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.