Crossovers are totally in right now, and Konami won’t be left behind. They’ve done crossover Castlevania games before, and the theme recurs in Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. The title is appropriately shortened to “Castlevania HD.”
It’s one of the most anticipated games in Microsoft’s ‘Summer of Arcade’ promotion. Fans are excited, and everyone else is curious. After all, this is the first Castlevania to boast multiplayer.
To start, players choose from a roster of notable vampire hunters, including the effeminate powerhouse Alucard and the later anime-fied Soma Cruz. You can tackle the six maps alone in single-player or team up with up to five other players in online co-op. Your goal is to reach and defeat a powerful boss that sits on the opposite end from where you spawn – within 30 minutes.
You might be curious how these hunters met, and why they were brought together. If so, don’t expect an answer. Harmony of Despair contains no plot beyond Dracula is awake… again. The title feels just as arbitrary, unless you attribute despair to the fiftieth coming of the Unholy Lord.
While it makes absolutely no sense, multiplayer is damned fun. Every hunter boasts a unique fighting style and special skills, so there’s someone for every type of player out there. Order of Ecclesia’s lovely Shanoa might have a weak melee attack, but her Ignis spell makes quick work of most enemies, in contrast to Soma’s strong melee/weak spell combination.
There are interesting nuances to each character. They don’t actually gain XP and level up, but you will be equipping them with better gear and weapons up to the third stage, at which point you’ll have likely bought everything you needed from the in-game shop. Some hunters are stuck with their starter weapon the whole way through, and they learn new attacks and spells differently. Personal skills, activated with RB, are either set or equippable, though the game doesn’t explain any of this. The ‘How to Play’ section is very thorough, but adding an in-game tutorial or action prompts would have been more effective. Of course, these complaints are only valid to those who’ve been out of the Castlevania loop for a few years.
Of course, even the self-proclaimed fan can get confused, especially by all the unlabelled stat icons. When I teamed up with a couple friends, both of whom knew the series better than I, we spent a good 10 minutes pondering what icon represented which character statistic.
Off the bat, six maps sound pretty scant, but keep in mind that every map is incredibly and overwhelmingly vast. The rooms are arranged in a dizzying fashion, blocked by death traps and roaming enemies. Chests are plentiful and entice players with the promise of consumables, equipment, and unbelievably rare super weapons. Every open passageway and lever is another tempting distraction that draws you away from the stage boss. Given these circumstances, the time limit feels completely unnecessary. Add in the fact that every death takes a chunk off the remaining time, and you end up feeling more frustration than enjoyment.
Difficulty doesn’t climb steadily upward. Instead, you and your Castlevania-lovin’ buddies will find yourselves being thrown around, wondering why you’re having such a hard time on the fourth chapter, then breeze through the next one. I say “you and your buddies” because soloing Harmony of Despair in single-player is about as fun as a trip to the dentist’s office. Some areas are inaccessible without support, like with elevators or scales, and the overall progression is just slow as hell.
In co-op mode, fallen hunters may continue fighting as skeleton, and allies can revive these undead using the not-so-elusive Water of Life item. If everyone kicks it or becomes a skeleton, it’s game over and back to the lobby, while death in single-player tosses you straight to the main menu – no skeletons, no revival. There are absolutely no checkpoints or any other methods of saving in-game, despite the impressive scale of each map. Fortunately, any loot you’ve collected up until your untimely demise stays in your possession.
Lacking any noticeable graphical improvements or semblance of a story, Harmony of Despair relies solely on game design as a redeeming factor. Regardless, single-player is an apparent waste of time, unless you take pleasure in grinding for new abilities and gear, which you can do in co-op anyway. Ultimately, there’s no point to single-player. Although two multiplayer modes are offered, ‘Survival’ is a shallow player-versus-player mode that sticks participants in an enclosed area to duke it out until the timer hits zero or someone dies. Co-op is the only thing holding this game together.
As fun as it is, cooperative play probably isn’t enough justification for the $15.00 price tag. Without a doubt, the diehard fans will glean much pleasure from Harmony of Despair, and for them, the 1200 Microsoft Points is more than fair. But this game is flawed in so many ways, from the recycled visuals to the inability to pause in single-player, and it’s far from an accurate reflection of the Castlevania series.
Final score: 6.6 / 10
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