Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is a true metroidvania style castlevania. I didn't play this originally and now replaying it on ps4 through a collection. It is a solid game in part of a series, good music and good controls. I think my main issue with this game is that it is slightly too easy, I believe that this can be because it was originally for gameboy advance, where one of the main struggles would have been the poor backlight and visibility, which seems to be helped by overly kind hitboxes on weapons and massive special attacks. I 100% completed the first run with all endings in relatively short time (also no extra modes or new game plusses). However, in the end the whole playthrough was enjoyable so can't complain too much.
Played this through the Castlevania Advance Collection.
Don't have a whole lot to say about this game. I think Juste is one of my favorite Belmonts despite being labeled as a "nothing" character, since he doesn't bring too much as far as lore goes with the Belmont family tree. I think I'm just really into how he uses the sub-weapons and spellbooks with them as well, creating unique and fun-looking attacks.
The game does suffer from horrendous backtracking and it's very easy to get lost. I know you can do whatever you want with whatever order you get the relics in the game, but in my opinion, it just felt weird where things were placed, and traversing through the castle felt weirdly paced.
Also the music is awful.
I mainly played this game because I thought of an old friend of mine, and wanted to see if I could finish the game legitimately since the last time I played the game (easily over 10 years ago), I used an Action Replay, haha.
Don't have a whole lot to say about this game. I think Juste is one of my favorite Belmonts despite being labeled as a "nothing" character, since he doesn't bring too much as far as lore goes with the Belmont family tree. I think I'm just really into how he uses the sub-weapons and spellbooks with them as well, creating unique and fun-looking attacks.
The game does suffer from horrendous backtracking and it's very easy to get lost. I know you can do whatever you want with whatever order you get the relics in the game, but in my opinion, it just felt weird where things were placed, and traversing through the castle felt weirdly paced.
Also the music is awful.
I mainly played this game because I thought of an old friend of mine, and wanted to see if I could finish the game legitimately since the last time I played the game (easily over 10 years ago), I used an Action Replay, haha.
It is wild that Koji Igarashi thought the previous Castlevania games developed by Kobe were so bad as to write them out of the canon and give us something as mediocre as Harmony of Dissonance. For every step forward Harmony brings in the wake of Circle of the Moon, Circle maintains a far more consistent experience than the peaks and valleys on offer here. The ability to dash with the shoulder buttons feels fantastic to pull off and immediately increases the speed of Circle, yet that is rendered mute with how much slower the player receives progression items in contrast.
Harmony of Dissonance is the most repetitive and sluggish entry of this "Igavania" direction with literal copy/paste map design and how painfully slow the player acquires meaningful upgrades. On top of a teleporting system that is not explained well in the slightest, this means repeatedly being subjected to the same hallways and enemies. I got to the point where the castle design was baked into the back of my head, and not for a good reason. The number of times I got lost looking for a specific upgrade I needed to progress in the game was frustrating, leading to multiple instances of consulting online walkthroughs. "Walkthrough games" are not inherently bad, especially considering physical manuals are all but dead, and digital ones are so muddied by menus you never think of their (alleged) existence. The sheer amount of consultation needed to overcome fundamental obstacles and reach the "true" conclusion is far too much for my taste. The game's not good if a YouTube video and/or GameFaqs needs to be constantly open in the background while I'm playing.
Despite my negative overall experience of this game, I can give credit for how it plays and offers variety on an enemy/boss front. While one could reasonably argue that Harmony has too many boss fights, the fights that are present are fun and offer enough of a challenge if you haven't cheesed the merchant for near-infinite potions. The issue is, for the sheer amount of backtracking the player does, there is no reason not to go hog wild on healing items to tank through even the most brutal battles. You will be swimming in what feels like near-infinite wealth on top of your rapid leveling up, trivializing what should be meaningful, challenging encounters.
A lack of challenge paired with poor progression pathing leads Harmony of Dissonance on a rollercoaster-like playthrough. The highs will feel phenomenal, and you'll be treated to smooth gameplay and neat bosses. The lows of being stuck for over an hour finding progression items feel as unfun as the entirety of Castlevania Legends.
