Castlevania: Harmony of Despair Achievement FAQ

Yes, I know the game hasn't released yet. On that same token, yes, this information is for real. Through Summer of Arcade previews, I have had acess to Castlevania: Harmony of Despair since Friday. I can verify this work through my review at Diehard GameFAN (http://diehardgamefan.com/2010/08/02/review-castlevania-harmony-of-despair-360/) and some contributions that will come soon to J2Games.com. Obviously, you can also view my GamerTag (nestlekwik) and check my achievements.

I have yet to get the full 200 points for the title, but I am down to the last few items that require setup and a lot of grinding - since the game has yet to release, you could imagine it's hard to find a lot of people to set this up with. Regardless, most of my experience comes along with players Das Alucard and Wasabi Panda - Das Alucard and I have been flip-flopping between the number one and two spots on the leaderboards through the preview period and Wasabi Panda has been a terrific multiplayer support, so credit goes to these guys too. Our team of three, according to the leaderboards, is the first and only to beat Dracula on the hard difficulty, so we've played the game through to its entirety and through observations and conversations with others, we can verify this information.

Bone Cold Justice - 10G
Defeated an enemy by hitting back a skeleton's bone

This is an achievement best done in corridors. I actually received this one not even five minutes within starting my game for the first time. In chapter one, from the beginning, head through the hall of zombies, climb up with the floating platform and take the first corridor on the right (the one that runs directly above the hallway you start in). You'll see a line of skeletons for you to try this with. You can pretty much do this anywhere though - just hit a thrown bone and it may deflect. Another great place to try is in chapter three, where along the left side of the stage and toward the top is a good group of skeletons situated underneath a ledge. If the bone does deflect, hitting a skeleton should shatter it, giving you the achievement.

Grasshopper - 20G
Jump kicked 30 times in a row without touching the ground

Way easier than it sounds. For the ultra-easy way to do this, find a bone pillar in a stack of four or more (they look like stationary dragon skulls that shot fireballs). The first real stack of bone pillars you'll see will be in chapter two in a couple of different locations (there are two stacks of four at the very top and toward the center). Since they can't move and can't attack above them (and you can even stand on top of them without getting hurt), this achievement is easy game just by jumping up and then spamming A while holding down. I have also known people that have done this by spamming the jump kick on top of the first chapter boss, which is still relatively easy.

Lifeguard - 10 G
Brought a comrade back from the dead

This can only be done online. All you need is a water of life (while in online co-op, every blue treasure chest contains a water of life) and a dead teammate. Just press the R trigger when you are beside the player's skeleton form and the prompt to revive appears. This will occur very naturally in this challenging game, but, yes, you can still arrange for this with a friend too.

Vampire Hunter - 15 G
Destroy the lord of Castlevania

Simply, you just need to clear the game on normal difficulty. Starting out, I very easily did this with just two players and I have also killed Dracula on normal in single player. When you get toward the end of chapter six - keep a few things in mind so you can be in tip-top shape for the battle. When you are climbing the corridor at the upper-right hand corner of the stage (the climb has endlessly spawning yellow Medusa heads), you'll find a pizza at the top for 70 HP - bash the wall behind this for a Quiche that boosts you another 50 HP. At the top of the stage, you'll encounter a single room with a Final Guardian (the big knight with a huge sword and spiked shield) - take it out and enter the next room, which has one more Final Guardian in it. In the room with this second Final Guardian, you'll see a staircase leading to a second floor above the Guardian, where a Nova (green) Skeleton guards a blue chest. Jump and strike at the ceiling roughly around where the skeleton was until you see a section start to crumble as you strike it. After three strikes, you'll discover a secret room, that contains a purple ("good items!") chest and on the table at the right of the room sits a group of Truffles which gives you an astounding 200 HP boost. The setback is, though, you have to have at least one other person with you to reach this secret room. Just have your teammate sit still and jump kick his/her head to get a boost and double jump in.

