On paper, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair sounds like an interesting concept. A multiplayer, co-operative, gothic-medieval adventure game, you team up to explore six huge, labyrinth-esque castles, overcoming enemies you encounter on your way, before taking on each stage's boss fight.
The only problem is, it isn't quite as much fun as it sounds.
Sadly, there's no story linking all of the levels together, so you're thrown into the game without any real purpose - all you know is there's a boss that needs defeating, a castle to explore, and several hundred enemies and traps in your way.
Sometimes, enemies drop new equipment, spells or other power ups. Only if they're feeling nice, mind you.
With half an hour to get from one end of the level to the other, you'll quite often find yourself pushed for time, as the castles are such a maze. Passages often lead to dead ends, or worse, traps, and switches often need to be pulled to unlock doors on the other side of the level. Luckily, at any time during the game, you can click the right analogue stick to switch between three levels of zoom - an overview of the entire level, which is handy for pinpointing the other players, or planning a route through the level, a slightly more zoomed in one, and a reasonable-distance view, which lets you actually see what you're doing to play the thing.
The only problem is, playing Castlevania is actually quite hard. Really hard. You'll find yourself dying early, and you'll die lots, yet the game seems to have been designed to be played this way. There's no tutorial to explain what you do, and although there are six different characters, each of which have different abilities, there's nothing to tell you what their abilities are, or what they do - which makes playing Castlevania a bit like running before you can walk.
When we found ourself dying so often, so quickly, we were intially not too fussed. "Ah", we though, "it'll be one of those games that's been designed to make you die lots so you have to replay the levels, gradually boosting your characters stats until you can do it". Except, you don't. There's no levelling system as such, either - instead, on each run through the level, you'll find various treasure chests, which contain a variety of rubbish items. You're meant to increase your character's stats by finding rare loot - but when they say rare, they obviously mean it, as we found next to nothing of use. When you're forced to choose between such fearsome and obviously defence boosting armour as a monocle and a neck warmer, you start to realise why we're dying so much. A monocle won't save your life - unless you're King Harold. He could probably have used one...
The first level's boss. You'll die a lot here - but keep at it. As you amass coins, and buy new equipment, you'll take him/her/it down eventually.
But unfortunately, the problems don't stop there for Castlevania. At 1200 points, it's far too expensive for game that only has six levels - especially a game that's been designed to only be played in multiplayer (as it's so flipping hard), and that includes no local co-op mode. Yes, although it's practically impossible to finish with just one player, unless you have a friend who's also bought the game, you're likely to be stumped, as you can't have multiple people playing on the same console. All of which makes even less sense when you consider that it would be entirely possible, either through split screen, or through zooming out.
It's a shame, because if it were a bit easier to get into, with a bit more explanation, and if it allowed for local co-op, we could see Castlevania: Harmony of Despair becoming a fairly regular fixture at Outcyders HQ. Its brand of exploring, puzzle solving, and co-operation could have been an addictive one, but the difficulty, price, and lack of local multiplayer will turn most off before they've even got started.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
