XBLA - Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

Weird.

Here's the pack at Xbox.com. It costs 160 points ($2).

It includes:

  • Pitiful Scion (AKA The Tragic Prince from SOTN)
    [youtube]03dCtq98t0I[/youtube]
  • Pitch-Black Intrusion (Dawn of Sorrow)
    [youtube]P5iPHgqiivg[/youtube]
  • Invitation of a Crazed Moon (Portrait of Ruin)
    [youtube]7XeKqwBDS1s[/youtube]
  • The Hidden Curse (Portrait of Ruin)
    [youtube]Ar0SXjVyWSU[/youtube]
  • An Empty Tome (Order of Ecclesia)
    [youtube]pyXRV7wkeyo[/youtube]

I would have preferred some classic Castlevania music, but these aren't bad tunes.
 
Eh, this game is pretty much dead for me. Stage 7 a joke. New loot is meh at best. If they would have put out the two new toons with stage 7 I could see still playing but for me I think I am done.
 
DLC characters are finally up.

I didn't download Yoko, just Julius so I see "Old Axe Armor" as a character till I download her. I can't play as old axe armor sadly.

Julius uses all of Jonathan's stuff and has martial arts as well, but his run/dash move is found on purple chests in Chapter 5 that is unique to him. His uppercut is found in Chapter 4 purple chests. He can also latch onto the magnets. He has less sub weapons then Jonathan but whips a bit faster and can whip in all directions. Haven't found any unique items for him yet.

The bad part about Julius? You gota level up his sub weapons like Jonathan, so prepare to grind in survival for another 15+ (20+?) hours or more if you want to max him.
His weapons list (so far, might be compelte)
Knife (Equipped)
Richotte Rock
Bible
Axe
Cross
Holy Water
So he's missing a lot of subweapons (Paper Airplane, Kunai, Wrecking Ball etc.) the most important being the Wrecking Ball imho, though Kunai was useful to backdash/spam certain enemies for Jonathan.

I can't confirm him how many sub weapons he has but I heard whatever you found with Jonathan rolls over to him. I deleted my saves by accident awhile back so I have to find everything again. I heard he has 7 or so sub weapons if someone wants to confirm.
 
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I loved this game while it was hot but it's too late for any kind of DLC outside of say a 3 or more level pack. I can play those 7 levels only so many times.
 
[quote name='Rodimus']I loved this game while it was hot but it's too late for any kind of DLC outside of say a 3 or more level pack. I can play those 7 levels only so many times.[/QUOTE]

In the same boat. They should release a map a month to keep the game fresh, but they won't.

I've grinded Julius about 8 hours to max all his sub weapons and don't want to grind Richter for another 20 to max out all his stuff.
 
[quote name='Rodimus']I loved this game while it was hot but it's too late for any kind of DLC outside of say a 3 or more level pack. I can play those 7 levels only so many times.[/QUOTE]

That was my thought. Add into the insult of the overpriced DLC and this game has been tossed aside for good.
 
Good news! A patch has been released that makes the game easier and more fun:

A patch was released on 2010 December 21 on Xbox Live for Castlevania Harmony of Despair with the following immediately visible effects:

Sub-weapon costs reduced. Richter, Jonathan, Julius, Yoko, and Maria all have a slight reduction of MP-cost in their sub-weapons (Hunter Skills). This lets them use them more often. Mastery is unaffected, and neither Shanoa's nor Charlotte's spells were reduced in cost.

Healing NERF'ed. Charlotte's Heal spell has been adjusted to drain 50 MP (instead of 40) and heals slightly less HP due to the Astral Ring exploit.

Match-making upgraded. Players can now search for custom games by difficulty and specific stage in addition to games in their region. When creating a match, players must specify which stage they intend to start with (host may change this later).

Party reforming option. Match host may exit the Ready-Menu to open the match to more players if the party's maximum hasn't been met. This allows parties to shrink and grow over the course of several matches.

Skeleton mobility improved. Player skeletons may now slide and duck to avoid some attacks that were not avoidable before.

Players auto-revived post boss battle. All slain players are automatically revived one moment before the boss chest is opened (this is to insure all players receives the treasure). The achievement for defeating a boss (not opening the boss chest) while five other players are skeletons is not affected.

-Thanks to Stephen Ng of IGN for the information.
 