Are you by yourself or just still need even more HP? Just as you leave the room with the last Final Guardian and Nova Skeleton and see the staircase and open air, jump on the ledge right above the doorway and smack the wall for a Tasty Meat that replenishes 129 HP. If you want to see a crazy Easter Egg, continue jumping on top of the castle toward the right until you can't go any further (you'll see the roof shrouded in blue shadows in the background and you'll be pretty much directly in front of a tower in the background). Hold up until you hear a weird grunting noise. After a few seconds, Konami Man will zip by and you can snag him! We've yet to find any valid use for the pick-up and it does not appear in the item compedium, so we believe this is nothing more than a secret gag.

If you need a little bit more of a health boost at roughly halfway through the stage, when you see the Meat Strip food item sitting on a ledge behind the big, blue, flying Hammerhead Shark-looking creature, bash the edge of the ledge three times to find a Strawberry Doughnut and refill a bit of energy.

At this rate you should be full on HP (or really close to full) and ready to fight Dracula - if you've played Symphony of Night before, you should be very familiar with most of what goes on here ...

Form one - Standard Dracula - Extremely easy. As Dracula teleports, if he is not up against one of the walls, jump over him as soon as you can and wail away as fast as you can. Just watch his hellfire attack (multiple fireballs in a straight vertical line), because he uses his right arm to execute this and it puts his reach a little bit behind him. If he is up against a wall, jump above his head and spam your jump kick (down +A) repeatedly. In this instance, just be mindful of the inferno attack (the ground erupts with vertical columns of flame), because he will occasionally cast it right where he is standing. If your character can not jump kick, dodging is still easy once you get the patterns down - you can strike the hellfire or just jump over it; you can slide quickly away or just run away from inferno attacks; and his dark orbs can be dodged just by alternating between ducking and short jumping (obviously duck the higher orbs and jump the lower ones). One thing to note if you are playing co-op, as Dracula takes a good amount of damage, he will actually start to combine some of these attacks, such as streaming infernos across the room while tossing dark orbs at you.

Form two - Demon Dracula - Still very easy. If you are playing multiplayer, a great tactic to implement is to divide up, ensuring someone is at Dracula's back, free to wail away him (his back leg is a very meaty target to strike over and over). The most dangerous attacks to watch out for is his jump attack and laser. If Dracula lowers his arms and hunch down slightly, he is about to jump toward the other side of the room (if he is close to and facing a wall, he will almost always use this attack). What makes this dangerous is the green beams he shoots down while jumping - they will poison you and drain a good amount of HP. Learn to recognize the hunch he does before he jumps and you will basically never get hit by this. The laser beam is a very obvious attack where Dracula will channel a flash of light. If you are behind him, get all the way back to the wall as the laser will propel him almost all the way over to that side of the screen. If you happen to be in front of him, get against the wall and watch the specks of light channeling into the beam very carefully - once the final speck is sucked into the middle, double jump and get as much hangtime as you can and the beam should reduce and miss you before you hit the ground. Otherwise, he will also use a fireball attack that is obviously telegraphed by the fire forming at his mouth - he shoots it at the ground near his feet and it sends a wave of fire along the ground; just double jump it. In a few minor moves, if Dracula senses a bigger threat to his back, he will turn around. Also, on ocassion, he can make small hops into the air or shuffles for positioning that do not result in the aforementioned poison attack. This form makes Dracula a big target, so, just wail away at him and judge his attacks and you'll make short work of this form.

Final form - Dark Form Dracula - Form one and two were the first things you got to fight in Symphony of the Night and this final form was the final thing you got to fight in that game. In this form, Dracula will take up roughly half the width of the room. What is most annoying is the fact his two claws he positions outside of his body are completely invulnerable. This means you'll have to slide in to strike one of the form's three heads (or if you have certain weapons, you can hit multiple heads at once or double up your hits). The most important item to remember when facing this form is, if you don't have great weapons and armor from hard mode to withstand a number of hits, you can't be greedy. Slide in, get in a handful of hits and GET OUT OF THERE. Time your slides carefully and do not stand up unless you know you won't touch any part of Dracula - in my first fight with Dracula, even just running into one of his heads or claws resulted in a painful 50-70 damage. If you are lucky, when Dracula goes to make an attack, he'll just slide to the left or right and try to snag you with his claw. This is definitely the one attack he has that doesn't have the potential to immediate cripple you and make you panic. For the most part, when you are not attacking, you are fairly safe along one of the walls. When you see Dracula build energy, get ready for a handful of devious attacks.