Harmony of Dissonance is the most repetitive and sluggish entry of this "Igavania" direction with literal copy/paste map design and how painfully slow the player acquires meaningful upgrades. On top of a teleporting system that is not explained well in the slightest, this means repeatedly being subjected to the same hallways and enemies. I got to the point where the castle design was baked into the back of my head, and not for a good reason. The number of times I got lost looking for a specific upgrade I needed to progress in the game was frustrating, leading to multiple instances of consulting online walkthroughs. "Walkthrough games" are not inherently bad, especially considering physical manuals are all but dead, and digital ones are so muddied by menus you never think of their (alleged) existence. The sheer amount of consultation needed to overcome fundamental obstacles and reach the "true" conclusion is far too much for my taste. The game's not good if a YouTube video and/or GameFaqs needs to be constantly open in the background while I'm playing.
Despite my negative overall experience of this game, I can give credit for how it plays and offers variety on an enemy/boss front. While one could reasonably argue that Harmony has too many boss fights, the fights that are present are fun and offer enough of a challenge if you haven't cheesed the merchant for near-infinite potions. The issue is, for the sheer amount of backtracking the player does, there is no reason not to go hog wild on healing items to tank through even the most brutal battles. You will be swimming in what feels like near-infinite wealth on top of your rapid leveling up, trivializing what should be meaningful, challenging encounters.
A lack of challenge paired with poor progression pathing leads Harmony of Dissonance on a rollercoaster-like playthrough. The highs will feel phenomenal, and you'll be treated to smooth gameplay and neat bosses. The lows of being stuck for over an hour finding progression items feel as unfun as the entirety of Castlevania Legends.
Ok this is a decent game but I do not like the layout of the 2 castles as far as difficulty goes it easy and most of the bosses are easy. I also think this game has way to many bosses not to have the dracula relics I ended up level 43 with all but the last bosses defeated with only 1 dracula relic I don't believe I feel like climbing up down the castles again looking for them so this game gets shelved for the time being.
I guess Lydie is a more of a "Material Girl" than Juste imagined.
The best GBA castlevania. Hugely underrated. JOOOOOOST.
The second SotN-inspired Castlevania and the one most like it. I'm glad Konami rereleased these GBA titles and I still have to return and finish the rest, but after all these years, this is still my favourite of the three.
Es muy claro aqui el intento de replicar Symphony of the Night tanto con el diseño de Juste y sus movimientos como con otros elementos visuales, el castillo, etc… Estuvo interesante el twist de gameplay de usar las subweapons en combinación con los tomos para hacer efectos distintos (yo utilicé Wind Tome + Cross boomerang todo el juego). El OST tambien es bastante notorio y no en el sentido positivo. En sus mejores momentos es el peor OST de un Castlevania que he jugado (quizá mejor que Bloodlines?) y ese suele ser un punto en el que la saga no falla. El pixelart es considerablemente de menor calidad que Circle of the Moon.
An improvement over Circle of the Moon, but it's strongly held back by the terrible soundtrack and excessive backtracking.
Double sided dash is a nice addition and makes the backtracking at least bearable in some capacity.
Double sided dash is a nice addition and makes the backtracking at least bearable in some capacity.
A Link to the Past for Hot Topic kids
An absolute blast. This is the first Castlevania game I've ever finished, and I loved every minute of it. It was so much fun to go through, exploring around and trying to get all the furniture and relics on the first pass through an area, and then returning later to comb through it all again. The whipping felt super satisfying, and being able to it to let it hang out for JUST a second as you jump and fall is some mighty good game feel. The combinations of Weapons and Spell Books also kept things really fresh. During my seven hours, I was almost always experimenting and trying out different combinations to see what was the coolest or most effective spell/weapon combo to use. The movement in general felt so much better/faster than CotM as well. I loved being able to just dash or slide through already-visited areas
This particular version having Save States and the "Collection Gadget" on the sidebar, showing you that there are X-amount of furniture/important items to be collected still in an area were helpful, ESPECIALLY the Collection Gadget. The save states were just for convenience honestly, like saving before a boss fight so if I died I could quick load instead of walking all the way back. And thanks to the Collection Gadget though, I was able to easily keep track of whatever Dracula relics and furniture I was missing. Getting the true ending, on top of that extra touch where Lydie hugs Juste's arm, made the extra effort worth it.
The only negative I have to say about this game is that the music DOES leave some to be desired. 99% of it is just fine, not great, but definitely not awful; the only actually-bad track was the Entrance Theme/Juste's Theme.
