Castlevania Harmony of Despair [NPEB00563]

Okay, so I've been messing around with this game on RPCS3, and with the help of a youtuber, Ive managed to learn a couple things. First off, despite what it looks like, it's not the DLC itself that is crashing the game. At least it doesn't seem to be. It is ONLY the Character Select menu, and trying to access it. All the other DLC characters can be selected by hex editing your save game file.
HxD is a really good one that works well for this.

Go to your RPCS3 folder and navigate to "dev_hdd0\home\00000001\savedata\NPEB00563__CASTLEVANIA-HOD-SAVE" and then load "USR-DATA" in your hex editor. Then you press Ctrl + G and jump to the offset "32C8" At which point, you can change the value there to select any character you like, including DLC ones. Here is what we've found so far:

01 = soma
02= alucard
03 = jonathan
04 = julius
05 = soma again?
06 = freeze with dlc, or shanoa
07 = freeze with dlc, or charlotte
08 = yoko
09 = soma again

Both of us only cared about Julius, so we haven't explored much more than that. But it does work. Also, for the record, he used the European version of the game to do this. NPEB00563
I have been using the American version, NPUB30505
It seems to work for both.

The Youtuber who did much of this work:
https://www.youtube.com/user/HolyKrap92/featured

You change characters in game, but a limited number and with some effort. 

Only downside is you can only 3 dlc characters at a time and you have to follow this tutorial by ungenesis to change character:
1. Prior to gameplay, make sure your controllers are all configured
2. At the title screen, start the game using controller 2. (Controller 2 will now occupy "slot 1")
3. At menu screen, use Controller 1 to join the game (as "slot 2"), then press L1 or R1 to change your character without having to use the menu that crashes the game. (You can also use L2/R2 to change your colors)
4. Return to title screen and use controller 1 to start a game as normal. You will default to the character that you moved to before.

I can use all DLC chapters and the players I tried so far are Fuma,Yoko, Maria, Richter, Simon & Julius and they all work.

The main problem is that you cannot have all the DLC characters in the same folder. You can only have 3 DLC characters in the folder, but you can swap them at any time. I just picked my favorite 3 and that's it.
I should also mention that Richter & Julius are highly incompatible, so you cannot have them both at the same time.

Tested on both Eu & Us versions.
           

You change characters in game, but a limited number and with some effort. 

Only downside is you can only 3 dlc characters at a time and you have to follow this tutorial by ungenesis to change character:
1. Prior to gameplay, make sure your controllers are all configured
2. At the title screen, start the game using controller 2. (Controller 2 will now occupy "slot 1")
3. At menu screen, use Controller 1 to join the game (as "slot 2"), then press L1 or R1 to change your character without having to use the menu that crashes the game. (You can also use L2/R2 to change your colors)
4. Return to title screen and use controller 1 to start a game as normal. You will default to the character that you moved to before.

I can use all DLC chapters and the players I tried so far are Fuma,Yoko, Maria, Richter, Simon & Julius and they all work.

The main problem is that you cannot have all the DLC characters in the same folder. You can only have 3 DLC characters in the folder, but you can swap them at any time. I just picked my favorite 3 and that's it.
I should also mention that Richter & Julius are highly incompatible, so you cannot have them both at the same time.

Tested on both Eu & Us versions.

Thank you! Ill give this a try

Hi.
Im interested in getting maria working. I removed all other dlc chars and started on a fresh save. I loaded 2player and tried to select with the r buttons; maria isnt showin up. Any advice?

You have to delete some DLC files to get it to work.

Path:C:\Users\Owner\Emulators & Games\PS3\rpcs3-v0.0.3-2017-08-18-e6a07e80_win64\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dlc

Files: dlc11XXXXXX threw dlc15XXXXX Folders need to be deleted.

There is a EBOOT.BIN that's needed to get the full version of the game google it.

Game: Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (NPEB00563)
Status: Working

RPCS3 Settings

(CPU)

PPU Decoder/ Interpreter (fast)
SPU Decoder/ Recompiler (ASMJIT)
Firmware/ Automatically load required libraries

(GPU)

Renderer/ OpenGL
Resolution/ 1280x720
Aspect Ratio/ 16:9
Framelimit/ 60

Additional Settings checked

(X)Invalidate Cashe Every Frame
(X)Use GPU Texture Scaling
(X)Use Vertical Sync
(X)Write Color Buffers

Thanks A lot dude you save my gaming experiance with RCPS3 i need too know how enter memory cheats code later and firstable: How do i add the dlcs ???

You change characters in game, but a limited number and with some effort. 

Only downside is you can only 3 dlc characters at a time and you have to follow this tutorial by ungenesis to change character:
1. Prior to gameplay, make sure your controllers are all configured
2. At the title screen, start the game using controller 2. (Controller 2 will now occupy "slot 1")
3. At menu screen, use Controller 1 to join the game (as "slot 2"), then press L1 or R1 to change your character without having to use the menu that crashes the game. (You can also use L2/R2 to change your colors)
4. Return to title screen and use controller 1 to start a game as normal. You will default to the character that you moved to before.

