In a nutshell, CV HD is delicious fan-service for anyone who has ever been a fan of the Castlevania series. The plot is minimal, and basically involves a book (called the "grimoire") that contains the history of Castlevania that somehow comes to life (a la Neverending Story), thus reviving Dracula, his castle, and the past vampire hunters contained within canon Castlevania history. The game starts you out with five characters: Soma, Alucard, Jonathan, Shanoa and Charlotte, and offers more (and new levels) through DLC, including Julius, Yoko, Richter, Maria, and Simon. Of course, the only characters I'm remotely interested in are the cute female ones, 'cause I'm an uberfag.
As with past Castlevania titles, the game involves 2D side-scrolling RPG action, although the EXP/Leveling Up system isn't featured. Each of the levels contains elements, music, and enemies from past Castlevania titles, and there's hundreds of items and abilities to collect for each character. Since there isn't leveling up, each character has a personal method of strength-progression, typically involving increasing the strength of abilities through use or by collecting spells and sub-weapons, depending on your character of choice. This gives the game limitless replay value, despite the game only having six levels (without DLC) and two difficulty modes.
The real shining aspect of CV HD is the fact that it's the first multiplayer Castlevania title. Unfortunately, it's only multiplayer online and not locally (at least, on the XBLA version...), but it still makes the game incredibly fun to play with friends.
Alright, so I'm obviously biased. I absolutely adore the Castlevania series, so I've been completely addicted to playing this game, whether solo or with friends. There's tons of items to collect, and despite there not being a leveling system, I find myself desperately grinding away to make my favorite characters as strong as possible (Charlotte, Maria and Yoko, in case you're wondering!). I'm impressed with the fact that Konami managed to put out a patch in December to balance the characters a bit, although Soma and Richter are way overpowered in comparison to the rest.
Having that said, there are a few cons to this game that I have to point out, unfortunately.
The first downfall is how ridiculously expensive the DLC for this game is. The game itself is 1200 Microsoft Points, which equates to $15. The Chapter 7 DLC is 400 points, and each of the (currently) four DLC characters are 240 points each. If you want all of the DLC, you have to fork out 1360 points, which is more than the game itself. Add the fact that there's another DLC pack on the way, bringing the total cost of all of the DLC to 2160. Goodness.
Speaking of DLC, another con is the fact that DLC characters don't display properly unless you've also purchased those characters. If you haven't forked out the points for Julius, Yoko, Richter, and Maria (and soon, Simon and Getsu Fuma), you'll see other players who are using them displayed as minimally-animated "Axe Knight" sprites. You can't see their weapons animating properly, nor the majority of their abilities, and it's rather frustrating, to me. In my opinion, seeing other people play as DLC characters would make me want to purchase them, as opposed to seeing an Axe Knight running around, who I constantly try to attack because I think it's an enemy.
I also think that not including the classic EXP-gain and "leveling-up" system from past Castlevania titles is a bad idea. I understand that they wanted to make the game less level-based to be more accessible to casual players, but a substantial amount of character growth is still necessary for each character; I've personally put nearly 50 hours into completely mastering all of Charlotte's spells, for example. Having a max level to hit would add even more replay value to the game, especially since characters all share the same item pool. Once you've found good items, you can equip them on any of your other characters. Being nearly completely item-based is a bit of a bummer.
There is minimal lag, endless replay value, and tons of Castlevania nostalgia to be had, so I highly recommend this title, even if you're unfamiliar with the Castlevania series. It would actually serve as a great introduction to the series, because seeing each of these characters within Harmony of Despair might encourage players to see them in the other games they make appearances in. Since there are a few things from past Castlevania titles that I would have liked to see in this game, I can't give it a perfect score, but this game has certainly been one of the best XBLA titles I've played, to date.
- Audio: 5
- Gameplay: 5
- Originality: 4
- Story: 2
- Visuals: 3
- Overall: 4
- Difficulty: Very Hard
- Completion Time: +60 Hours (if you plan on "maxing" characters and collecting items)
+ Nostalgic graphics with plenty of fancy enhancements
+ Robust soundtrack featuring original and remixed versions of famous Castlevania music
+ Diverse characters with plenty of customization options
+ It's a MULTIPLAYER CASTLEVANIA!!!!
+ Virtually endless re-playability
- Storyline is virtually non-existent
- Classic experienced-based leveling system replaced with "character progression"
- Local co-op is only available on the Playstation Network version
- Very, very expensive if you want all of the game's content and characters
I managed to obtain all of the game's achievements, too. Huzzah!
Until next time... game on!
While I don't know much about the series or even much about the in-depth gameplay of Castelvania:HD I can say this is one of the games I most enjoy watching because of the visuals and the sounds.
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