Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

Step into the shadows of the hell house

JP release: 4th August 2010
NA release: 4th August 2010
EU release: 4th August 2010
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Destructoid Review: 6/10
Platforms: 360, PS3
Version Played: 360

Like Dawn of Sorrow, Harmony of Despair is another amusing title that has initials that reference the platform its own – this time HD to represent it being the first new Castlevania game for high definition consoles, first the Xbox 360 (a whopping 5 years after the console’s release) and then the PS3 as a small, downloadable game. That said, it isn’t entirely new, as it mainly uses assets from the DS games to create a multiplayer Castlevania adventure.

Harmony of Despair is built for six players, but can also be played solo. The PS3 version also supports four player local multiplayer, which was strangely not added to the Xbox 360 version. The game comprises a series of levels based on different parts of the DS games (and one original level), with the goal of each level being to work your way to the boss and take them out, working out how to navigate the level, opening gates and so on.

The game uses the graphics from the original games, with everything blending together extremely well. The game offers three different camera perspectives: a zoomed in camera that is the most comfortable for playing in, a camera that has the pixels the correct size and one that zooms out to show the entire level, which is probably very useful for checking out where your teammates are when playing online. When doing local coop on PS3, the camera automatically zooms out to fit everyone.

You can play as multiple characters that appeared in the DS games, all with their respective abilities – Soma Cruz with his dominance, Shanoa with her glyphs, Charlotte Aulin with her magic, Alucard with dark magic and Jonathan Morris with the whip and sub-weapons. DLC also added Julius Belmont, Yoko Belnades (completing all Dawn of Sorrow playable characters), Richter Belmont and Maria Renard (who were playable in Portrait of Ruin). They all feel different and some are stronger than others – Julius is great for beginners, but once you unlock stuff for Soma Cruz, he can become extremely powerful.

The story is extremely light – essentially, the story of heroes defeating Dracula is written in a magical Grimoire and the dark magic of Castlevania has awoken within the book, causing the characters within to team up to put an end to it. There’s no arching story, just individual stages.

Each stage takes on a section of a previous game, and it’s quite wonderful to see them depicted in this way, getting to see different rooms and moving between them without leaving the screen. I’d love to try out the actual games in this style. The game makes use of this by having switches that activate things elsewhere, and enemies that can follow you. The second stage boss starts crawling around the entire map, using voodoo dolls to trap you in iron maidens.

The DLC adds some stages based on Symphony of the Night, one in an underground area and another that represents the first part of the castle. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t scale for the numbers of players, so you won’t get far on your own without a lot of time replaying levels to get better gear and abilities.

The origins level is fascinating. It’s a complete recreation of the original Castlevania, with levels adjusted to suit the gameplay and to fit them all together, including the bosses. It’s kept in its 8-bit form with no scaling, so your character will tower over the enemies. That is, unless you use Simon Belmont, who keeps his 8-bit form with new animations for movement like sliding.

The final DLC level isn’t even based on Castlevania, but on a game called Getsu Fūma Den, a NES action game with some similarities to Castlevania (it even had a whip-wielding skeleton enemy called Shimon). Like the previous level, this is a recreation of the entire 8-bit game. Something a little bit soft.

Harmony of Despair has a lot to like in it, but the lack of difficulty options or scaling for the number of players makes it an absolute pain to get through.

Fun

Don’t get me wrong, Harmony of Despair is fun enough and the grinding can become strangely addictive, but this is a shadow of a Castlevania game. The only thing it truly excels at is making one want to play the DS titles again. Hardcore Castlevania fans will get something out of it, but you’ll be missing very little if you pass this game up.
James Stephanie Sterling, Destuctoid

Remake or remaster?

A re-release with scaling for solo players and more characters and levels would be great.

Official Ways to get the game

Harmony of Despair is available on the Xbox store.