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

[Reinhart77]

anyone know when this game's coming out on PS3? 

the money saved for not subscribing to XBox Live might very well be better spent buying the game again on Playstation.  since i'd be starting over again on PS3 to do this, i'd probably want play the entire game online, that is, make sure that all the items i have are items earned while playing online.  then XBLA version would be used exclusively for offline play.  too bad you couldn't transfer your stuff "from the cloud" between the XBLA and PSN games.

are the specs for the NGP sufficient enough to allow Harmony of Despair?  I wonder if we'd ever be able to play it on a portable.

[Claimh Solais]

No idea when it's coming out to PS3. Not that I really care, since I don't own one anymore. But I do assume it'll take a while before actually coming out.

I'm positive HD can be played on Vita/NGP. Since that thing can play full scale PS3 games (I saw a video of MGS4 on there, pretty impressive).

[Nail_Bombed]

There's no hope of HOD coming out on PC, is there? Seeing as not everyone can own a console, a PC port would be pretty good, and would be workable I feel - surely there'd be a market for HOD players on the PC if there was some crossover between XBLA and -don't know- Steam?.

[Chernabogue]

There's no hope of HOD coming out on PC, is there? Seeing as not everyone can own a console, a PC port would be pretty good, and would be workable I feel - surely there'd be a market for HOD players on the PC if there was some crossover between XBLA and -don't know- Steam?.

PC version? Instant buy.

[Vlad_TepeZ]

Looking forward to this

[Sonic_Reaper]

I honestly think people rag on the game for the graphics way too much.  It's not a terrible game, or even a bad one.  I would even dare to go so far as to say it's about on level with the recent DS games (which actually aren't all that recent anymore).

I wrote on this earlier.  I was initially quite excited about playing the game because it offered something I wanted in Castlevania for a long time now;  multiplayer support.  I mean, imagine running through the entirety of any of the past Castlevania games with a friend, or several.  How epic would that be?  I'm even talking CV3 here.  How epic would that be, with Trevor, Grant, Sypha and Alucard all playing through the game at the same time and controlled by different people.  Or trekking through the entire SotN castle with someone controlling Alucard, Richter and Maria all separately.

So I was quite enamored with the game at first.  It did offer this ... somewhat and to an extent.  I honestly think the programmers and developers did the best they could with what was obviously a seriously small budget and time frame.  And I do see the game for what it is now.  And it has problems.  But so did every DS entry too.

I agree with affinity in that it offered on some level what I wanted in future Castlevania games.  But it has its flaws too.  Looking at her list, I don't think an Extreme mode is particularly necessary.  You already die in at most 3 hits from bosses in hard mode anyway.  And that's using the best armor.  Berserker Mail is basically one shot.  I like to think of that as challenge mode.  Increasing monster and boss health is unnecessary.  The challenge in the game comes from moving and dodging attacks while dealing damage at a reasonable pace.  Once you've learned all enemy patterns, all extra HP does is drag on battles way, way too long.  OoE had the same syndrome with its bosses.  It honestly gets boring dodging the same attack time and time again.  And it's not necessarily more challenging, but it does become tedious.

I agree with the drop rates.  My biggest complaint.  They took the treasure system from OoE which I hated with a passion and implanted it here, X100.  The more chapter runs that are performed, the better the chance of receiving a rare item (it should cap at like, 20%, though), afterwards, when you receive said item, it returns back to normal %.  The current system is again, tedious, and artificially extends the length of the game. 

Besides those, my other main beef with the game I've noted before in this thread and maybe others.  The characters should have access to all their original abilities, weapons and sub systems.  Especially now that the game has been out almost a year (!).  There is no reason that Jonathan shouldn't have access to all his weapons, or Alucard his shield summons or familiars.  Especially in light that Jonathan is one of the most neglected characters since the game's release, and that Alucard has a retardedly difficult time with DLC chapters, due to being unable to perform reliable long range attacks, or remain in the air longer than his jump allows (which are two things that ARE necessary for Chapters 8 and 9 especially).

[X]

My biggest complaint.  They took the treasure system from OoE which I hated with a passion and implanted it here, X100.

They had this in Vampire Killer too. Albeit not to the extent of course.

[Claimh Solais]

People complain about HD and say its a shit game because its recycled elements. But in my opinion, those are not enough grounds to call it a terrible game. I put in over 200-300 hours into that game in single player. Not with multiplayer. I didn't play multiplayer until just recently and that was FUNNNNNN.

