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

[affinity]

I am excited to play it, and I know I'll love it, but praising it the way Affinity does is just annoying. to act like it's the best game ever made, or even the best CV game made is just ridiculous

  Ridiculous just because you don't agree with my opinions?   :p     Can't even be a fan these days without people making unfair assumptions they work for PR.  Even though I'm a fan, that doesn't mean I have time to dwell on other topics.  I talk about what I like and am interested in and that's fine.   One could spend all day on boards, but I'm not like that.   

[Flame]

You constantly praise HD like its the best thing since sliced bread. And your praises sound like the kind of thing you read in a magazine ad.

That indicates one of three things.

either
A. you are secretly a PR agent,

B. You are a troll,

or,

C. Both


Even Casual fans who have played other CV games here or there would not praise this game with THAT much praise. They would say "Very good, though I prefer so and so." or even yknow, have 1 or 2 complaints. You praise it like it were the BEST videogame ever with no flaws and perfect everything. You realise that right?

[Foffy]

They also don't exclusively talk about one Castlevania game on a board dedicated to the entire franchise.

It really does come off as marketing or as if you're trying to sell people here on the game. A demo does that well enough.

[uzo]

A demo does that well enough.

Unless your game sucks and you know it. Which then they would need a super troll PR agent to trick people into buying it.

[affinity]

No i"m not trying to sell anything.   Also I feel no current need to talk about other Castlevanias since:

1. There's nothing I can contribute to a conversation for one of the lesser favorite Castlevanias. 

2. If I share anything like say links to some of my favorite video walkthroughs or something related to another Castlevania, people will just say they seen those already.   

Considering Harmony of Despair is much much closer to what I want from a Castlevania, talking about the other Castlevanias just isn't all that worthwhile most of the time.

You constantly praise HD like its the best thing since sliced bread. And your praises sound like the kind of thing you read in a magazine ad.

That indicates one of three things.

either
A. you are secretly a PR agent,
B. You are a troll,
or,
C. Both

Even Casual fans who have played other CV games here or there would not praise this game with THAT much praise. They would say "Very good, though I prefer so and so." or even yknow, have 1 or 2 complaints. You praise it like it were the BEST videogame ever with no flaws and perfect everything. You realise that right?

well that depends on how you interpret my shared opinions about it.    To me, there are some things Harmony of Despair should of had, like

*at least 2 players local co-op
*an Extreme difficulty (enemies and bosses ignore equipment stats. Bosses have double the HP.  No weaknesses.   All enemies and bosses kill players in 1-3 hits.  They move and act faster too.  All Spikes are instant kill.    Charm status is permanent until 0 HP.
and Chapter Boss doors won't open until ALL enemies are killed first.  The exception to the boss doors rule would be Chapters like Chapter 3 and Chapter 11.  Or have a manual opening switch like Chapter 2 or a mirror teleport like Chapter 4. But maybe the mirror is unusable until all enemies are eliminated first.) 
*6 players local and online boss rush on Extreme
*a SOTN/OOE camera zoom level option.  Even HD's closest camera in the settings is a tad farther than I would like, but it still is more comfortable than the farther zooms.)
*an option to turn off Clock/timer to let players choose to play at their own pace.  It's still game over if they all turn into skeletons.
*Chapter maker/map maker
*Story Creator (select portraits and text to create conversations before and after a chapter)
*longer dedicated support for more characters DLC and chapters DLC.
*Fog of War (black area until you enter the room to make that room visible.) to give more exploration feeling.
*a Chapter that involves even more exploration and riddle solving like Simon's Quest.  A CV2 town to talk to people and get clues (numbers), and the solution would be randomized so accessing the deeper parts of the map is closed off until people find and piece together every clue so they combine and open access to the rest of the map and the boss.

but overall it's still my favorite Castlevania and co-op game despite those tidbits.   


And those ABC points you made are so unfair and narrow minded.   

[Flame]

Considering Harmony of Despair is much much closer to what I want from a Castlevania, talking about the other Castlevanias just isn't all that worthwhile most of the time.

And curiosity: what exactly DO you want from Castlevania? Pretend HoD doesnt exist for a moment.

[angevil]

The last post by Affinity made my realize something. She is a robot from Japan that was programmed to popularize HD. Her last post is a list of features on a website that sells the game. Now I am sure she is definitely a robot. Maybe I should try something for her to end her task.

″Castlevania fans agree that Harmony of despair is the best game ever made and we have all bought multiple copies of it and we plan to continue to do it. We play it all day long.″

Now..auto-destruct..task accomplished Or at least publish some high definition art from the game.

[affinity]

well Flame I been asked that many times before in other discussions elsewhere and I don't feel like repeating myself.   

Overall Castlevania HD has what I want for Castlevania gameplay and features, but there are a lot of things to improve the formula (some of them mentioned in my list in the previous post) 
by tweaking and addings things like additional hardcore difficulty settings, improved drop rates, rare drop system so people don't pick up the same rare drop they already have, extended DLC characters and chapters support, chapters that use something like fog of war and random enemy placement and treasure placement to make exploration different and more rewarding each time,  a chapter with a town with interactive townspeople and more puzzle solving progression,  no timer,  a closer zoom option,  6 players co-op offline at least in a boss rush mode, online search filters and icons so players can tell what DLC chapters the host has before entering the room.  etc. 
overall there are many ways to expand Castlevania HD.

