Castlevania: Harmony of Despair was one of the XBox 360 titles that I was most looking forward to seeing after viewing the Summer of Arcade video that surfaced at the Microsoft Media Briefing. Though I didn’t know much about the title, I loved the classic 2D pixel art brought to life on the 360. Soon I learned of its multiplayer nature and the ability to play with up to six players online.
Many may complain about the fact that the game’s visuals resemble that of a DS and not “HD” but I happen to embrace the artistic approach to the game. I also found that the addition of zooming in and out on your character makes for an impressive bit of visuals as you can either zoom out to view the entire level, zoom in completely on your action, or zoom to an intermediate state. This allows you to not only plan your next direction in the maze but also keep an eye on your opponents.
The five characters you could choose from in the video were Charlotte Aulin and Jonathon Morris from Portrait of Ruin, Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia, Alucard from Symphony of the Night and Castlevania 3, and Soma Cruz from the Aria and Dawn of Sorrow. Though everyone chose Alucard (obviously), I decided to pick Jonathon. I had little trouble traversing the maze and reaching the boss with around 3 minutes left on the timer. However, I received a rude awakening after fighting the boss for a while; not only did he take a while to whittle down his hit points, but after the floor fell from beneath us and around 10 other enemies joined the fight (all of which I had to defeat to advance), I quickly died. Obviously, this shows the importance of side tracking from the main path to unlock a few of the treasures along the way. These treasures can be equipped like in any other recent Castlevania game and thus sidetracking is almost necessary to beat the levels.
Harmony of Despair is set to be released later this summer. Stay tuned for more information on the title as it becomes available.
