You Too, Shall Be My Puppet!

Oh man, have I been addicted to Castlevania this past week! I was kinda excited for Harmony of Despair to come out, but I didn't think I'd be playing it this much! I mean, I'm on the fence on Castlevania games, just finding that they can be unforgiving in difficulty and don't offer a whole lot of options. Like being able to level up or choose a whole lot of ways to traverse the castle, like how Metroid games are developed (not including sequence-breaking).

But both Harmony of Despair and Symphony of the Night have opened my eyes, each in different ways. HD has shown me that you can "level up" without having to actually level up, and that collectibles and other items across the areas can work out to be the same, as they continually alter the players' stats. I'm not going to assume that the alternate paths are like all Castlevania games, since this one was designed with multiplayer in mind. Different players should take different paths. SotN on the other hand though, has opened up more now that I have defeated the most recent boss. I now have the option to take different paths through the castle, though obviously only to an extent, before I obtain the next best item and reach the next boss. It's still much better than many extremely linear games out there. So yeah, I'm definitely enjoying both of these games.

I should say that I wouldn't be playing SotN if it weren't for HD, and I wouldn't be playing HD if it weren't for the multiplayer. Playing it online with a friend is a blast. Originally I thought that having only six levels would be a very short game, even knowing that one must play through the levels multiple times to beat them (and have a time limit of just 30 minutes). But I've probably played all the levels combined around 30 to 40 times, not including the first level another five times on hard mode. And being able to play with different characters from different Castlevania games with each other is pretty cool. Each players' powers lend a hand to defeating enemies. I just wish there were certain areas of levels that are only accessible to certain characters, but I can let that one go. I'm playing as Shanoa, who's special power is basically a magnet that lets her attach to and fling around to other magnets. Pretty cool, but her magic powers are awesome. It wasn't until I acquired her other powers besides fire that the gameplay opened up for me. I now have her fire at level 6, electricity at level 6, ice at level 5 and beam at level 4. She is extremely powerful. Luckily the game is pretty tough on hard mode, and is brutally fun. Definitely worth the $15 purchase, and I can't wait to play more online, hopefully completing hard mode within the next week.

As for Symphony of the Night, it became more enjoyable after playing HD, as I saw that it's really not as difficult as I once thought. It really just plays like a Metroid game, except that more thinking and jumping is required, and less attacking. All enemies must be studied and known how they attack, and health is critical and hard to find, unlike most Metroid games. And different items are great for different enemies and situations. You can't just run into a fight with a sword swinging, and backing down from a fight is not a bad idea. In a Metroid game, once you see an enemy, you usually don't back down until the fight is finished. I don't know which I'll finish first, but right now all I'm playing are Castlevania games. Hell, if I enjoy both of these this much, I might just have to borrow some other Castlevania games, and put those on top of my playlist before a bunch of other games. And to be clear, I think I can count at least six unplayed games I have on that list, not including two or so being played at the moment, so that'd be a pretty big feat to put something else first. But that has yet to happen, and won't be for a while, so we'll see.