Yeah, all the elements were recycled. A new sprite thrown in here or there. So what? The sprites are good anyway. Besides, due to it being an arcade title, I doubt they had a big budget.

[Maedhros]

I'm 100% sure it's not only because of the reused things (and that's 90% of the game).

[Claimh Solais]

I'm 100% sure it's not only because of the reused things (and that's 90% of the game).

It's generally the reason though. Like, 40 different guys (exaggeration, but whatever) complained about HD being the worst game evar on GameFAQs, and that being the only reason they gave. :\

[affinity]

The characters should have access to all their original abilities, weapons and sub systems.  Especially now that the game has been out almost a year (!).  There is no reason that Jonathan shouldn't have access to all his weapons, or Alucard his shield summons or familiars.

While everyone having all their abilities would be fun, it would cheapen and unbalance the experience even further.    Maybe if those extra abilities were only usable in single player, but in multiplayer, it kind of adds insult to players that want to enjoy the Chapter longer instead of some lame speed run that's boosted with abilities they can exploit, which results in dumbing down the playthrough and therefore require less effort and less feeling of accomplishment.

Can you imagine Shanoa with all her Glyphs and Glyph Unions?  Julius with Grand Cross? Alucard with Shield Rod + Alucard Shield?    Even on Hard, bosses would be vaporized the instant they enter the room, especially when you multiply their best abilities times the number of players.   

Okay well if they added a harder difficulty..... you're right more HP to bosses would just make the fights drag on.  But their power in Hard isn't enough to add enough danger and demand more skill from players.   You can beat any boss with minimum effort on Hard once you skill up/equip them with the best stuff.  Having their entire arsenal from their past game(s) would be more than overkill.

And most people don't want to nerf their build to challenge themselves, they expect the game itself to place a bigger challenge on their lap.  That's why a higher difficulty that punishes mistakes further would really take things to a new level and keep things difficult instead of the difficulty level evolving from Hard to 'Easy', and Normal to 'Very Easy'.

Since there are no fatal pitfalls like the classics, the spikes and traps should kill in one hit.  And bosses should be able to kill anyone in less than 3 hits.
(well some of them on Hard can kill in 1 hit, but I think more boss HP could also help balance things further because the bosses having fatal attacks doesn't mean much if players can kill the boss in seconds anyway.) 

But I strongly feel if they added everyone's abilities from their adventure, a Very Hard/Extreme difficulty would have to be added before that, to avoid the balance of difficulty from tipping over completely in favor of the heroes side, with the enemies side being even more pathetic pushovers.

I mean look at Chapter 3, people don't even bother using the swinging weapon to damage the boss anymore.  They just shortcut and spam their ranged attacks.   More abilities would simply lead to faster methods of killing it, and Chapters can already be cleared too quickly as they are.

Yes even now the characters are unbalanced but what's important about their abilities is that they already have enough in their arsenal and growth potential (Skill Level/Equips) to survive and defeat anything.   So people who like using characters like Jonathan , Alucard, Yoko, etc. shouldn't be discouraged just because another character has more tools and advantages.

[Sumac]

I think people hatred for this game, based on the fact that it's recycle assets form previous titles is quite justified. For the last few years it was one of the main problems that plagued 2D titles of the series. Many things were outright taken from previous games and obviously people wanted something new. HD became an epitome of recycling, basically the very thing that many people in the fandom hated. It's no wonder that some of them hate this game based solely on this fact.

Of course recycling could be justified (low budget, DL game), but in the end in the series that heavily suffered from it, HD, with it's recylce everything politic, crosses as some sort of strange taunt to the fandom. At least to some people.

[PFG9000]

It's good to see some Harmony of Despair love here.  Seems just about everybody who bashed it barely spent any time with it, and it's one of those games that starts off dull but gets better and better over time.

[Reinhart77]

are there any aspects from HD you would to see continued into the next "big normal" Castlevania?  i personally liked the fact that you could only change your equipment at the books.  keeps the action moving.  for a while now, i've played special modes in other games where i choose gear only at save points.  i do wish you could automatically equip an item once you found it though.

[Claimh Solais]

I do like the fact that you can only enter your inventory at a Grimoire. Makes it more intense.