Reply To: The Random Gaming Freepost Thread

I’d advise players to take advantage of multiplayer mode, since the game is practically insurmountable – or at least an excruciating waste of time – by yourself.

Yet Harmony of Despair has no sympathy for failure. When a boss claims victory, you start from the very beginning of the stage, with nearly a half-hour wasted. That’s right: the first time you die, you have to make another run through the whole mansion. The second goddamn time you die, you have to make another goddamn run through the whole goddamn mansion. After the third time, you start using words that my editors won’t let me print.

Even that might be acceptable if the journey through each castle were more exciting. It’s a trudge, though.

my hero was in no hurry to get anywhere. I bent that analogue stick as far as I could, and yet the little sprite wouldn’t speed up. My high school running coach used to make us do a strength drill where we ran laps in six inches of water; that’s what it feels like to move around in this game.

You can adjust the camera view to three different levels of zoom as you play, taking advantage of the Xbox 360’s high-definition canvas so that you can see a huge swathe of the castle and, in theory, follow the exploits of your compatriots. The three available angles are: Impossible To See What’s Going On, Somewhat Less Impossible To See What’s Going On, and Actually Playable.

Harmony of Despair isn’t a failure of concept but a failure of ambition, one that leaves Koji Igarashi still waiting for his next great discovery.