What's better than playing the side-scrolling masterpiece Castlevania? Playing it with a group of friends. That's what Konami brought to the table with Castlevania: Harmony Of Despair. You and 5 other friends could fight your way through classic Castlevania areas with characters from different games in the series like Simon Belmont (Castlevania 1, 2, and 4), Richter Belmont (Rondo Of Blood, Dracula X), and Alucard (Castlevania 3, Symphony Of The Night), all fighting to reach the end of the level, kill the boss, and collect greater and more powerful gear for the challenges that await.

Each character has their own set of skills which are all acquired in different ways. Soma collects souls from defeated monsters and can increase the level of those skills by repeatedly collecting the same souls. Where as Richter and Jonathan collect their skills from many sources such as chests and boss drops, but level over time as the skill is used. Having their own exclusive gear on top of this unique skill leveling system keeps characters fresh as you're not just doing the same thing all over again with every character you play.

On the topic of gear, there are 2 kinds. Universal and character specific. Universal gear will drop regardless of which character you play. These are usually not tailored towards 1 character and will provide basic stats such as damage, defence, resistances, and player speed. Character specific gear, however, will only drop when you are playing that designated character. Shanoa can not use Soma's weapons, therefore there is a 0% chance of any of his weapons dropping.

Like most people I've known who have played this game, I've put hundreds of hours into this game and have done thousands of runs to prefect my characters. I loved the game to death but have always wondered 2 things about it. Why is it not on Steam, and why is there no Castlevania: Harmony Of Despair 2? For returning veterans, I want us to be able to have fun again, working together to accomplish a common goal, and maybe help out those who are struggling. For those who haven't played the original, I want you to be able to experience the joy I had while playing for endless night with my friends grinding through chapter 9 to get a pair of boots that made us just a tiny bit faster. It may seem repetitive, but it's more of an addiction to farm and when you get the item you've been searching for, the feeling is pure bliss.

Though I will be the first to say Castlevania: Harmony Of Despair was not without its flaws. But no game is perfect. The majority of its problems are very simple fixes. So I'm going to list a few things I would change, as well as some new features I would add.

• Bring back the original chapters and characters. The levels were very fun and on Hard could be quite challenging as well. The characters were well designed and mostly all were very enjoyable to play
• Remove the Valmanway sword. Soma was without a doubt the most powerful character in the game. Combining 2 Valmanway +1 with the medusa or succubus soul and 2 Miser Rings made Soma tear through anything in his path, killing nearly any boss in seconds. Other characters did not have the utility or power to compete with Soma and as a result, 5 out of every 6 players would usually be playing Soma online.
• Change skills that gain exp per use. While in theory this is great, what it really turned into was: Go to survival with a friend, spam your skill, die, spam more, wait after you kill the boss. Rinse and repeat for hours. And the fact that your skill gained exp per hit meant that some skills would level ridiculously fast, while others would take all day. Maybe change it to something like each "equipped" skill would gain exp for every kill your character got regardless if they used the skill or not and would be awarded bonus exp for boss kills. Kinda like Pokémon's exp share, where if 1 Pokémon got exp, your whole party did.
• Add more characters and chapters. I think this one kinda goes without saying. While the original had 12 chapters and it felt sufficient for the time, now those same chapters just wouldn't be enough. I think if we had the original 12 and maybe added around 10 more it would be plenty. But of course, the more the merrier. Same goes with the characters. While the lineup is already very strong, I'd love to see characters like Sypha, Grant, and Juste Belmont join the roster.
• Change the Luck stat. Any stat like this in a game always brings controversy as to what it does whether it be Luck, Scavenging from The Division, or whatever. I like the idea of Luck, but it was very poorly executed. Apparently boss loot quality it determined by the Luck of the person who got the last hit on the boss and killed it, but I think that is still unconfirmed. If Luck will remain in the game, please clarify exactly what it does so there is no debate.
• Character levels. I'd like to see this implemented but not overpower gear. Maybe per level a character can gain 1 stat point to contribute to how the character plays and at max level the character will have a modest stat boost, but not so much that they can solo chapters naked without breaking a sweat. Richter would gain more Strength and Constitution to boost his physical abilities, where as Jonathan would gain more Strength and Intelligence where he is a hybrid of both physical and skill power.
• A new difficulty level and changes to previous difficulties. This new difficulty would be a real challenge and would only be unlocked after certain requirements had been made, but would have an increased drop rate for rare items found in Hard difficulty, as well as its own rare drops found only in this difficulty. All difficulties would also see a change, mainly enemy type and boss move set. Normal would spawn basic enemy types and the boss would have a pretty basic move set. On Hard the enemies would be more varied, consisting of stronger enemies and bosses would have an increased move set. On the hardest difficulty, all trash mobs would be replaced with tough enemies and bosses would get an expanded move set which contains new, powerful moves that could insta-kill any player unfortunate enough to get caught in it.
• Revamped graphics. While the original's graphics were a nice shoutout to the past games, I think anyone would agree that we really need to see these characters and levels with a fresh coat of paint. Just as important, the skills need the same treatment. Shanoa's skills never looked very flashy for a mage character. Time to fix that.
• Remove movement speed altering boots. While it was a good attempt, these items triumphed over all other boots because movement is much more important than any other stat. The only boot options that anyone has was Winged Boots or, if you were lucky enough on chapter 9 runs, Sonic Boots. My suggestion would be to remove the movement bonus to all gear and instead tie it to your character's level. Though other kinds of movement boots would be fine like back dash boots or slide boots for Richter.
• Multi-platform and cross-platform play. This game absolutely needs to come to the PC market simultaneously with consoles and if all possible, allow cross-platform play to keep the community together and thriving.
• Various aspect ratio support. Personal gripe of mine to every modern developer who thinks it's funny to not support 21:9 and makes me play with black bars on each side of my monitor. You know who you are. 16:9, 16:10, 21:9, and even 4:3 should all be supported without a doubt, especially in a side-scroller where more horizontal space is always better.

Sorry it's a bit of a read but I can get very passionate about some games, especially those which have created such fond memories. I hope Konami will take this seriously so that you too will be able to create wonderful memories with your friends as well.