This particular version having Save States and the "Collection Gadget" on the sidebar, showing you that there are X-amount of furniture/important items to be collected still in an area were helpful, ESPECIALLY the Collection Gadget. The save states were just for convenience honestly, like saving before a boss fight so if I died I could quick load instead of walking all the way back. And thanks to the Collection Gadget though, I was able to easily keep track of whatever Dracula relics and furniture I was missing. Getting the true ending, on top of that extra touch where Lydie hugs Juste's arm, made the extra effort worth it.
The only negative I have to say about this game is that the music DOES leave some to be desired. 99% of it is just fine, not great, but definitely not awful; the only actually-bad track was the Entrance Theme/Juste's Theme.
This review contains spoilers
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is clearly an ambitious games with a lot of neat ideas, and in fairness, it does partially follow through on its vision. It is the most expansive, open, and non-linear Igavania entry I've played thus far, and for a series that often requires, or at least heavily incentivizes finding one "correct" progression path among innumerable, this is a welcome change when it works. It's really refreshing to be given not just the ability, but the encouragement to devise your own route through the map, and though some enemies can be a bit spongy depending on the order you choose to explore, nothing felt quite so over tuned as to deter me from any particular decision. In general, you can commit to the direction of your imperative and be rewarded for it— if not with main path progression then at least with decently substantive optional content. What's more, the game even sports a Link to the Past style alternate map overlapping the initial castle, and while I don't exactly believe this works in its favor (as I will expand on later), for better or worse it practically doubles the game's content, and is nonetheless a cool twist revealed in a novel way.
Of course, I would also be remiss not to bring up this game's gorgeous visuals— Castlevania games have consistently looked great, and even if a bit oversaturated to me, Harmony of Dissonance is no exception. Alas, one shame of this title's aesthetics is its (perhaps somewhat titular) poorly arranged score— while some of the melodies themselves are still bops, all of them are compressed and bitcrushed into the ground, headache inducing chiptune on a system home to some of the best and most polished video game music to this day. Good soundtracks are in my eyes cornerstones to Castlevania, and while this entry's failure here is undeniably unfortunate, I also by no means see it as the game's main detractor.
Rather, I think Harmony of Dissonance is a game stretched far too thin. It is volumetric yet hollow, fluffed out by a frankly superfluous amount of long repetitive hallways with nothing meaningful in them. It has by far the most backtracking of any metroidvania I've played— while there are warp points, they are spaced ludicrously far apart, and mostly only discovered until the endgame. By the point they are unlocked, they will have been made largely obsolete, save perhaps for hunting down previously missed secrets and map completion. In terms of movement, if you thought Circle of the Moon's double-tap to sprint was bad, you will be sorely disappointed to find that Juste moves painfully slowly and rigidly, lest of course you mash the evade buttons repeatedly and incur a stress fracture. Upgrades are also few and far between, and really don't serve much more of a purpose than progression keys. There are few places to high-jump beyond the rooms that require you to. Even more of a let down is realizing that the alternate castle is almost exactly identical to the first, for though it features remixed enemy and item placement and different visuals, its architectural layout is EXACTLY the same. Of course, you will still likely have to explore every inch of both to beat the game, especially so if you wish to attain the true ending. Desolately empty corridors are simply not conducive to this title's gameplay, and regrettably, its moment-to-moment level design isn't its only uninspired aspect.
There are a total of 19 bosses in Harmony of Dissonance, and at least to me, very few of them are all that memorable. Reminiscent of, albeit inferior still to Dark Souls II's boss design philosophy, most of them are just big guys, at best, reused bosses and enemies from prior titles with maybe an extra little twist, at worst, larger and tankier versions of common enemies that do almost nothing to differentiate themselves otherwise. Who can forget such iconic designs as Max Slimer (big slime) and Peeping Big (big eyeball)? Some are even just marginally different forms of other bosses in the alternate castle: There are 2 minotaurs, 2 legions. Movesets are also typically quite sparse, and should the need arise, all of them easily trivialized by spamming dodges every time the boss takes a step. I wonder how much more interesting each of them would be had there only been half as many.