Since Konami isn't planning more DLC, the best alternative after releasing the PSN port is to eventually turn Harmony of Despair into it's own series of sequels to further polish and expand the formula on consoles.  Maybe eventually the art team will start crafting 100% original Castlevania backgrounds, enemies and bosses for later Chapters.     

The last post by Affinity made my realize something. She is a robot from Japan that was programmed to popularize HD. Her last post is a list of features on a website that sells the game. Now I am sure she is definitely a robot. Maybe I should try something for her to end her task.
″Castlevania fans agree that Harmony of despair is the best game ever made and we have all bought multiple copies of it and we plan to continue to do it. We play it all day long.″
Now..auto-destruct..task accomplished Or at least publish some high definition art from the game.

You must be joking.  That list I made was ideas I wanted Castlevania HD to include. 

[angevil]

You must be joking.  That list I made was ideas I wanted Castlevania HD to include. 

I noticed you never negated you were a robot. Wow. But you did understand the errors in my post. Japan makes very good robots nowadays. Things are more clear now. Thank you for your cooperation. Now, can you please upload some high def art? Or sell? You were programmed to sell! Right. I want to buy some high def art from Harmony of despair. I have money. I want to give Konami money. Please sell me goods for exchange of money.

[crisis]

High-def, full body artwork of all the characters would be excellent, and would totally redeem yourself on this forum, and in my eyes, affinity. . .

[Flame]

be eventually the art team will start crafting 100% original Castlevania backgrounds, enemies and bosses for later Chapters.

They should have been doing this from the get-go.

[affinity]

I'm sure they had their reasons , Flame.  Whether budget limits, or lack of dedicated artists to make totally new enviornments from scratch for all Chapters or artists were assigned to use existing backgrounds to make the level design process met their deadline without overspending on what little money Konami set aside for the team.

Besides there's nothing wrong with reusing backgrounds that only appeared on DS series.  They are still 100% new to people who don't own a DS. Well yes HD also reused some of SOTN, but they still put those enviornments to different uses and designed in ways that are very different experience compared to their original version.   I mean really, even though Chapter 10 reuses the stages from Castlevania 1, they were never experienced and connected like this before in real-time!   Overall even with reusing backgrounds, they really were creative crafting and combining them into new stages with their unique characteristics. 

I noticed you never negated you were a robot. Wow. But you did understand the errors in my post. Japan makes very good robots nowadays. Things are more clear now. Thank you for your cooperation. Now, can you please upload some high def art? Or sell? You were programmed to sell! Right. I want to buy some high def art from Harmony of despair. I have money. I want to give Konami money. Please sell me goods for exchange of money.

You can't be serious.  Of course I'm not a robot.   And I don't work for Konamiiii, otherwise you would have received high def art already.    I guess their staff is not as caring as I, which brings the point that anyone from Konami isn't likely to visit message boards, or post anything for that matter.     So avoid treating me like some Konami employee when I don't even know (and haven't bothered to look up) where Konami headquarters is located! 

[Claimh Solais]

Does that make me a robot? Cuz I think Harmony of Despair is one of the best damn games of 2010. I seriously put almost as much time into that game as I did with Resident Evil 5 (which had 300+ hours).

So affinity likes the game, and may come off as advertising it. Who cares? Just ignore it if it bothers you that much.

I'm sure they had their reasons , Flame.  Whether budget limits, or lack of dedicated artists to make totally new enviornments from scratch for all Chapters or artists were assigned to use existing backgrounds to make the level design process met their deadline without overspending on what little money Konami set aside for the team.

Besides there's nothing wrong with reusing backgrounds that only appeared on DS series.  They are still 100% new to people who don't own a DS. Well yes HD also reused some of SOTN, but they still put those enviornments to different uses and designed in ways that are very different experience compared to their original version.   I mean really, even though Chapter 10 reuses the stages from Castlevania 1, they were never experienced and connected like this before in real-time!   Overall even with reusing backgrounds, they really were creative crafting and combining them into new stages with their unique characteristics. 

I never played the DS Castlevanias until after I got Harmony of Despair. So almost the whole game was new to me. Even when the SotN stages came out I found myself getting lost and wondering where to go. HD is a pretty good experience, and there's no reason to turn the game down just because of the reused elements like everyone here seems to be doing.

If that were the case, I'd turn down sliced bread. It's already been made before. Why not?

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Yes, let's compare video games, a complex form of entertainment, in the form of goods, to one type of bread with a procedure done on it like slicing.
Oh wait, let's not do that.  That would be silly.

[Claimh Solais]

Yes, let's compare video games, a complex form of entertainment, in the form of goods, to one type of bread with a procedure done on it like slicing.
Oh wait, let's not do that.  That would be silly.

Very well.

But my point still stands.