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.