In terms of RPG elements, there's also nothing to write home about. Finding new gear and leveling up amount to nothing more than stat increases, and given the game's non-linearity, I'm kind of confused why these were in the game at all. Upon completing the game, players unlock Maxim mode, allowing you to play as Juste's cooler ninja rival. Funnily enough, this mode remedies almost all of my issues with the game by just removing numerous mechanics and significantly increasing the player character's move speed. Stats are removed, progression items omitted, all areas are opened from the start, and they are now balanced consistently and intentionally. One need only defeat all the bosses to complete the game, able to move freely about the map. I think it really cemented all the issues I have with the standard game mode, for to me, Harmony of Dissonance is plagued by bloat, sluggish, repetitive gameplay. Surely it's still worth a shot for those craving Castlevania, but in my experience it's hands-down the worst Igavania, if not the worst series entry I've played.
Of course, I would also be remiss not to bring up this game's gorgeous visuals— Castlevania games have consistently looked great, and even if a bit oversaturated to me, Harmony of Dissonance is no exception. Alas, one shame of this title's aesthetics is its (perhaps somewhat titular) poorly arranged score— while some of the melodies themselves are still bops, all of them are compressed and bitcrushed into the ground, headache inducing chiptune on a system home to some of the best and most polished video game music to this day. Good soundtracks are in my eyes cornerstones to Castlevania, and while this entry's failure here is undeniably unfortunate, I also by no means see it as the game's main detractor.
Rather, I think Harmony of Dissonance is a game stretched far too thin. It is volumetric yet hollow, fluffed out by a frankly superfluous amount of long repetitive hallways with nothing meaningful in them. It has by far the most backtracking of any metroidvania I've played— while there are warp points, they are spaced ludicrously far apart, and mostly only discovered until the endgame. By the point they are unlocked, they will have been made largely obsolete, save perhaps for hunting down previously missed secrets and map completion. In terms of movement, if you thought Circle of the Moon's double-tap to sprint was bad, you will be sorely disappointed to find that Juste moves painfully slowly and rigidly, lest of course you mash the evade buttons repeatedly and incur a stress fracture. Upgrades are also few and far between, and really don't serve much more of a purpose than progression keys. There are few places to high-jump beyond the rooms that require you to. Even more of a let down is realizing that the alternate castle is almost exactly identical to the first, for though it features remixed enemy and item placement and different visuals, its architectural layout is EXACTLY the same. Of course, you will still likely have to explore every inch of both to beat the game, especially so if you wish to attain the true ending. Desolately empty corridors are simply not conducive to this title's gameplay, and regrettably, its moment-to-moment level design isn't its only uninspired aspect.
There are a total of 19 bosses in Harmony of Dissonance, and at least to me, very few of them are all that memorable. Reminiscent of, albeit inferior still to Dark Souls II's boss design philosophy, most of them are just big guys, at best, reused bosses and enemies from prior titles with maybe an extra little twist, at worst, larger and tankier versions of common enemies that do almost nothing to differentiate themselves otherwise. Who can forget such iconic designs as Max Slimer (big slime) and Peeping Big (big eyeball)? Some are even just marginally different forms of other bosses in the alternate castle: There are 2 minotaurs, 2 legions. Movesets are also typically quite sparse, and should the need arise, all of them easily trivialized by spamming dodges every time the boss takes a step. I wonder how much more interesting each of them would be had there only been half as many.
In terms of RPG elements, there's also nothing to write home about. Finding new gear and leveling up amount to nothing more than stat increases, and given the game's non-linearity, I'm kind of confused why these were in the game at all. Upon completing the game, players unlock Maxim mode, allowing you to play as Juste's cooler ninja rival. Funnily enough, this mode remedies almost all of my issues with the game by just removing numerous mechanics and significantly increasing the player character's move speed. Stats are removed, progression items omitted, all areas are opened from the start, and they are now balanced consistently and intentionally. One need only defeat all the bosses to complete the game, able to move freely about the map. I think it really cemented all the issues I have with the standard game mode, for to me, Harmony of Dissonance is plagued by bloat, sluggish, repetitive gameplay. Surely it's still worth a shot for those craving Castlevania, but in my experience it's hands-down the worst Igavania, if not the worst series entry I've played.
Awesome game with the only aggravation of having the awful compressed soundtrack. There were no excuses, Konami, beside lazyness and releasing the Advance Collection asap.
