Topic: Harmony of Despair (The next Castlevania game?)

[Foffy]

iga's greatest success is everything we hate about iga
perhaps


we are the wrong ones here

You shush. Shush NOW.

[default2k]

So many people hate on IGA, yet we play and love his metroidvanias... :

Damn, now i fell like picking up my DS and go trough HoD and DoS again.

[X]

So many people hate on IGA, yet we play and love his metroidvanias...

Because we don't play them for their stories. There are other, way better aspects to those games.

-X

[Reinhart77]

looks like there's gonna be a half off sale on Castlevania stuff on XBLA, including HD and its dlc stages. 

http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_13581/Major_Nelson_Details_Weeks_Xbox_Live_Marketplace_Deals

since i'm unemployed now, i decided i couldn't wait any longer for the game to come out on PS3, so i went and bought myself an XBox360.  i'm glad i didn't buy any of the DLC stages yet now, since i wasn't planning on buying them until i beat stage 6.

i've really enjoyed the game so far.  i'm trying to beat a stage with all characters before moving on to the next stage (actually, i allow myself to get one stage ahead, but not two).  that way, i feel like i'm getting the full intended experience for each character and don't have any "cheap" items earned from later stages when playing a stage for the first time with a character on an earlier stage.  i never did pick a main character, as I switch to the next player on the roster every time i play.  i reward myself with a new DLC character every time i clear a stage with all characters i have.  i change the music of a stage once I've beaten it once.  i'm doing zero item farming that's not part of my regular campaign to defeat a stage for the first time with a character.

so far, all most my guys are at chapter 3, but haven't beaten Menace yet.  Charlotte and Shanoa haven't beaten the Puppet Master yet, as I find it difficult to hit the french dolls with those two and getting cursed is pretty devastating for them.  11 characters times 11 stages is 121 challenges for me to defeat.  so this game promises to last me a long time.

[JR]

I saw this, and kinda wished I had known of the sale and waited (purchased all DLC stages, the music packs, Richter, and Yoko), but oh well.

I'm starting to play this game again. The retro appeal of Stage 10 was too much to resist...that's my overall favorite level by far. Level 11 is pretty good, too. I actually didn't mind the prices on all the other stuff besides the pyramid level (seriously, why don't they just fix that already?), so I went on a spending spree a few weeks ago.

I want to get into some more characters eventually, but I've spent most of my time leveling Shanoa and getting her ready for the Hard levels. I still haven't played this game even once on multiplayer. 

[Puwexil]

If this came out on PS3 (disregarding the awful mess happening on PSN for a moment) I would buy this stupid game all over again. It's shit, but it's my shit. Can't stop this feelin'~

[whitedragon_nall]

I'd be all over that. I need a new 2D vania fix and if it has to be this, then I'll take it.

[Ridureyu]

I want this, but sadly it is likely never coming to PS3.

[uzo]

If it hasn't come out for PS3 yet, it never will. I'm going to assume this also means it didn't meet the financial expectations it was given.

[Ridureyu]

To be honest, it probably doesn't matter if it did.  If Konami wants to focus on Lords of SHadow, they would not want to support the "confusing" other timeline.

[JR]

It's shit, but it's my shit.

Haha, same sentiments I have for this game.

[Puwexil]

I am stunned if this didn't do well, because it sure seemed like it did when I was playing. I mean, a couple of days from release, there were entries in the tens of thousands on the scoreboards. And that was then, before all the DLC helped it pick up steam. I can't claim to know the costs and reality of publishing a project like this, but in my layman's eyes, the incredible amount of recycled content in the game gives the impression that they were operating on a shoestring budget to begin with, and all the more reason that it made back the money invested as shown by the amount of downloads it got.

Maybe Konami just has stupidly high expectations or something. This shouldn't have sold at all from where I'm standing.

[Renonsgoods]

There's been nothing released or published from Konami officials saying that HD wasn't a financial success.  As others here have posted...everything I've seen about the community following this game has generated indicates a game that is everything BUT a failure.  We all agree: it's overly recycled and nothing more than pure fanbait....but many of us just can't seem to put it down.  It seems to pander to some of the most basic qualities that many of us have grown to love during the Metroidvania era.  Besides, it's another 2D Vania....available on a home console....and it allows one to play as some of his/her favorite Vanian heroes....and with friends, if one is so inclined.  How is something like that NOT going to do well with diehard CV fans???

As far as it not being on PSN yet?  Well there have been lots of games that appeared on one console FAR before being offered on the other, so HD not being up on PSN as of yet really doesn't mean anything at all.  Obviously it appeared only on Live to begin with because of some deal Konami had with Microsoft.  Only thing that's not known is what exactly the exclusivity rights on this game are.  With most arcade games these deals tend to be time sensitive, but there have also been examples where the exclusivity was permanent.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[Ridureyu]

In any Metroidvania game, there are two stages of play:

Stage 1: Progressing bit-by-bit, exploring the castle for the first time, watching the story, fighting while underlevelled.

Stage 2: After beating the game once, dicking around and destroying things until you've hit level 99, collected stuff, and are bored with all the random weapons.

Harmony of Despair is simply Stage 2.  It cuts to the chase - it's like Order of Ecclesia once you unlock Hard Mode l. 255.  By that time, you've beaten OOE at least twice (more likely three or four times), so the plot is secondary to becoming a Goddess of Destruction.


Also, I have no idea why people seem to have expected the game to be filled with new content.  It was always marketed as a copy-pasted mishmash of stuff from older games, with new sprites only if it was necessary for brand-new attacks.  The POINT is that you can walk through a section of, say, SOTN and beat a boss there, or bounce around Castlevania 1.  Complaining about reused sprites has a place in many games, but this one?  New sprites were never the purpose of the game (although there is some new stuff,mostly in a couple of backgrounds).  It never advertised itself as such.  Complaining about the reuse in HOD is like complaining that Belmonts use whips when you hoped they would have gatling guns.

[Puwexil]

A game consisting of 99% recycled assets is a depressing-as-fuck statistic no matter how you try to rationalize around it. Castlevania as a series has become so incestuous in this regard that it's easy to see what Harmony of Despair pulls as a natural conclusion to that self-cannibalizing mindset. In many ways it is, but no way is it justified.