to take. Perhaps the only times I actually enjoyed the maze-like levels were when I hooked up with overpowered teams that could blast through entire sections with the precision and speed of a black ops unit.
Castlevania Harmony Of Despair Price Guide
But even the six-player fun doesn't last very long, as the lethargic solo-play turns into a sugar-high series of beat-downs that barely last more than an hour. It's frustrating that there's so little balance to Castlevania HD -- it's either way too hard or way too easy, and once you've bested Death and Dracula, there's no reason to go back. Even the free-for-all versus mode feels tacked on and shallow, and if you played it once, you've seen everything that it has to offer.
Castlevania Harmony Of Despair Characters
If this played anything like a normal Castlevania game, I'd be much happier with the straightforward approach. Don't get me wrong -- it's nice to see the Castlevania series trying something new after so many years of successful-yet-similar hits, but this one isn't the masterpiece you might have been expecting. Harmony of Despair is a beautiful achievement, but the poor gameplay and frustrating design is a huge stain on an otherwise colourful canvas.