
To be completely honest if Geoff still had an Xbox 360 he would have either wrote about his first impressions of Castlevania: Harmony of Despair or had a review up by now. After all, he's a pretty big Castlevania fan. I've only played Symphony of the Night (which Geoff introduced me to) and a small amount of Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth. Despite my lack of serious experience I found Harmony of Despair too intriguing to pass up, so I downloaded the game and played it for a few hours. I started out with Soma Cruz and familiarized myself with the controls. (Given my previous experience with SotN Alucard might have been a smarter choice.) I found the game to play pretty similar to SotN instead of ReBirth which I'm thankful for-- as ReBirth's controls are a constant struggle for me. Soma started out with an unwieldy axe and the ability to toss skeleton bones. Honestly, I found the ability to gather enemy skills and summons more useful than Soma's default weapon. After making it to the boss and losing I tried again the following night.
It was at this point a friend of mine logged on to Live and sent me a game invite. We struggled to get a co-op session going at first but found success in setting up a private two player game. He played as Shanoa and I kept Soma. I knew he'd played the game several times before over the past few nights but the difference in our abilities and character levels became clear very quickly. As my Soma awkwardly slashed at enemies with a recently acquired sword, his Shanoa easily blasted them with magic and the rest were efficiently put down with melee attacks. He then began to use mounts in the wall to propel himself up while I was stuck platforming. Finally I asked him "How the hell are you doing that?!" and he replied, "She has magnets." With a mental sigh and feeling terribly underpowered I continued on. We eventually made it the boss where I was killed but he was able to beat it. At the very least I was able to hit the boss with bones in skeleton form until I was revived. After the fight I took a moment to equip the items I'd found before we played the first chapter again. As we played he explained some of the more obscure controls to me. Eventually we made our way to the boss again and on our second go I was able to help slay it without dying.
First and foremost playing at least one 2D Castlevania game is a prerequisite before even attempting to play Harmony of Despair. If I had not played a single Castlevania game before playing HD I would have found this already difficult game even harder to play. Secondly, playing with a friend or several friends is a much more rewarding experience than going at it alone. Actually, this game focuses so heavily on co-op that attempting to finish it alone may be nearly impossible. While some many find the 30 minute time limit to be a drag I found it to be more than enough to time to reach the boss, although I can't say the same for later levels. I do like the fact that even though death is annoying (in the single player experience anyway) all of your items and power-ups don't go away. This is definitely a game geared toward collecting items and power-ups instead of exploration. I can also understand why fans of traditional Castlevania games might be turned off by the experience. Any one up for a challenge with friends, or one hell of a challenge in single player mode will probably get some enjoyment from Harmony of Despair. However, I can't see anyone being satisfied with the lack of proper game instructions, only being able to equip items at certain check points, and the complete inability to pause the game. On a final note, having online-only co-op sounds like a crazy idea until you realize all the money Konami can potentially make by having friends persuade other friends to buy the game in order to play together.

The premium edition of Ys Seven is another game that I recently got my hands on. Unlike Castlevania HD this game quickly went into my pile of unfinished PSP JRPGs. I've never actually played an Ys game but being a sucker for collector's editions (especially from niche publishers) I couldn't pass this one up. I found the game trailers and examples of gameplay to be heartening and the first reviews are fairly positive. It's also nice to know Ys Seven can be experienced without having knowledge of prior Ys games. I might bump this one up in the queue after Persona 3: Portable and Lunar Silver Star Harmony. As for the actual premium addition I was surprised to discover how large the box itself was. The map is surprisingly nice-- nicer than the collector's map that came with Lunar Silver Star Story Complete. I have yet to listen to the soundtrack, and the art book is simply gorgeous. I just hope I find the game to be just as interesting as the collector's edition, unlike Record of Agarest War which I find to be too slow-paced at the moment. Fortunately Ys Seven looks a lot more promising.
You've undoubtedly been hearing quite a bit about the 3DS all around the internet, this blog included. You really can't blame anyone for bringing it up, because a number of things about it look great. And hopefully it will get the media, and most gamers in general, to take portable gaming seriously. They did for a time around the PSP's launch, but that quickly dissipated when Sony fumbled about with how to market the system. The 3DS is already looking to be home to some great games, but there's a potential problem.
The thing about the 3DS is that only the top screen, a 3.5 inch widescreen display, is capable of showing 3D, with the touch screen being the same 3 inch one you see now on your DS or DS Lites (albeit with better horsepower behind it). Instead of allowing developers to have a focus on any screen given they had an even aspect ratio with the original model, all attention looks like it will be primarily fixed on the top screen this time around. This could hinder the development of games that primarily rely on using the touch screen.















Level 5 finally confirmed last week that
But the good news is that they still have time to fix this mistake. The problem here is the principle of restricting freedom, a specific precedent of freedom that's never been violated before. No one really wants to see this happen now, especially with a company that we all expected better from. What we have now is the equivalent of them shaking your hand with one arm and punching you in the face with the other. The force of that punch depending on how much you hate this idea.


Despite the first look existing within the pages of Famitsu and Game Informer for a few weeks, the first direct feed
Oh pfft, like he needs a gun.







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