من بين كل الاشياء اللي قدروا يرجعونها من سمفوني ليش رجعوا القصر المقلوب
لعبة جيدة ما عدى اواخرها
لعبة جيدة ما عدى اواخرها
I got stuck :(
Maybe someday I'll come back, but as of right now there wasn't enough keeping me interested to feel the need to continue
Maybe someday I'll come back, but as of right now there wasn't enough keeping me interested to feel the need to continue
This was pretty fun! I'm a sucker for a 2D metroidvania and Harmony of Dissonance is closer to achieving the goal of having a portable Symphony of the Night. Whereas the first Castlevania entry on GameBoy Advance, Circle of the Moon, feels stiffer to control, Juste Belemont in Harmony is incredibly agile. This makes the act of navigating and backtracking through Harmony's castle more engaging and fun. Juste also has a wide array of spells at their disposal which are engaging to discover, albeit even if some of them are a bit overpowered. The soundtrack has a few highlights, my favorite being Offense and Defense, a grungy electronic track that the Gameboy's sound compression only adds to. This game is the definition of comfort food for me. Enjoyed my time with it, but not much to sit with when it was over.
Favorite Tracks:
1. Offense and Defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtAG611Z73c
Favorite Tracks:
1. Offense and Defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtAG611Z73c
My ears are bleeding.
Second in the GBA Trilogy, this game really wants to be a successor to SOTN but it’s a decent game overall but better than circle of the moon.
The game has this filter which makes the game a lot brighter so this will the only colurful Castlevania due to the GBA having no backlight and with cotm receiving backlash bc of it.
Aside from that it can pretty fun with cool movement inspired from sotn and a new spell book system which was fun to try out. But I’ve ran into a few problems while playing, such as the music. The soundtrack sounds GOD AWFUL with only one good track. Then the map is just borderline confusing throughout the game and needed to play through half of it and ALSO HAS 2 FUCKING MAPS U ALTERNATE THROUGHOUT UR PLAYTHROUGH WTF. Also this whole first half of the game for me was just Brainless bc of the difficulty, It’s stupid easy (probably the easiest Metroidcvania game in the series) and u can be op very easily.
The story and characters are also kinda uninteresting, only highlight is the main character which looks like Dracula but not really. Also there’s no teleport rooms after the second map is unlocked which fucking sucked.
Fun combat and movement but everything else was mid and the music was just bad and muted it for most of my playthrough. But despite all this I find a charm in it and slightly could replay again.
Took me 6 and a half hours to finish
The game has this filter which makes the game a lot brighter so this will the only colurful Castlevania due to the GBA having no backlight and with cotm receiving backlash bc of it.
Aside from that it can pretty fun with cool movement inspired from sotn and a new spell book system which was fun to try out. But I’ve ran into a few problems while playing, such as the music. The soundtrack sounds GOD AWFUL with only one good track. Then the map is just borderline confusing throughout the game and needed to play through half of it and ALSO HAS 2 FUCKING MAPS U ALTERNATE THROUGHOUT UR PLAYTHROUGH WTF. Also this whole first half of the game for me was just Brainless bc of the difficulty, It’s stupid easy (probably the easiest Metroidcvania game in the series) and u can be op very easily.
The story and characters are also kinda uninteresting, only highlight is the main character which looks like Dracula but not really. Also there’s no teleport rooms after the second map is unlocked which fucking sucked.
Fun combat and movement but everything else was mid and the music was just bad and muted it for most of my playthrough. But despite all this I find a charm in it and slightly could replay again.
Took me 6 and a half hours to finish
Argh.
I was no fan of Circle of the Moon. The RNG drops and grinding were horrible, the movement and combat controls clashed with each other, and the map was overly vertical and tedious to traverse.
With IGA himself, of Symphony of the Night fame, taking the reigns this time around it was to be assumed that Harmony of Dissonance was in good hands. And to its credit, it goes to great lengths to address complaints regarding Circle of the Moon!
Too many lengths, in fact. In attempting to correct the issues with CotM, Harmony overcorrects and creates many brand new problems in their place.
Juste Belmont is the protagonist, and he's fucking unstoppable. Balance? Restraint? Dead in the water. Juste not only whips almost instantly, he askews the hereditary Belmont Strut for a standard running speed, only ever walking if afflicted by curse. Not only that, but LB and RB can allow him to dash either left or right, with absolutely no cooldown. This instantaneous manoeuvre means you might as well dash everywhere instead of running, as it's much quicker. Not only that, the ability to dodge out of an attack within a single frame, then immediately dash back to where you were standing to resume your attack completely breaks the combat from the beginning.