The least painful one is a summoning of more inferno attacks - this is one of the few instances where the walls may not be so safe, but still, the same tactics apply. If you see prisim triangles form at Dracula's heads, he will alternate tossing them at the different players in the current game (if you're on your own, obviously, they will all come at you). The confusing thing about this attack, is the way the prisims change in size as they fly toward you. This can sometimes cause you to mislead their trajectory, so just try to sucker Dracula into throwing them high by jumping up or low by ducking and avoid them. These are actually quite powerful so don't get hit by too many. You'll want to get toward the wall any time you see a pentagram appear, though, especially when Dracula summons his astral explosion - you'll know when this hits as about 80 percent of the screen will be filled with a red, nuclear-like explosion - DO NOT BE IN THIS! With this attack, the only safe spots are by the walls, so if you go there when you sense an attack, you won't get hit by it. Dracula also has an energy attack that operates similar to the ricochet rifle users during a bunch of the chapters - you'll see purple lines flash throughout the screen and you don't want any part of your body touching where you see a line. The tricky part about this attack, though, is not only does the energy shoot out, it also bursts in really small explosions, so you can still get hit by this even if you aren't standing where a line was. It may take a few tries to nail a spot down, but I place myself slightly away from one of the walls and crouch down. Once you see this attack a couple of times, you should be able to pin down where to go, which is very important. This attack is extremely damaging and since the skeleton form can't crouch, this spells big trouble for your time remaining as Dracula can easily demolish your dead teammates with this move (when a player is killed in skeleton form, the team receives a time penalty on the stage).

**Poetic Justice 15G = Defeat an ally who has been seduced by the enemy
I really thought an enemy like the sucubus could trigger this, but, from my experience, this has only happened while fighting Final Form Dracula with four or more players. At random, Dracula will initiate an attack that sends spades with a heart design inside of them in all directions. If a player is hit, there is a chance they will be seduced and start attacking teammates. Just beat the crap out of this player for the achievement.**

This form is not a pushover, but after you recognize his attack patterns, you'll eventually get through the battle and take this achievement. The gold chest Dracula leaves behind should also be a good bonus for your victory.

Hunter Legend - 30G
Completed Hard Mode

This will take some serious skill to pull off. I was able to do it thanks to the aid of my two friends Das Alucard and Wasabi Panda, but I would say the two biggest snags were chapters two and six. Chapter two's stage is a breeze, but if you can not kill the puppets in time before the Puppet Master shoves them into the iron maiden, it's a guaranteed instant kill for anyone that gets swapped into the device. Since there are no damage counters for the puppets, I'm almost led to believe destroying these are based on a number of hits as opposed to a total damage, but I can't confirm that. To finally tackle the stage, we had four players and most of us equipped to raise our attack as high as possible. Just hack the blue puppets and you'll be fine.

As for Dracula ... well. In his first form, you'll notice a few variations - when he launches dark orbs, he'll launch a higher number at one time. It doesn't really matter, because the gameplay is still the same - get behind him or jump kick his face in if he is against a wall.

In his second form, honestly, I can't discern any differences here. Use the same game play and don't get poisoned!

Now, for his final form. Here, Dracula gets really creative and mixes his devistating attacks together. The two big ones - if you see the floor lining up all the way across with inferno flames, get in between them and DO NOT JUMP. Not only does he fill the screen with infernos, but Dracula will also fill the entirety of the middle of the screen with electricity. If you learn to recognize the approach to this attack, you won't have to worry about it. On the other hand, if you see inferno flames gathering only at the ends of each room, be very careful - the very instant these disperse, Dracula will bomb the middle of the room with his astral explosion, and, on hard, this is an instant kill. If you get the timing down, you can dash back to the side and avoid the explosion, but if you have to get by anything in this attack, make damn sure you get hit by the inferno flames and not the explosion. The brief moment of invincibility you get from being hit should allow you time to get away from the explosion, if anything.

