70%Game Boy Advance

Tenha uma coisa em mente: é melhor que o Circle of the Moon e pior que o Aria of Sorrow.

90%Emulated

This game is insanely fun but some of those secret rooms are horribly placed. The bosses are extremely fun until the Dracula fight. For the final encounter, it felt extremely lazy and unfinished as he only had 2 attacks for both phases compared to Maxim who had way more. Overall, I heavily enjoyed this game and would highly recommend you pick it up.

60%PC

- Wonky music
- Two castle gimmick, a weird map, and shoddy teleporter placement makes for terrible backtracking
- Forgettable bosses
- Bad art direction

55%Game Boy Advance

Es un juego bonito visualmente, aunque no me gustaron los sprites de Juste, el feeling del látigo ni los colores demasiado chillones, aunque entiendo que había que compensar por la pantalla sin iluminación del GB Advance.
Muchos fondos y escenarios fueron hechos con cuidado al detalle y agregan mucha atmósfera. También hay muchas cosas sacadas directamente del Symphony of the Night que me dieron la impresión de que fue un esfuerzo flojo de parte de los diseñadores y que se vieron más como una copia barata.

No me gustó que fuera demasiado fácil, hubo varios jefes que pude vencer sólo con quedarme parado dándoles con el látigo. La navegación por el castillo fue bastante repetitiva y en algunos casos no era muy claro para dónde ir lo que hacía que tuviera que regresar a muchas partes para encontrarme con los mismos obstáculos que no me dejaban avanzar, esos obstáculos casi todos los empiezas a poder superar para el final del juego ya que has recorrido casi todo. Drácula no fue gran cosa, pero tampoco diría que fue mejor la aplastante dificultad del CotM, ese Dracula estuvo brutal, creo que pudo haber un mejor balance en la dificultad general.

Me gustó que ahora puedes guardar tu juego en cualquier momento de manera que no tienes que a fuerzas llegar a un savepoint. Ahora estos los puedes usar para que si te vas a una parte lejana del castillo, puedes guardar desde el menú de pausa, resetear y volver a cargar en el último savepoint que usaste teniendo toda la experiencia e items que obstuviste en el recorrido. Aunque no es un detalle que me haya molestado tanto del Circle of the Moon, creo que fue muy cómodo hacerlo de esta manera en este juego. También me gustó que resolvieron la incomoda manera de correr del CotM y que Juste tiene dash hacia atrás y adelante.

Hubo un detalle de diseño del mapa de CotM en el que cuando no podías pasar un obstáculo, el espacio después del obstáculo era suficiente para que al no pasar se viera en el mapa que hubo un cuadradito que no exploraste. En este juego puedes llegar al área y no poder agarrar lo que encuentras ahí por falta de algún item y el mapa te marcaba como ya explorada el área, lo que hacía que no supieras cuáles eran las áreas a las que tenías que regresar y no podías evitar tener que explorar todo de nuevo en busca de esas pequeñeces, algunas veces lo que encontraba no era tan satisfactorio. Sentí que fue un paso hacia atrás y una manera muy mala de fomentar la exploración.

Habían zonas donde era muy fácil de subir de nivel y conseguir dinero era muy fácil, terminé el juego con más de 25000 monedas. Hubo una mecánica muy tonta para el marcader que tenías que cumplir ciertas condiciones para que apareciera en ciertas áreas y cuando lo encontrabas podías comprarte más potions y high potions de las que fueras a necesitar, pocas veces recurrí a usarlas. La mecánica de las reliquias también hizo que los corazones fueran completamente inútiles, las puedes desactivar como algo a lo que pudes recurrir para hacer el juego sentirse más como un Castlevania clásico. Y hay otras maneras en las que puedes hacer que el juego sea más difícil pero preferiría que fuera así por diseño.

La música estuvo genial y fue de mis cosas favoritas, lástima que priorizaron los visuales por encima del audio y tuvieron que poner la música en esa calidad tan fea. Siendo un elemento tan importante en los Castlevanias fue algo decepcionante.

Alrededor de la mitad me empezó a aburrir el juego, tampoco puedo decir que no lo disfruté en absoluto pero definitivamente es un juego que no volvería a jugar. Sentí que quisieron hacer que el juego fuera más de exploración que de acción pero me fallaron en las dos cosas. En ese sentido prefiero más la dificultad del CotM que te permitía sentir cierta satisfacción al vencer a un jefe aún si se veía menos bonito y no tenía los mejores controles, que el poco reto y navegación confusa del HoD.

Recomiendo el parche Revenge of the Findesiecle que corrige colores y hace que los enemigos sean un poco más difíciles, le agrega un poco más de reto al juego y tiene una paleta de colores más agradable.

Un Castlevania más jugado en japonés.

70%Game Boy Advance

Possibly the most forgettable game out of the Castlevania metroidvania games, but it is still good.

I remember enjoying my time with it, but it's not very memorable. Has good RPG elements with fun gameplay. I liked the tome magic system that was added and how it affected gameplay. I remember liking the soundtrack and the map exploration.

The bosses were pretty good aswell. The story is very forgettable. The art style is fairly good and the sound design is alright.

55%Nintendo Switch

By far the least interesting of the three GBA entries. Circle of the Moon was way too hard and a little over-the-place, but it was beautiful for the hardware and had a bunch of strong ideas. Harmony is better designed but the visuals are weird, the soundtrack is awful, and the spellbooks system is so OP you can beat half the bosses without taking a single hit. Igarashi's team (which, let's remember, had been kicked out for Circle) gives the impression of doing a warm-up before trying to expand its formula. This will lead to the apotheosis Aria of Sorrow but, in itselfs, Harmony of Dissonance looks like a lazy Symphony of the Night 2 (if not a Symphony of the Night for Dummies).