Not that the enemies put up a fight to begin with. The enemy AI is about on par with the original NES Castlevania. That was pretty scary when you were controlling the human artillery machine that was Simon Belmont, but Juste moves like lightning in comparison. As such, the AI appears much, much dumber, as nothing they can do can counteract the movement speed.
Bosses, too, are embarrassing. You can genuinely beat at least one of them by crouching next to them and mashing attack, and you will NEVER get hit. These are by far and away the worst bosses in the franchises' history, with only the second-to-last one running any risk of killing Juste.
The map itself, while certainly less vertical, is annoying to traverse in a new way: the main gimmick is warping between two castles that are identical - except instead of being upside down like in Symphony of the Night, it's just the same castle with different enemy placement. However, the fast travel points don't take you across the castle you're IN, but to another warp point in the other castle. It gets really confusing until you eventually find the equivalent warp point that connects them...but then you also need to know to hit DOWN on the D-pad to be able to travel to OTHER warp points in the same castle. Even with the warp points, traversal isn't great, especially given how many inaccessible locations are scattered throughout the castle, forcing you to essentially backtrack through the entire game every time you unlock a new ability. Gets old real fast, especially when you use your ability to break through a wall only to immediately get walled off by ANOTHER obstacle you can't pass yet.
Graphics are another point of overcorrection. Circle of the Moon was criticised for being too dark for GBA users to see, what with the console having no backlight. As a result, Harmony of Dissonance is an insanely bright game. Not ugly or bad visually, but a bit blinding in places - especially Juste, with his bright blue outline and flashing afterimages wherever he walks. What was necessary then is really distracting now, and I don't think M2's emulation has any option to lessen this.
What M2's emulation does add is a handy marker to say if there are any unfound collectables or relics in the area you're in. It's not nearly as essential an inclusion as the card check in CotM, but that speaks more to CotM's terrible design in RNG drops. That, of course, is another area Harmony of Dissonance overcorrects in. Items are thrown at the player left and right, and while I prefer a mix of findable items and random drops, I think Harmony throws a bit too much at the player. Health increases are all over, on top of the gains from levelling. Supposedly you're meant to beat the game at around level 50, but I was a measly 41 and felt like I hadn't been challenged in the slightest.
Music, fittingly, is Harmony of Dissonance's sorest spot. I like some of the compositions, but according to IGA, they had to limit the instrumentation of the music to only use the GBC sound capabilities in order to make room for the rest of the game. As a result, the tunes are grating and sometimes even ear-piercing, with really harsh notes. I don't hate it, but it's definitely one of the weaker Castlevania OSTs.
Altogether, while I had more fun with this than Circle of the Moon, it wore off quick into a dull, monotonous cycle that never really got going. It felt as if this game was super rushed, and while I appreciate IGA's attempts to shake up the franchise formula, the design simply did not sufficiently accommodate these radical changes in mobility.
The GBA trilogy has really disappointed me so far, so here's hoping Aria of Sorrow can pick up the slack.
I was no fan of Circle of the Moon. The RNG drops and grinding were horrible, the movement and combat controls clashed with each other, and the map was overly vertical and tedious to traverse.
With IGA himself, of Symphony of the Night fame, taking the reigns this time around it was to be assumed that Harmony of Dissonance was in good hands. And to its credit, it goes to great lengths to address complaints regarding Circle of the Moon!
Too many lengths, in fact. In attempting to correct the issues with CotM, Harmony overcorrects and creates many brand new problems in their place.
Juste Belmont is the protagonist, and he's fucking unstoppable. Balance? Restraint? Dead in the water. Juste not only whips almost instantly, he askews the hereditary Belmont Strut for a standard running speed, only ever walking if afflicted by curse. Not only that, but LB and RB can allow him to dash either left or right, with absolutely no cooldown. This instantaneous manoeuvre means you might as well dash everywhere instead of running, as it's much quicker. Not only that, the ability to dodge out of an attack within a single frame, then immediately dash back to where you were standing to resume your attack completely breaks the combat from the beginning.