[quote name='eastx']Healing NERF'ed. Charlotte's Heal spell has been adjusted to drain 50 MP (instead of 40) and heals slightly less HP due to the Astral Ring exploit.[/QUOTE]

Well that makes Charlotte worthless.
 
[quote name='chickenbutt']Just bought the game. If anyone would like to play, please add me :D[/QUOTE]
We should get a group together for the 5 skeletons achievement. Seems that has to be done online since xbox only supports up to 4 players. : /

I'll be on most of the evening so just send me an invite.
 
The community was there for awhile but took a huge dive in the last few months. Like I posted earlier, you can only play 6 levels so many times. Even using new characters doesn't help all that much.

I think most people who got this around launch already have badass characters that there's little point in playing anymore, other than just show off.
 
I actually downloaded this after seeing it was modeled after SOTN. It's too bad the community is dead. I tried getting into a match but I wasn't getting any bites. If any CAG want to do a few runs let me know. I also want to do some survival grinding with Yoko. I bought her a while ago and barely used her.
 
Hit me up for some survival grinding whenever man, I still need to finish John, Julius, Rickter, Maria and Yoko. My wife works with me sometimes, but she does not like to do survival grinding and only needs Yoko and Maria.
 
Yeah I played the new map. It's OK, at least beatable unlike Chapter 7. I did not find any new items yet but I know theres new souls for Soma to get , don't know if any of the new abilities/items are good. Post any l33t items you guys get or abilities.

Atleast It's 320 points this time around for the map which is still quite expensive but easier to swallow then 400 pts.
 
[quote name='Kreutz']Hit me up for some survival grinding whenever man, I still need to finish John, Julius, Rickter, Maria and Yoko. My wife works with me sometimes, but she does not like to do survival grinding and only needs Yoko and Maria.[/QUOTE]

I'll hold ya to it. I can never find a person online to grind with. Anyways we played a game together last night, that was my first win against Hard Legion. :bouncy:
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']Yeah I played the new map. It's OK, at least beatable unlike Chapter 7. I did not find any new items yet but I know theres new souls for Soma to get , don't know if any of the new abilities/items are good. Post any l33t items you guys get or abilities.

Atleast It's 320 points this time around for the map which is still quite expensive but easier to swallow then 400 pts.[/QUOTE]

According to the Castlevania Wiki, 3 more are due out this month and two are priced at 240 points.
 
No joke? I just realized your GT changed... I have almost three dozen victories over Legion under my belt right now, split 40/60 normal/hard. Anyways, Soma is the easiest to use, but Alucard and heaven's sword is impressive. I have also tried Shanoa and the whip-trio, and they are managable, but the fight can be a long one if there isn't a medusa Soma doing most of the DPS.

But otherwise, I'd be interested in doing some survival absolutely! I like to take turns, at it so only one person is hitting Gergoth per run. It seems to be a more efficient use of the 3 min clock...
 
I might be on later tonight. It depends if my friends want to play Lost Planet 2 or not. I want to get back into Castlevania but it's so hard to find other people. I probably would've bought more DLC if it came out a month or two after launch. I'm interested in buying Richter but the lack of community is holding me back.

I heard rumors that 8-bit Simon will be a DLC character. And another rumor that there's a crossover character. Anyone have more info on this.
 
Link

That is the source of all rumors. The Japanese home page for C:HoD reveals chapters 8 (already out), 9, 10, and 11. It also reveals all characters to date as well as two 8-bit characters. Pricing and release month are also listed, allegedly, underneath, and can be translated with google.

BTW - Ch 10/11 are 8-bit
 
Ohhhh that's Beelzebub, so we get another SOTN level. That's cool. I think I'm downloading all the 8-Bit Castlevania stuff. Not sure about the crossover things.

Thanks for your help in grinding last night Kreutz. With all this DLC coming out Castlevania HD has been rejuvenated. I'll be playing a lot more. We should get a CAG group going soon. Anyone down for it?

EDIT: So the last DLC level and character will be from a game called Getsu Fuuma Den that was never released outside Japan. I was expecting something more familiar for western gamers.
 
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Maybe you should setup a CAG gamertag (i.e. "CAG Castlevania") to find others that are willing to play around here. I have at least 4 or 5 people on my friends list who have the game and at least myself and a few others have the Level 7 DLC.

