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

[KaZudra]

I've haven't played any of the Diablo games (yet), but I'd always hear people bitching about doing 500+ runs on a chapter and still not getting some of the rarest items like Sonic Boots, Valmanways, etc. 

As for the subweapon grinding, it kind of ruined the game for me. I wanted to play as all characters and max all of them out, but after grinding with Shanoa and Richter, that's not gonna happen. Just thinking about more grinding keeps me from going back to this game. I was even equipping two Master rings, stocking up on mana potions before each run, and either shortcutting to Beelzebub or spamming Menace on Hard, and it was still way too damn slow for my tastes. Grinding from level 8 to get to 9 especially...feels like pure sadism on the developers' part.

Damn, you did it the Hard way, You could team up with a friend in Hard PVP and take turns Grinding off of gergoth with a spirit Ring (use hp instead of MP) and Master ring.

[Deko21]

Wow, do you actually listen to yourself talk or just spit out words at random?

That's it, I want affinity back. Affinity was a super infuriating troll, but at least her posts wern't the flagship for captain obvious mixed with some illogical cluster fuck.

Damn did i sound that illogical? i'm sorry for damaging some of your brain cells then, not like a fanboy like yourself needs it.

[Sonic_Reaper]

I agree with the point about a palette editor.  I was severely disappointed when you only got to choose from pre-created palettes.

I don't mind the recycled character's to be honest.  I would venture to say only Yoko and Maria look particularly terrible.  Yoko always has.  Maria just looks strange because they didn't give her run any new frames (she's the odd one out, it seems), and her double jump doesn't animate the same way it did in RoB (the final part of the jump, where she tumbles over, seems to come late in the jump in HoD, and it looks odd because of it).  But anyway.

I seriously think they should've created original backgrounds and stages.  Again, the character recycling doesn't bug all that much, but the completely recycled mish-mash backgrounds look particularly bad at certain points.

[KaZudra]

I agree with the point about a palette editor.  I was severely disappointed when you only got to choose from pre-created palettes.

I don't mind the recycled character's to be honest.  I would venture to say only Yoko and Maria look particularly terrible.  Yoko always has.  Maria just looks strange because they didn't give her run any new frames (she's the odd one out, it seems), and her double jump doesn't animate the same way it did in RoB (the final part of the jump, where she tumbles over, seems to come late in the jump in HoD, and it looks odd because of it).  But anyway.

I seriously think they should've created original backgrounds and stages.  Again, the character recycling doesn't bug all that much, but the completely recycled mish-mash backgrounds look particularly bad at certain points.

I agree with Yoko and maria, and I'll Add Richter, Since they used the DS version he looks very very off and that whip animation was too lazy.

[Deko21]

I agree with Yoko and maria, and I'll Add Richter, Since they used the DS version he looks very very off and that whip animation was too lazy.

They should've at least give Richter the same treatment as Julius. And when i say that i maen, make a few new frames for him rather than just port him straight out of PoR.

[X]

I agree with Yoko and maria, and I'll Add Richter, Since they used the DS version he looks very very off and that whip animation was too lazy.

At least they gave him a longer vampirekiller. I always felt that SotN's version was a little short-changed especially when going up against doppelganger Trevor. While it looked phenomenal and was animated very well, it was just too damned short. Trevor's was longer and you had to get within his reach in order to strike him.

[Sonic_Reaper]

I consider SotN and PoR Richter two different beasts entirely.  SotN Richter doesn't have any advantages over PoR Richter.  He's slower, you have to double tap to run, his whip is shorter, and he has less moves overall.  To be honest, I prefer the PoR/HoD Richter.  I take it was the way the developers envisioned Richter in the first place, a speedy martial artist with great mobility and lots of invincibility frames.  He just feels clunky in SotN.  The reason the whip looks cooler is due to game engine effects that were applied to it, similar to the effects added to Alucard's swords.

[Deko21]

I consider SotN and PoR Richter two different beasts entirely.  SotN Richter doesn't have any advantages over PoR Richter.  He's slower, you have to double tap to run, his whip is shorter, and he has less moves overall.  To be honest, I prefer the PoR/HoD Richter.  I take it was the way the developers envisioned Richter in the first place, a speedy martial artist with great mobility and lots of invincibility frames.  He just feels clunky in SotN.  The reason the whip looks cooler is due to game engine effects that were applied to it, similar to the effects added to Alucard's swords.

Don't forget SotN richter is much more stronger than PoR richter, though maybe its cause PoR richter has to level up first to get stronger. Then again, most of SotN richter's attacks did a shitload of damage, especially his uppercut which cleaves anything that gets in the way. Same thing goes for his slide kick and tackle. PoR richter on the other hand is a little more balanced since his super jump doesnt kill most enemies instantly and his tackles pushes him back if the enemy has more HP. Its just a shame that there wasn't a button input to use the other item crashes, or the power up whip in PoR.

