Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

Mr E

I was looking forward to this, but the freshly published review on Eurogamer makes me want to run a mile. The game sounds painful, dull, bad for solo players, and completely unforgiving.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/castlevania-harmony-of-despair-review

Score:

4/10

I'll check metacritic tomorrow to see if Eurogamer's review matches the general consensus, but it doesn't look good.

chrislad

Disappointing. They should have just made it a single player experience like pretty much every other game and tack on an experimental multiplayer onto it.

grimm2005

http://ie.xboxlive.ign.com/articles/110/1109803p1.html

A slightly more positive review from IGN but sounds like there is no point playing this in single player at all.

calex71

once I heard 6 player co-op , I put my unscratched points card away :mad:

It's a one player game ffs, and of course they went and tied the achievements , well some of them to MP

Mr. K

The Eurogamer reviewer was the same guy who gave The Signal DLC for Alan Wake a poor review, I don't think I trust him! It has made me doubt this game though, I'll try the demo before I buy.

I agree that Castlevania is more of a single player thing, but they should have put in local multiplayer!

NunianVonFuch

Just tried it there, the demo is rubbish. The single-player is rock-hard, like the Belmont achievement in Symphony of the Night. You start from scratch everytime once you die, there are no savepoints throughout either. Also like the Eurogamer review says, it's a trudge back to the boss each time. It's not like the way Demon's Souls is where getting there is fun and a challenge. There's no xp system, just random item pickups in chests that you can't equip until you reach one of the equip points! The multiplayer is disabled for the demo even with only one castle available so for a multiplayer focussed title this seems like it's shooting itself in the foot.

It *could* be a fun game in co-op, but you'll have to buy blind to find out. Lame. :-(

Mr E

That's money saved so.
Don't care about Monday Night Combat (next week) either.

Lara and Shank are the next two worth looking at.

calex71

Mr E wrote: »

That's money saved so.
Don't care about Monday Night Combat (next week) either.

Lara and Shank are the next two worth looking at.

Have my reservations on those two for different reasons, Lara because of of the CO-OP element, and Shank fun and nice as it looks reminds me of The Dishwasher that I got bored of quite quickly. Still I'll be giving both a try for sure in the hope of goodness.

As for castlevania also tried the demo, hated it for the same reasons as NunianVonFuch, totally agree there.

Mr E

Didn't like it. Hated that there were some chests that were unreachable in single player.

johnny_ultimate

Was looking forward to this, but think I'll give it a miss for now - too many games, not much time for co-op stuff tbh!

Luckily Sony were generous enough to release a cheap Bullet Hell collection on the same day

Mr. K

I played through the first two levels in co-op last night, it's really fun in multiplayer. Single player seems a bit empty though, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for the traditional Castlevania experience.

TetraxShard

Tried the demo. Thought it was merely okay. I think if you want a single player game you'd be better off with Symphony of the Night old as it is. Or any of the DS ones should you own a DS.

Retr0gamer

What is a Castlevania game but a miserable pile of reused assets.

Mr. K

TetraxShard wrote: »

I think if you want a single player game you'd be better off with Symphony of the Night old as it is. Or any of the DS ones should you own a DS.

Symphony of the Night is the must-buy for anyone on Live (or PSN), the DS games are also essential purchases. All classics!