Everything else has been the same so far, but I will note I have not yet been able to fight Hard Dracula with more than three people, so I am not sure how the seduction attack my possibly vary. Being on hard, Dracula is just a really strong jerk that will suck your health down to almost nothing with just the simplest of attacks. If you get defeated, don't get discouraged - take a look at what items you got from the level and keep improving your stats. After a while, you'll get the patterns down and it won't matter how strong Dracula is if he can't touch you. After you put him down, enjoy the achievement and the nice item drop.

Slick Kick 10G = Defeat a boss by sliding
Boned 20G = Defeat a boss with five players in skeleton form
Grim Synergy 10G = Defeat a boss by using a dual crush

I have these three achievements grouped together for one explanation. In actuality, you can just do what the descriptions for the achievements say as they are pretty straight forward. A slide is performed by holding down to crouch and pressing A; players turn into skeleton form when they die (so, basically, the achievement is "have a full six-player game room where only one person survives the stage"); a dual crush is performed by pressing the R trigger when standing next to a teammate and the prompt appears (a large amount of MP from both characters is also required). These can occur very naturally through gameplay, but you can force these achievements along a little as well.

To do these easily, progress through a good amount of the game (even a little into hard mode wouldn't hurt), get some good armor and weapons/spells/items/whatever and revisit chapter one on the normal difficulty. The enemies will be extremely weak by this point and it is now super easy to arrange for these achievements.

For Slick Kick, damage the boss until it collapses the bridge and then whittle it down with slide attacks. If you hit its ankles enough, you can break its shackles and do more damage with your slides.

For Boned, have at least one strong player focus on reaching and killing the boss. The other players can die at the boss or (especially if they are too strong) kill themselves on spikes in the lower portion of map past the pendulmns and chill safely by spawning book in the lower-right corner (make sure you clear the enemies out of here first, though). Just use caution if you become a skeleton - they only have 100 HP and dying in skeleton form results in a huge time penalty. As long as the surviving player has good weapons and armor, they will practically be able to beat the boss with their eyes closed. Just make sure every other member of the party is dead before the surviving player strikes the final blow. This achievement is universal and it will be awarded to everyone in the game, not just the surviving player.

For Grim Synergy, arrange for the achievement with another player. Again, it helps to revisit chapter one on normal with good weapons and armor and blow through the stage. You can damage the boss until it breaks the bridge and then use dual crushes until it is defeated.

Pack Rat 20G = Collect 300 different types of items
Wicked Deep Pockets 20G = Amass 1,000,000 Gold
Slaughtervania 20G = Rack up 10,000 enemy kills

Just through natural play, after 17 hours played as Alucard, I have about 500,000 Gold, 5,000 kills and 170 items, puttling me roughly halfway. So, in other words, you'll need to grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind and grind. If you really like this game, it shouldn't be too much of an issue, just some dedication. if you take in the full experience of the game, using all five characters, you might these naturally after tackling some of the characters, playing through chapters one through six on normal and hard difficulties.

If you're pushing for items, pick up everything, collect all the chests and buy everything in the store. This calls for 300 TYPES of items, so, even if you have nine potios, that still only counts as one item type. A number of items are character-exclusive, so, again, tackle the game with other characters as your inventory is universal to your game save and all five of your characters share the same pool of inventory.

If you are shooting for gold, tackle the hardest levels you can. Chapter six on hard difficulty gives highly salable items that you can pawn duplicates of and just the treasure room alone has three red chests that always have 1,000 G each in them. You earn gold by picking it up (dropped coins, chests) or by selling items. For this achievement, you have to do these things and do them a lot.

On kills, this might be the easiest of the three to rush, thanks to corridors and shafts with endlessly spawning Medusa heads (chapter six) that are easily killed by most anything with one hit. If you have the patience for this, you might rack up some kills faster, but, again, this is another instance of just doing something many, many times.

If you stick with the game for the long run, these will no dobut come natural, but we'll see what tricks people come up with to speed this up.

Thanks for checking out this FAQ/Achievement Guide. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. When the game launches on Wednesday, I would be more than happy to play with anyone. My GamerTag is nestlekwik. I hope this will be of help to you and I look forward to seeing a busy multiplayer server when the game hits!