Written by: Alex

 

 

 

 

"Castlevania: Harmony of Despair" takes the much-loved vampire hunting franchise and remixes it for the online multiplayer market place. With up to six players online in any one round some concessions have been made to the open world exploitive platforming of recent installments in the franchise to create a faster more focused experience for up to six people to enjoy cooperatively.

 

 

It feels a little like Koji Igarashi, the Castlevania’s long standing (suffering?) designer has been put on something of a shoes string budget in recent years. While some other instalments in the series are under going the full budget 3D treatment, the handheld offerings he has been in charge of have for the most part been limited to low scale retoolings of the same (fantastic) game with some new character sprites and environments.

 

While this iterative/recycling system of the series has continued fans of the franchise have been yelling for a HD instalment to reincarnate the old 16bit characters and replace them with new hand draw sprites. This audience would no doubt have been excited at the announcement of this new XBLA exclusive but the reality is quite different and simply serves to exemplify the limited budget the 2D Castlevania team has been working on of late, taking existing assets from other recent titles and plugging them together to make a new game.

 

 

With assists being re-appropriated from ‘SD’ games this new HD game does a lot to compensate for the limitations of its raw component parts while maximising the strengths of the platform it finds itself on. Giving the player a number of viewing options the camera can be moved in or pulled out dramatically during the game with the simple click of an analogue stick.

 

 

Moving the camera in to full magnification sees the game in the same proportion as might be seen in a DS game; a scale at which the graphics look somewhat distorted (though more smooth than a simple enlarged DS title) and that exaggerates the disparate art styles spites have been taken from. Zooming out gives a better view of the whole level out to the point of displaying the whole environment on a single screen, much like a playable map, a very attractive affect akin to many pixel art posters. While at some of these more removed scales the moment-to-moment action is less manageable it does allow for a full overview of the action, which proves important as more people enter the game.

 

 

Introducing multiplayer to Castlevania has required many changes to the series formula. First and foremost among these changes to the format is the introduction of a more structured mission structure. Where older Castlevania’s directed players with abstract goals requiring exploration to achieve Castlevania Harmony of Despair gives a far more obvious goal state. Forcing a time limit on players to defeat the level boss sees a far more concise progression. Some exploration is defiantly encouraged, but eventually each stage becomes a rush to the boss to farm whatever items they drop.

 

One other major change to the format of Castlevania with the addition of multiplayer is how the world is accessed and explored. Traditionally the series the slowly would slowly open as abilities were acquired and missions completed. Castlevania Harmony of Despair sees levels significantly more open world from the first encounter, providing there are multiple players in the level and (more importantly) they are all willing to work together. With levers and counter balances proving commonplace through each area the only way they can be effectively exploited, and new areas accessed, is with the help of another player.

 

 

With many areas and short cuts frequently requiring help to access a great emphasis on cooperation is present and can prove satisfying if players are willing to work together. Problematically however at this point many players online have become so familiar with levels it is hard to drop in with them as they farm very specific objects within small exclusive groups, and often I found myself left behind.