Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (XBLA/PSN)

[Kiarax]

Game will pretty much start off very rough but at least doable if you're decent at Castlevania titles, may take a few tries for each stage though (also really depends on character you pick too, Soma or Alucard will have a pretty easy time right off the bat due to the way they work, other characters not so much). Once you finish Normal mode, Hard mode will just slaughter you and you'll wonder what the fuck to do next. At that point it largely depends on your character again, a couple of rare drops can turn Soma or Alucard in to a God, whereas the other characters have to grind up their skill levels to power up. You'll eventually reach a point where you just destroy anything in the base stages regardless of character. The DLC is all basically progression after that, in the 360 version it was months before we got them all and once they were released the old stages were pretty much abandoned, almost no reason to do them since the DLC stages are both much harder and give much better loot. You basically just move through them until you're capable to beat the next stage in each (though chapter 10 is harder than 11 imo). Depending on your character you'll want to grind specific stages for certain things. The female characters all get their best body piece from Chapter 7, Soma gets some ridiculously good souls from 8 and 9 and broken weapons from 7 and 11 (6 too but the drop rate is asssss), etc etc.

As for group vs solo play, it really depends how well off everyones gear is. The enemies all scale to the number of players, so if you're significantly stronger than someone and you run with them, the boss is likely gonna die slower, not faster. There's generally a few shortcuts through stages you can take if you have another person though, so it does speed up in that regard.

[Kisamoo]

Finally got my Valman after 79 kills! Also got Winged boots and drac armor, I can finally leave Stage 6!

Also, this game has consumed my soul. I did Stage 6 like 30 times in a row and was still having fun. @_@

[Kiarax]

You'll stop having fun once you get 2x Valmanway and 2 maxed Misers. Don't worry.

[Kisamoo]

You'll stop having fun once you get 2x Valmanway and 2 maxed Misers. Don't worry.

Can't wait!

[arus2001]

I found Stage 8 good to be for getting a new player some mid-range gear. Even on Hard, it's not terribly difficult until you get to Legion and there are plenty of chests to yoink loot from if you explore the whole level.

But yeah, if you're a Soma player, try to max your souls. Bosses will be harder to do, naturally, since they'd only come from chests, but having things like Gergoth, Puppetmaster, Yorick, Medusa, Succubus, and a few others at higher levels both promote longevity and the ability to possibly skip portions of stages. Charlotte's also important to farm spells on, but note you can only get one per mob, so kill 'em after you learn. Friend of mine uploaded a few youtube vids that might be handy for new players. No idea if they fixed the Soma glitch for chapter 10 in the PS3 version.

[Kiarax]

It's also worth maxing souls you don't use too. Every non-DLC soul (so ones from chapter 1-6) you get powers up all ofSoma's souls a little. There's a pretty damn substantial difference between stuff like Fish Head/Warg soul damage (which are stuff you'll be using endgame) when you have hardly any souls compared to all souls maxed. As arus said, bosses can be a bit of a pain to max (and almost all the boss souls are worthless, lol), but it's at least worth running through each stage to max all the trash enemies.

[arus2001]

I knew the souls themselves powered up some per level, and some even change appearance, but that's the first I heard of them all having some kind of symbiotic relationship. Guess it wouldn't surprise me, though, since Charlotte has a similar mechanic and the whip users also power up that way.

[Kiarax]

Yeah, the only difference with Soma is it doesn't give him STR/ATK too (not that he needs it...). It powers up the souls and those alone. Playing a MP regen build on Soma was actually really enjoyable to me too, I used to use a full MP regen + Warg set to take out R. The Count and it was badass. Unless you're stupidly good at BDC it seemed like the fastest way to take him out to me.

[Kisamoo]

Yeah, the only difference with Soma is it doesn't give him STR/ATK too (not that he needs it...). It powers up the souls and those alone. Playing a MP regen build on Soma was actually really enjoyable to me too, I used to use a full MP regen + Warg set to take out R. The Count and it was badass. Unless you're stupidly good at BDC it seemed like the fastest way to take him out to me.

Perfect BDC Silverguns Dracula 2nd form np

[Kiarax]

Skip to 1:50... I thought I could BDC like a pro but I ain't got shit on this guy, lol.

[Kisamoo]

Skip to 1:50... I thought I could BDC like a pro but I ain't got shit on this guy, lol.

I love games with ridiculous skill ceilings.