Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance review

I bought a GBA at launch. Why? Well admittedly I had looked forward to the portable 32 bit console for a while before it was released, but that's not the reason I snapped it up instantly. The reason was Castlevania. I loved Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the psone, and the news that the GBA version was not just a port of one of the side scrolling SNES Castlevania's, but a non linear, exploration encouraging and character developing escapade more reminiscent of the psone game had me surrendered. I wasn't the only one either, Castlevania did very well, even though it didn't push the GBA visually and you had to play it under a floodlight to be able to make out the dark screen, it gained its fans. In response to this, in classic game developer fashion, Konami made a sequel. In Harmony of Dissonance, the hunter you play is called Juste Belmont, the grandson of the Dracula's worst nightmare from older Castlevania's, Simon Belmont. The story of the game isn't going to win any Oscars; it's merely an excuse for Juste to get his whip out. Basically a friend of Juste has been taken to Dracula's castle and Juste goes to get her back. The idea is the same as the Castlevania's on the GBA and psone. Juste has a whole castle to explore, but not all of it is accessible at first. A certain ledge may be too high, a certain key may lock a door and a breakable wall may halt progress. However, by going through the rooms, overcoming the simple puzzles and beating the bosses Juste can pick up items and relics that will bless him with certain abilities to overcome any obstacles he'll face in covering the entire castle. Also, like the aforementioned of the series, by defeating enemies, Juste will gain experience and level up increasing the usual stats such as strength, defence, agility etc. It's a nice initiative to have levelling up in games other than RPGs; here it means killing the endless hordes of enemies is rewarded rather than just being an obstacle to ignore. Items such as armour can also be equipped to increase the abilities of Juste. This is where the similarities with the original GBA Castlevania end. Konami gained feedback about the game and made a lot of adjustments. The first obvious overhaul is the graphics. All the sprites are bigger, nicely animated and more detailed. The backgrounds, dark and dreary in the first game, are drawn much brighter and are easier on the eyes. Juste himself has a cool blue aura around himself. Why? I don't know but it sure looks fancy when he moves because it provides a nice blur effect. The basic controls stay the same for basic commands such as jump and attack and up and attack will fire the secondary weapon Juste is carrying which can range from knifes to holy water, but now the GBA shoulder buttons provide for "lunge" and "dodge" moves. These provide for a little bit of strategic pacing when fighting, but basically you'll bash the shoulder button mostly to dash along in rooms. The card magic system of the original has been replaced with something more reminiscent of Symphony of the Night. Now Juste can collect certain books, to combine elemental and summoning magic with the secondary weapons. Just have the required book equipped in the menu, and fire a secondary weapon as you would normally and you'll be treated to a spell. The amount of combinations really is amazing and has you just itching for experimentation to find your favourite and certain spells look incredible too to boot. There's also an extra element that may seem strange to the series altogether. Juste can collect furniture and decorative pieces so he can play changing rooms and furnish an empty room he finds in the castle. Despite the whole oddness of such a task at hand in a place full of the undead, it's actually quite enjoyable watching the room take shape. Yet, where Harmony of Dissonance improves on all of its prequels shortcomings, it also loses the very same aspects that made the original great. The music on GBA Castlevania was incredible, atmospheric and orchestral. All the tracks on HOD are murky, dated and just not as exciting. Although the sound effects are fine, it seems a real cutback to the atmosphere of the game. Not only is the castle itself huge, but in the vein of Zelda: A Link to the Past (if you remember that light world/dark world aspect), it has two different versions of it, the normal castle and the dark evil one. In theory this sounds great, going through similar built areas but having entirely different enemies and tasks to do. In practice, apart from slightly different background the two castle spawns are very alike; this can cause confusion to where you are and what you're doing. The map in the game is also very basic and not as helpful as it should be. The games hugely open ended structure means time and time again, an age will be spent on looking where to go next and much frustrating backtracking will occur. The overall difficulty is far too easy. Castlevania games were always a challenge, and even though the amount of bosses and their forms are impressive in HOD, they can be a walkover to defeat. Still the main game itself is still rather vast and it will take about 10 hours to get through it, most of which will be enjoyable. Despite these disappointments, HOD is one of the better games on the GBA. Some touches in the game will make you smile, like the skeletons in mirrors that mimic your actions and the incredible use of enemies in some of the puzzles. It's just a shame that this great open structured adventure has taken some steps backwards for the series rather than ahead.