I'll have to look into the Survival mode grinding as I have never even tried the survival mode.
 
From what I understand, Iga wants to continue to support this game. I don't think that chapter 11, nor the 2nd 8-bit character will be the last DLC we get.

No prob on the survival, although I must admit I am not normally awake that late.

A CAG Castlevania GT for everyone to friend would be highly useful. If no one else does it, I will make that later tonight.
 
If he's so into supporting the game, why did they take the 2 or 3 month vacation at the time when it was crucial to actually release new stages for it?
 
I'd be up for playing sometime , although I still haven't even beaten the game on normal yet , much less on hard. Don't have any of the DLC either. :/ At the very least I'd like to play with a group to be able to get some of the achievements.
 
[quote name='eastx']If he's so into supporting the game, why did they take the 2 or 3 month vacation at the time when it was crucial to actually release new stages for it?[/QUOTE]
Yup the wait sucked when the game first came out I was willing to buy whatever DLC they would have released but eventually got tired of waiting and moved on.
 
[quote name='Kreutz']A CAG Castlevania GT for everyone to friend would be highly useful. If no one else does it, I will make that later tonight.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, go ahead and make one. Sounds like a good idea.
 
Chapter 9 is out! I fixed up the OP a smidge, though it still needs some work.

Downloadable Content

  • Chapter 7: Beauty, Desire, Situation Dire - 320 Points
    banner.png
  • Chapter 8: The One Who is Many - 320 Points
    banner.png
  • Chapter 9: Lord of the Flies - 320 Points
    banner.png
 
I want to get this, but oye paying for each chapter just seems annoying for a XBL game. if they plan on doing at least 2 more chapters and another char it up to nearly 3k points that's a $40 dollar game. Way to much for a XBL game to me.
 
I forgot to post this a while back...

Music Pack 2 - 160 Points
Includes:
  • [youtube]igDJ-pWxOU4[/youtube]
  • [youtube]De671JQVwIo[/youtube]
  • [youtube]2pMOGCfyLj4[/youtube]
  • [youtube]7F6yeYYYYh0[/youtube]
  • [youtube]i_0n0RJHGXY[/youtube]

Music Pack 2 is orders of magnitude better than the Music Pack 1. Seriously, each of those songs is good (and they're all from pre-DS games, though the versions used may be DS remixes).
 
wow those music packs are great... but I do agree the community is dead :( I totally lost interest in this game when everyone was just every man for themselves attitude and not team working :(
 
Supposedly the new map has some new hard drops. Someone mentioned a new subweapon (Javenlin) and Belmont's Cape anyone notice anything else awesome?
 
Apparently Sonic Boots is the new rare item everyone is clamoring for. A tad bit faster than Winged Boots and with stat upgrades. Never heard of Belmont's Cape. Are you sure it isn't Simon's Cape? That's a rare drop for the whip users. There's Alucards Sword +1 and Kaiser Knuckles +1 drops. And Shanoa gets a new spell. There's more but I forgot.

Javelin isn't new to Chapter 9. I'm pretty sure you can get it in Chapter 8 also.

My wish list is a Miser Ring x2, Sonic Boots, Simon's Plate/Cape.
 
anyone know if the valmanway drops on level 7-9? im still trying to get that damn sword. send me an invite if you want to play late tonight or any other night.
 
January 26: Castlevania Harmony of Despair Playable Character Simon Belmont, 160 Points
January 26: Castlevania Harmony of Despair Origins Stage Pack , 240 Points
February 2: Castlevania Harmony of Despair The Legend of Fuma Stage Pack 240 Points
February 2: Castlevania Harmony of Despair Playable Character Getsu Fuma, 160 Points
Simon-Belmont-walk.gif
fuuma.gif


The 8-bit stuff is even priced more fairly, too! Very nice.
 
[quote name='Kreutz']valmanway - yes on 6-8, likely yes on 9[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I saw someone get it on 9.

I really wish they'd release a patch to make grinding less tedious. If so I'd more inclined to play as Shanoa and I'd probably even pick up Maria and Julius.
 
I'm at 187 Stage 9 runs and have yet to a Val drop for anybody.
Got almost everything so far from 9.
Got 2 sonic boots.
Still need 1 Beez soul and the Alcuard sword +1.
I haven't seen the Alcuard sword +1 drop for anybody.
 
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