Demo Assessment: Castlevania Harmony of Despair

Castlevania Harmony of Despair sounds like it would be right up my alley.  In an earlier post I said, “Konami and everyone else -- we will gladly pay $15+ for classic games on our modern consoles if you put some effort into optimizing them. Widescreen and high definition are the main things I want. Achievements, enhancements, different modes of play are also nice.”  CHoD has all of those things going for it.  Its price is exactly $15.  But...

The graphics are attractive.  They’re widescreen.  They’re HD.  By today’s standards though, I’m afraid they just don’t cut it.  They’re too pixel-y.  They’re too 16-bit.  I would point to Braid as an example of a sprite-based game on a modern console with excellent graphics:

 

Braid’s sprite’s don’t have jagged edges.  The game looks like a painting in motion.  It’s an independent game, released two years ago.  You’re telling me that a game released by Konami today can’t look nearly as good as that?

Visuals aren’t the only problem for CHoD.  The controls are stiff, and the pace of the game is slow.  This is typical of Castlevania games, but I think Konami could have retained the basics and still have made the controls feel more fluid and responsive.  I keep mentioning Bionic Commando:Rearmed, but it is the standard for games of its type (as far as I’m concerned), and it has great controls that are faithful to the original.  When you consider that just about any random platformer on the XBox 360 – Rocket Knight, for example (another Konami game) – has better controls, it’s hard to make the case for playing Castlevania.

The lack of local multiplayer is disappointing.  Hydro Thunder Hurricane, last week’s XBox Live Arcade release, has to render complex 3D environments and water effects.  That game has a 4-player split screen mode.  All that CHoD has to render is 2D sprites.  Given the zoom out / zoom in feature of the game (which is very cool), you’d think that a multi-player split screen mode would be easy.

Castlevania has a lot of good qualities and I’m pretty sure it’ll be a hit.  The effort that went into it is clearly about 2000% greater than the effort that went into the terrible emulated Contra releases for XBox Live Arcade.  I’m sure I could have a lot of fun playing it online with 5 other players.  But given the other great games to choose from, I can’t justify buying this one.

I still have high hopes for Konami’s upcoming Hard Corps: Uprising (a Contra modernization) and Rush’n Attack Ex-Patriot.

Konami is Learning

First they announced Rush'N Attack: Ex-Patriot, now a new Contra game called Hard Corps: Uprising.  Konami seems to be following my advice.  Here’s a quick review:

The Wrong Way to Bring a Classic Game to a Modern Console:

Example 1 (Super Contra for XBox Live Arcade)

Example 2 (Contra:Rebirth For Nintendo Wii)

(If you look at the screen shot above and think, “those graphics aren’t too bad”, you need to realize that those are 16-bit caliber graphics.  The 16-bit era end 15 years ago).

The Right Way:

Example 1

Example 2

Keep it up, Konami!

Bringing a Classic Game to Modern Consoles The Right Way

I was not a fan of the 8-bit NES / arcade game Rush'n Attack. But the planned remake looks cool.

It looks like Konami saw the awesome Bionic Command:Rearmed and decided to try with one of their old games.  I'll definitely check it out when it's released, but I'm wondering why Konami opted for Rush'n Attack over something like Contra.  Contra is one of the most fondly-remembered 8-bit games.  The Contra code is famous.  Rush'n Attack, on the other hand, was the kind of game people bought because they thought the name was clever, and because it sounded like fun to run around killing commies with knives and machine guns.  In the days before downloadable demos, that kind of thing is all we had to go on.  Unfortunately it was a pretty bad game.  Repetitive, slow-paced, and fairly difficult if I remember correctly.  I'm sure the remake will be good, but I still don't understand that choice given the alternatives.

In any case, I'm glad to see Konami realizing that gamers appreciate some effort going into bringing classic games to modern consoles. As opposed to this:

Ughhh...that image alone makes me sick to my stomach. You know what's better than that? 1) Contra on MAME. 2) Contra III on a Super NES Emulator. 3) ANYTHING.

Konami and everyone else -- we will gladly pay $15+ for classic games on our modern consoles if you put some effort into optimizing them. Widescreen and high definition are the main things I want. Achievements, enhancements, different modes of play are also nice. But I won't pay one penny to play a non-optimized, emulated version that runs in a letterboxed window, so don't waste your time.

Edit: I just discovered that Konami did release a new Contra game for the Wii last year called Contra ReBirth. IGN gave the game a decent score, but those graphics -- yikes!  Contra III for the SNES looks much better.  That is not rebirth, Konami, that's more like a zombified Contra, dug up and reanimated in a grotesque, vile form through evil magic, a.k.a. a half-assed development effort.  Those graphics can't be considered acceptable by today's standards on any console.  Thankfully, the new Rush'n Attack screens show that Konami is putting a little more effort into their next 8-bit remake.