[KaZudra]

I wasn't talking about abilities, its all cosmetics in my arguement, HD richter is awesome, But he looks very clunky in the animation department.
Examples may include:
He Runs with a Limp, He may have had that in SotN, but it didn't seem so apparent til now, a fix in 1 frame would fix it.
The PoR and HD whip may be longer, but it looks like trash, this is the Xbox 360/PS3, no need to use the inferior DS whip when you can just extend the PSX whip.
his Double Jump is just Stupid, Recycling the back-flip was beyond an awful idea, It would have looked better just to reuse the reqular jump.

These are all simple fixes, very, very simple. I do say that the game was lazily done, but at least put a little effort in it.

[Deko21]

I wasn't talking about abilities, its all cosmetics in my arguement, HD richter is awesome, But he looks very clunky in the animation department.
Examples may include:
He Runs with a Limp, He may have had that in SotN, but it didn't seem so apparent til now, a fix in 1 frame would fix it.
The PoR and HD whip may be longer, but it looks like trash, this is the Xbox 360/PS3, no need to use the inferior DS whip when you can just extend the PSX whip.
his Double Jump is just Stupid, Recycling the back-flip was beyond an awful idea, It would have looked better just to reuse the reqular jump.

These are all simple fixes, very, very simple. I do say that the game was lazily done, but at least put a little effort in it.

They could've easily fixed those since they're just pixel related. Though i think they were a bit lazy in the pixel department despite redrawing julius' running animation.

[KaZudra]

They could've easily fixed those since they're just pixel related. Though i think they were a bit lazy in the pixel department despite redrawing julius' running animation.

that and those Dual crush stances.... in which the Dual Crushes were close to never used since it used precious MP

[Deko21]

I can't really say much about the dual crushes since i haven't even played the game yet.
Though i think the laziest duel crush stance is simon's even though he's just an 8 bit character. doesn't help the fact that they actually gave him more sprites for moves he couldn't do in his source game.

Also i always thought dual crushes were used as last resort in some sessons? guess i thought wrong. Again cant say much cause i haven't played the game yet.

[Sumac]

Balance is just a mere fantasy now, cause most of the games that are out right now have one little flaw in them that'll just break the game. And when they try to balance things, it just makes things both better and worse (or just one).

I am actually 100% with uzo this time.
Balance doesn't matter? WTF?!

And new artwork isn't worth of creating bad game. While I am glad that some of the characters finally looks decent I could live with they old portraits. As for music, everyone have they tastes, but arrangements in this game are quite samey and in my opinion, most of them are worse than in CV Judgement.

[Deko21]

I am actually 100% with uzo this time.
Balance doesn't matter? WTF?!

And new artwork isn't worth of creating bad game. While I am glad that some of the characters finally looks decent I could live with they old portraits. As for music, everyone have they tastes, but arrangements in this game are quite samey and in my opinion, most of them are worse than in CV Judgement.

Yea i know i said that and balance is important. but really, how many of the games you've played aren't broken? Half of the time, some or most games have glaring flaws in them that are abused by players and to an extent breaks the game. But maybe it mostly applies with fighters cause no matter how many times they try to fix things in them, another pipe just ends up being broken. Though this issue also exists in castlevania games, rpgs, and a couple others i can't really name right now.

As for what you said about the arrangements and remixes in this game, yea, they're not really the best. Most of them just being rock based remixes/arrangements. The track i probably like is crimson blood. But for some reason, that bgm sounds like it should be in a guilty gear game. Character portraits are good though, least in my opinion.

[Kusanagi]

on a related note, I heard from one site that new DLC were being planned for the PS3 version of this (though probably dependent on the sales). Course only heard of this from one source, so its questionable. Also, anybody have thoughts on how they plan to execute the offline multiplayer? By that I mean since it is probably going with a split screen, how do you guys think the character equips and such be done? Would be kinda cheap if a person can just leave the other 3 of their characters just standing there as one character goes around and picks up equipment, but then again that might take away from some of the fun since CVHDs strength/weakness is the grinding and searching for new and stronger items with friends.

Another thing Im curious about is what kind of intervals we can expect the DLC to come in (kind of hoping at least Richter and Maria's DLC will be on sale along with the actual game <- Richter being the character I want to play as).

Either way, still looking much forward to this game once it does come out on PSN. Oh, one more thing...

Yea i know i said that and balance is important. but really, how many of the games you've played aren't broken? ...Though this issue also exists in castlevania games, rpgs, and a couple others i can't really name right now.

Maria in rondo of blood maybe? possibly? though the general difficulty of that game and her lack of HP (if we want to call it that) sort of balances it out 

Balancing can be rather hard to do in game designing, but for as long as the game is still fun to play, doubt we'll worry about the balancing too much