Not that the enemies put up a fight to begin with. The enemy AI is about on par with the original NES Castlevania. That was pretty scary when you were controlling the human artillery machine that was Simon Belmont, but Juste moves like lightning in comparison. As such, the AI appears much, much dumber, as nothing they can do can counteract the movement speed.
Bosses, too, are embarrassing. You can genuinely beat at least one of them by crouching next to them and mashing attack, and you will NEVER get hit. These are by far and away the worst bosses in the franchises' history, with only the second-to-last one running any risk of killing Juste.
The map itself, while certainly less vertical, is annoying to traverse in a new way: the main gimmick is warping between two castles that are identical - except instead of being upside down like in Symphony of the Night, it's just the same castle with different enemy placement. However, the fast travel points don't take you across the castle you're IN, but to another warp point in the other castle. It gets really confusing until you eventually find the equivalent warp point that connects them...but then you also need to know to hit DOWN on the D-pad to be able to travel to OTHER warp points in the same castle. Even with the warp points, traversal isn't great, especially given how many inaccessible locations are scattered throughout the castle, forcing you to essentially backtrack through the entire game every time you unlock a new ability. Gets old real fast, especially when you use your ability to break through a wall only to immediately get walled off by ANOTHER obstacle you can't pass yet.
Graphics are another point of overcorrection. Circle of the Moon was criticised for being too dark for GBA users to see, what with the console having no backlight. As a result, Harmony of Dissonance is an insanely bright game. Not ugly or bad visually, but a bit blinding in places - especially Juste, with his bright blue outline and flashing afterimages wherever he walks. What was necessary then is really distracting now, and I don't think M2's emulation has any option to lessen this.
What M2's emulation does add is a handy marker to say if there are any unfound collectables or relics in the area you're in. It's not nearly as essential an inclusion as the card check in CotM, but that speaks more to CotM's terrible design in RNG drops. That, of course, is another area Harmony of Dissonance overcorrects in. Items are thrown at the player left and right, and while I prefer a mix of findable items and random drops, I think Harmony throws a bit too much at the player. Health increases are all over, on top of the gains from levelling. Supposedly you're meant to beat the game at around level 50, but I was a measly 41 and felt like I hadn't been challenged in the slightest.
Music, fittingly, is Harmony of Dissonance's sorest spot. I like some of the compositions, but according to IGA, they had to limit the instrumentation of the music to only use the GBC sound capabilities in order to make room for the rest of the game. As a result, the tunes are grating and sometimes even ear-piercing, with really harsh notes. I don't hate it, but it's definitely one of the weaker Castlevania OSTs.
Altogether, while I had more fun with this than Circle of the Moon, it wore off quick into a dull, monotonous cycle that never really got going. It felt as if this game was super rushed, and while I appreciate IGA's attempts to shake up the franchise formula, the design simply did not sufficiently accommodate these radical changes in mobility.
The GBA trilogy has really disappointed me so far, so here's hoping Aria of Sorrow can pick up the slack.
This felt like a huge step down from Circle of the Moon in all ways but visual. Visually, this is one of the best looking GBA games ever made. It looks pretty incredible. Gameplay wise I found it moved very sluggish compared to CotM. I felt like a lot of the rooms in the castle felt way too big to navigate so you'll spend a lot of time tapping the dash button to move through levels. I didn't find the spellbook system all that interesting and felt like a step down from the DSS. The biggest offender here is the music which sounds AWFUL, this is the only game in the collection that actually sounds better to play in the original quality instead of the high quality mode. Seriously, what happened? The blown out and fuzzy notes sound like synths I'd hear on a lo fi black metal album. It just didn't sound catchy or affecting at all. Somehow sounds worse than the Gameboy Adventure games. Skip this and head straight to Aria of Sorrow.
Esperaba que fuera un juego peor pero es bastante entretenido.
Similar al SotN pero sin la gracia de romper todo super pronto. El mayor problema que he tenido es que el tema de que haya que ir moviéndose de A a B constantemente hace que el juego se me haya hechobastante largo, y algún tema musical machacón, aunque por regla general la BSM es decente.
Similar al SotN pero sin la gracia de romper todo super pronto. El mayor problema que he tenido es que el tema de que haya que ir moviéndose de A a B constantemente hace que el juego se me haya hechobastante largo, y algún tema musical machacón, aunque por regla general la BSM es decente.
this game was kinda ass ngl