Harmony of Dissonance is very characteristic of other games I played around mid-2020 in that few of them really failed to land with me, but I think they're perfectly fine games that don't do anything egregiously wrong. I just felt like I was playing this one to have something to do.
I think the conventional ranking of GBA Castlevanias is that each one was better than the last, but as we've previously established, I'm a psychopath and I rank them in reverse. That said, perhaps we can all share some common ground here in thinking Harmony sits in the middle, as inoffensive as it is unoriginal, just doing the Symphony of the Night thing as well enough as you'd hope on a system as small as the GBA. It's not breaking new ground, but it's competent.
I think my two biggest complaints are aesthetic and a consequence of the system it's on. The sound is atrocious, but I've also yet to play a single GBA game I didn't find grating to listen to. The sprite work largely seems to be a reaction to Circle of the Moon, which at times was very hard to read given its darker color pallet and the lack of proper backlighting on the GBA. The solution was to brighten everything up, give Harmony a more vibrant pallet, and slap a blue outline around Juste so you never lose track of where he's at. On the GBA this looks more or less fine, and it certainly helps with the game's playability if you're on a model that lacks screen illumination, but if you're playing it on a TV like I did, it just looks kinda garish. I have a hard time knocking the game too much for this because I totally understand why they needed to do it, and it's hardly Harmony's fault that I chose not to play it on the hardware it was intended for.
Harmony is a decent game. It's good. I liked it. I also just don't feel very passionate about it at all. It's one of those games you play and go "yeah I had fun with that!" but will probably never revisit.
I think the conventional ranking of GBA Castlevanias is that each one was better than the last, but as we've previously established, I'm a psychopath and I rank them in reverse. That said, perhaps we can all share some common ground here in thinking Harmony sits in the middle, as inoffensive as it is unoriginal, just doing the Symphony of the Night thing as well enough as you'd hope on a system as small as the GBA. It's not breaking new ground, but it's competent.
I think my two biggest complaints are aesthetic and a consequence of the system it's on. The sound is atrocious, but I've also yet to play a single GBA game I didn't find grating to listen to. The sprite work largely seems to be a reaction to Circle of the Moon, which at times was very hard to read given its darker color pallet and the lack of proper backlighting on the GBA. The solution was to brighten everything up, give Harmony a more vibrant pallet, and slap a blue outline around Juste so you never lose track of where he's at. On the GBA this looks more or less fine, and it certainly helps with the game's playability if you're on a model that lacks screen illumination, but if you're playing it on a TV like I did, it just looks kinda garish. I have a hard time knocking the game too much for this because I totally understand why they needed to do it, and it's hardly Harmony's fault that I chose not to play it on the hardware it was intended for.
Harmony is a decent game. It's good. I liked it. I also just don't feel very passionate about it at all. It's one of those games you play and go "yeah I had fun with that!" but will probably never revisit.
DeltaWDunn
1 year ago