When I say this, I’m mostly referring to the ability-progression system that’s been in place in almost all of the 2D Castlevania games released since Symphony of the Night so many years ago. No longer would I be earning abilities as I progressed through the game that would help traverse areas that were closed off to me earlier. Instead, Harmony of Despair is divided into six distinct chapters, with no ability progression necessary to make it through any of them. In fact, aside from earning better equipment, spells, and the like, there really isn’t much progression to speak of in Harmony of Despair. There also isn’t any experience system in place, and you never earn so much as a double-jump (well, you start off with one, but where’s the fun in that?).

At this point, it’s pretty obvious that this was not the Castlevania experience that I had been craving. Sure, all of the iconic characters, locations, monsters, and weapons were in place, but the gameplay just never matched up to what I thought a Castlevania title should be. There wasn’t even any good platforming like in the earlier titles. The deeper I delved, the more I realized that this was a loot whoring game first and foremost. In order to snag myself some of the more powerful weapons, I was going to be playing through these chapters over and over again, until I could do everything in my sleep. It’s really too bad that this is the case.

Even in spite of my historical love of scouring repetitive areas ad nauseam to get myself the best armor set or that elusive Pearl weapon, I just couldn’t find the same joy in place in Harmony of Despair. The loot drops only came from the chests that were always placed in the same locations. Furthermore, though there were different different classes of chests that supposedly contained different item types; none of this was made very clear as I just always ended up getting the same freaking pendants or short swords no matter how many times I reloaded a level.

The visuals in the game are certainly a mixed bag. While I appreciate the full-screen, real-time map, it was hardly ever all that useful, as I just found myself memorizing the layout of each level and barely ever needing to zoom out to reorient myself. On top of that, the zoomed-in visuals sort of become a pixelated mess. While it’s easier to play this way, the characters and enemies just look a little too much like their GBA forbears than seems appropriate for a Castlevania game with the subtitle acronym “HD.” The audio design was somewhat better, though I’m mainly referring to the music, which sounds suitably metal-tastic. Unfortunately, there really aren’t a whole lot of tracks to choose from, and I quickly found myself getting bored of listening to the same three or four that I liked initially.

There are six total characters to choose from in the game, though I think that other Castlevania fans might have more of an affinity for them than I do. While Soma starred in my favorite game in the series, I was never all that fond of him, and everyone else besides Alucard just kind of falls flat for me. Shanoa is obviously the most powerful of the bunch (as the leaderboards can attest to), but that’s not really what I’m looking for. Ultimately, I played through the game as Soma just because I likee his varied weapons and Soul Abilities. I really wish that some more classic characters were in the title, though i suppose the devs would have had a hard time differentiating them from each other.

The highlight of the game for me was the actual exploration of each level, and learning how to get through it faster and faster while snagging more and more of the chests. I just wish that there was a more tangible reward system in place. Some of the purple chests are quite tricky to nab, but often reward you with useless junk that you’ll just end up selling regardless. It all felt a little more pointless than I wanted to see out of the game.

I have a hard time describing the singleplayer portion of this game as anything other than lackluster. There were isolated instances of fun, but mostly I just felt like I was going through the motions, or getting needlessly annoyed. I wish that this game felt more like the modern Castlevanias that I know and love just with a greater emphasis on loot and multiplayer. I suppose that might have been harder to develop than the game we got, but the game we got just isn’t all that good anyway.