Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

Released as part of Xbox Live Arcade's annual "Summer of Arcade" series; Kogi Igarashi and Konami returns to bring out a new excellent and unique 2D "Castlevania" game subtitled "Harmony of Despair."

The game has well known protagonists from recent Castlevania games including "Aria/Dawn of Sorrow's" Soma Cruz, "Order of Ecclecia's" Shanoa, "Portrait of Ruin's" Johnathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin, and "Symphony of the Night's" Alucard fight through six large stages in Dracula's castle before combating the legend himself. The plot stays deliberately thin with only the necessary elements like Death and Dracula intact and have it focus on the gameplay.

Similar to previous entries, Harmony of Despair has players fight against each stage's monsters ranging from skeletons ultimately to the challenging boss targets. Along the way, players can grab items that be used to attack or consume. Expect grabbing a large amount of the same items though but when you find an interesting one, use it at they best of your ability as some can level up for more damage. The stronger the weapons, the easier defeating the each of the challenging chapter bosses. To aid the issue of redundancy, each stage has stations allowing on-the-fly switching.

There is a single player mode available but has a strong difficulty curve that only the most precise and experienced of players can survive. But the game's heart is definitely the multiplayer.

With up to six players, each chapter has to be completed within 30 minutes and some particular parameters can shorten the timer. During death, players become skeletons who are able to throw a short range attack on any enemy; but if one dies in the form, they respawn as a skeleton again but at the price of minutes removed. The only cure is that if one other member has a revival item which many are scattered throughout each map.

Situations like that require extreme cooperation as going lone wolf might not only ruin yours but other players' experiences. They depend on you as much as you depend on them. Not only teamwork helps complete a chapter much faster but also grab a plethora of items more conveniently.

Konami tried to aim at making a 2D Castlevania game in HD format with Harmony of Despair but doesn't really seem to be existent at all. Yes its native resolution is at 1080p but why would it matter when most of the game (sans sine the backgrounds) like the character sprites and indoor areas look just like cutouts from previous games released for portable platforms?

For example everyone (especially Alucard) are still in their pixlated form which for playing on at least 720p looks ugly; even with the palette swapping feature being unable to mask the disgust. Even the maneuverable camera which can zoom out showing the whole map doesn't help graphically but for gameplay.

Despite its technical annoyances, the art style stays tried and true in Harmony of Despair. The areas and enemies feel consistent where it evokes both terror and nostalgia like in previous games. Music even sounds like Castlevania; especially with the first level and boss music with its cheesy yet awesome lead guitar/orchestra style.

Unless you are suicidal with weak equpment in single player, the multiplayer in Harmony of Despair is the definite way to go. If you can ignore the misleading ugly visuals and enjoy replaying levels with five others, go buy it.  For me, it's the most fun and unique cooperative experience I have played so far this year and for an Xbox Live Arcade game, that's something!