GAME
OF THE MONTH COLLECTION!
CASTLEVANIA:
Harmony Of Dissonance
(Konami, September, 2002)
When the first CastleVania was
released for the then new Gameboy Advance it was one of the most critically
acclaimed games for the GBA and it was a great selling piece for hardcore fans
of classic 2d game play. Here is the new CastleVania
Harmony of Dissonance for the Gameboy Advance, a all new game from the original
creator of Symphony of the Night for the Playstation, Koji Igarashi! Harmony
of Dissonance is a return to the addictive Action/RPG game
play that made Circle of the Moon so popular. Unfortunately even a great
game like Circle of the Moon has its problems. So did this new CastleVania fix
some of those complaints like the dark screen, is the music worth turning up
now, and did the controls become more user friendly? We'll see.
Harmony of Dissonance takes place in 1748, that's nearly 50 years after Dracula
was slayed by the famous Simon Belmont (CastleVaniaNES, Super CastleVania IV)
but that's nearly a century before the events of Nathan Graves adventures in
Circle of the Moon, so this means that this game is strangely a prequel to the
last game. You play the role of Juste Belmont (who looks a lot like Alucard),
a direct descendent of Simon and the forces of darkness want their revenge on
the family bloodline. Dracula's minions kidnap your girlfriend Lydie and your
friend Maxim tells you everything after he was injured during the fight. The
both of you head to CastleVania to find Lydie but is there more here then means
the eye. While the storyline is a little predictable at times, it still helps
move the game along and it still drives the player to continue
on.
Fortunately the game play reminds mostly intact as
Juste starts off the game with the traditional whip weapon found in most other
CastleVania's and he can also gain some experience if he kills enough demons
to increase his Strength, Defense, Luck, and Intelligent. Juste can also different
equip whips, armours, boots, and on his long adventure through the unlinear
castle (unlinear in a Super Metroid way). There are well over 100 different
items to find in this game so you should be very busy. Gone is the intricate
Card system and it's now replaced with a new Magic system. If you want
to do a special ability just simply turn it on in the menu to get the
desired effect but watch out for your magic meter. You can even use the old
school secondary weapons like Knifes, Axes, Crosses, Holy Water, Books, and
more making you one tough vampire killer. Juste may be a little too tough because
some of the enemies and bosses can be too easy at times but this new castle
is so big it's still going to take a good while to
finish. You can even do a new quick save if needed instead of fighting to find
a save point if you have to do something else right
away.
The controls are slightly different but I'm not too crazy about some of the
new changes here. Although I didn't like the running system in Circle of the
Moon too much because you had to press forward twice
really quickly on the fly, but I hate the new run system in this game even more.
The shoulder buttons are now used to either dash forward or dash backwards which
can be very confusing especially when each time you turn around the button controls
are reversed so it can really get on your nerves. Learning the rest of the controls
is a piece a cake though! You have the usual action, jump, and menu buttons
found in most action games so people should feel right at home with CastleVania
HOD.
The game looks even more like Symphony of the Night then ever before. There
are even a lot of the enemies that return like those giant skulls with the flaming
blue aura around them and those flying multi-swords.
Some may like this while others may feel this is unoriginal. The game also has
some excellent animation too and the bosses look very menacing. because of the
familiar sub menus, gauges and the Super Metroid-like
map. Although the game looks even better than Circle of the Moon and it thankfully
much easier too SEE this time, it's still hard to get that perfect view all
the time and that no flaw of Konami. The game looks very dark still which is
very important in a horror game, don't get me wrong, but the colours are very
bright and clear compared to the duller look of Circle of the Moon. Nintendo
seriously needs to get the Gameboy Advance or the games on a REAL TV, Now!
The music is of poor quality but hey, this is the Gameboy Advance after all,
this system borderlines on the old NES's sound chips from 1985, eh? The music
is good enough to listen to but don't expect anything nearly as crisp like in
Super CastleVania IV on the Super Nintendo. The sound effects to work well though
for the Gameboy Advance for some reason and there's no problems with the various
enemy screams and the different strikes.
The new CastleVania game is still a great game with the same addictive game
play that we all know and love but it's not perfect and some may actually
prefer the older Circle of the Moon to the newer Harmony of Dissonance. I miss
all the cool secret stuff like randomly hitting a wall and finding some hiding
goodies, that's not really in this game for some reason. I also miss the mystery
of the Card system from before and there are very little surprises in this magic
system which is kind of disappointing as
well. Despite some minor problems it's still a very good game for the
Gameboy Advance and it's definitely one of the better GBA games to arrive in
awhile. There are even some secret codes and different quests if you manage
to conquer the first part and that really increases the game's replay value.
Very cool! I love almost all of the CastleVania games out there and that includes
the 3Dgames by the way, this CastleVania is no exception but it still plays
like a second rate Symphony of the Night unfortunately. The game is still a
must have though.
*GameBoy Advance only
*Battery back up game
CastleVania HOD overall rating:
85/100
For 1 player only
Rated (T) for Teen
graphics: 8
sound: 7
gameplay: 8
-StarSoldier1
(Ryan Genno) 2005