I can use all DLC chapters and the players I tried so far are Fuma,Yoko, Maria, Richter, Simon & Julius and they all work.

The main problem is that you cannot have all the DLC characters in the same folder. You can only have 3 DLC characters in the folder, but you can swap them at any time. I just picked my favorite 3 and that's it.
I should also mention that Richter & Julius are highly incompatible, so you cannot have them both at the same time.

Tested on both Eu & Us versions.

it still crashes for me. even by doing thsi r1 trick, as soon as the dlc character name shows up, it crashes

You have to delete some DLC files to get it to work.

Path:C:\Users\Owner\Emulators & Games\PS3\rpcs3-v0.0.3-2017-08-18-e6a07e80_win64\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dlc

Files: dlc11XXXXXX threw dlc15XXXXX Folders need to be deleted.

There is a EBOOT.BIN that's needed to get the full version of the game google it.

Game: Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (NPEB00563)
Status: Working

RPCS3 Settings

(CPU)

PPU Decoder/ Interpreter (fast)
SPU Decoder/ Recompiler (ASMJIT)
Firmware/ Automatically load required libraries

(GPU)

Renderer/ OpenGL
Resolution/ 1280x720
Aspect Ratio/ 16:9
Framelimit/ 60

Additional Settings checked

(X)Invalidate Cashe Every Frame
(X)Use GPU Texture Scaling
(X)Use Vertical Sync
(X)Write Color Buffers

Thanks A lot dude you save my gaming experiance with RCPS3 i need too know how enter memory cheats code later and firstable: How do i add the dlcs ???

You change characters in game, but a limited number and with some effort. 

Only downside is you can only 3 dlc characters at a time and you have to follow this tutorial by ungenesis to change character:
1. Prior to gameplay, make sure your controllers are all configured
2. At the title screen, start the game using controller 2. (Controller 2 will now occupy "slot 1")
3. At menu screen, use Controller 1 to join the game (as "slot 2"), then press L1 or R1 to change your character without having to use the menu that crashes the game. (You can also use L2/R2 to change your colors)
4. Return to title screen and use controller 1 to start a game as normal. You will default to the character that you moved to before.

I can use all DLC chapters and the players I tried so far are Fuma,Yoko, Maria, Richter, Simon & Julius and they all work.

The main problem is that you cannot have all the DLC characters in the same folder. You can only have 3 DLC characters in the folder, but you can swap them at any time. I just picked my favorite 3 and that's it.
I should also mention that Richter & Julius are highly incompatible, so you cannot have them both at the same time.

Tested on both Eu & Us versions.

it still crashes for me. even by doing thsi r1 trick, as soon as the dlc character name shows up, it crashes

Found a great solution. it removes duplicate of non-dlc characters & fixes all dlc characters display
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXHefvOnY4I
only reminder, when moving characters files, do not copy, cut & pasteit worked for me on both US & EU versions

Using these fixes I can play the game at constant 60 fps without glitches / crashes and with ALL the DLCs enabled.

Fix missing text  / sprites / textures:

• Use Vulkan renderer
  
• Enable Write Color Buffers in GPU settings
  
• Use rpcs3-v0.0.8-9540. For me using 0.0.9 versions I get some missing textures.
  
• Try delete game caches and recompile PPUs.
  

Fix infinite loop "Compiling PPU 1 of 4..." after pressing Start in menu:

• Option 1: In fact this is not an infinite loop. Wait 10 minutes and the game will eventualy load. This will happens only the first time you launch the game when you have DLCs installed, so be patient.
  
• Option 2: Use Interpreter (fast) for PPU Decoder instead of LLVM. But perfomance will drop to around 25-40 fps.
  

Fix game crashing at character select screen:

1. Go to "\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dynamic\player".
   
2. Move any "**.ppu.sprx" files from each subfolder to the parent "player" folder.
   
3. Delete the empty folders in "\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dynamic\player".
   

Code:

So it should be like this wihtout any folder:
"\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dynamic\player\dllalucard.ppu.sprx"
"\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dynamic\player\dllcharlotte.ppu.sprx"
"\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dynamic\player\dlljonathan.ppu.sprx"
"\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dynamic\player\dllshanoa.ppu.sprx"
"\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dynamic\player\dllsoma.ppu.sprx"

Fix duplicated character DLCs:

1. Download the dummy file "dllzzzz.ppu.sprx" from https://drive.google.com/file/d/17ZvRQsa...sp=sharing
   
2. Place a copy of the file in "\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dynamic\player"
   
3. Go to "\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dlc"
   
4. Place a copy of the file inside each character "dlcNN_player_***" folder and "dll" subfolders.
   

Code:

For example for the "dlc16_player_fuma":
"\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dlc\dlc16_player_fuma\dllzzzz.ppu.sprx"
"\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dlc\dlc16_player_fuma\dll\dllzzzz.ppu.sprx"
"\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dlc\dlc16_player_fuma\dll\dllplayer\dllzzzz.ppu.sprx"
"\dev_hdd0\game\NPEB00563\USRDIR\dlc\dlc16_player_fuma\dll\dllshot\dllzzzz.ppu.sprx"