60%Game Boy Advance

Castlevania sempre foi um jogo difícil pra mim. A mudança para o famoso estilo Metroidvania melhorou e muito o game. Mas ele continua exigente.
Harmony of dissonance traz mais um membro do clã Belmont, dessa vez ajudando seu amigo sem memória Maxim a resgatar uma moça no castelo de drácula.
A exploração do jogo é o design do castelo São legais e os chefes são muito diferentes entre eles. Mas o layout de algumas partes é confuso. O esquema de visitar dois castelos ao mesmo tempo te deixa perdido fácil. Fora que muitas vezes você acha q tra em um lugar e tá em outro e quando vai pro outro tem fazer tudo de novo. Por horas me peguei rodando os mesmo lugares sem saber o q fazer. A música é boa mas em algumas partes é simples que dói. Juste Belmont é travado pra se locomover e demora muito pra pegar poderes legais.
No fim, tem muita coisa a se fazer, mas com a exploração chata, vc vai querer terminar ele o mais rápido possível.

Pontos positivos
Magias bem legais.
Muitos chefes
Alguns minigames curiosos

Negativos
Layout confuso do mapa
Jogo lento
Musica simples demais em algumas partes.

75%Xbox One

Played in the GBA collection. A little too easy and with a flawed castle design, but it can give some hours of fun nonetheless.

70%PlayStation 4

A good game, almost an 8, but the castle design is really poor, and world design is king when reviewing a metroidvania game, not to mention a surprinsingly poor OST for Castlevania standards... still, it's just about the right length and it is a fun experience, so I think it's worth playing.

65%Nintendo 3DS

Overall Pretty Good but the navigation is so unclear that it become insufferable if you don't have any fresh memories of your activity...quite a shame for me

70%Game Boy Advance

Good gameplay loop, lovely sprites, responsive combat, and the best of all - the music
Little I can complain about, except for the feeling of the slight "off-brand" castlevania vibe

70%PC

Felt a lot like Symphony of the Night. Not as good, but similar. That's probably the main reason I liked it.

70%Nintendo Switch

Worse than SOTN and COTM but still decent. Environments, spells and inventory work well. Use items (with hearts) become obsolete as they are replaced by spells. Would've been nice if the player could use them together, like in SOTN. Music by far the worst in the series that I have played so far - no notable pieces at all. Lots of cool looking bosses and lots of bosses in general but the mechanics are uninspiring. Game very easily overall. Still offers a solid 'Metrovoidvania' experience despite its flaws.

70%PC

Juste's movement options are phenomenal, especially the two-directional dash independent of the way you are facing and a slide that actually deals damage. The special weapon system of this game is so far my favorite of any metroidvania: spellbooks provide great variety, as well as a sense of sustainability in being able to alternate between hearts and MP when one is depleted. I did play this using a recolor hack which boosted the visual aspects (a common critique of HoD) significantly. I've heard some people saying the music of HoD sounds like a broken SEGA sound card, but personally I thought that although not very catchy or epic, it was charming and helped create a hazy atmosphere which compliments the twin castle mechanic well.

My main issue with this game is shoddy castle design not present in older igavanias like SotN: some rooms present themselves as if made to waste your time (thinking the empty sides of elevator areas, zig zagging towers with 2 or 3 enemies and no items), many areas are tedious to completely backtrack through and provide hardly any non-superficial rewards for it.

65%Game Boy Advance

This game easily has the most interesting art and area design of the Metroid-style Castlevania games, there are interesting locales like the castle treasury and the skeleton caverns to shake up the usual CV area staples. The spell book system is a much more accessible take on the previous game's tarot cards and most-all weapons have at least one very useful spell combination to play around with, but it makes the regular sub weapons rather useless. The main things dragging this game down are its generally easy difficulty, as most bosses get split in two by the spell attacks, HP restoration items are plentiful and enemies deal little damage, and the 'second castle' is only slightly more gracefully implemented than in SOTN, and serves almost entirely to pad out the game until new bosses (I was 2 hours in when I cleared the clock tower and it took me another 4 to reach Maxim). Overall a decent, if inessential game mostly worth its short runtime.

70%Nintendo Switch

Dumb plot and dialogue with good enemy variety and movement controls.

+ Slide step is fun

- Castle progression is more confusing than it needs to be

70%Game Boy Advance

I might have spoiled myself by playing Aria of Sorrow before any of the other GBA Castlevanias. To be fair, I did try Circle of the Moon for an hour before I backed out like a coward. My first few hours of playing this, I kept thinking to myself" Man, I can't wait to replay Aria of Sorrow". That thought soon dissipated after unlocking a few of Juste's abilities, and I was able to enjoy myself a bit more. Even the music, which I wasn't really into initially, grew on me.

I brought up Aria of Sorrow a few times, but really the game I should be bringing up is Symphony of the Night. I was reminded of Symphony a lot, like how you just accumulate a bunch of crap in your inventory that you can't get rid of (not as much as Symphony, mind you). If there's one aspect of this game I'll say is better here than in Aria, it's your dash ability. In Aria, Soma only has a backdash, which has a significant amount of cooldown. Meanwhile, in Harmony, Juste has no cooldown on his backdash (just like Alucard in Symphony) while also having a forward dash. But by far the biggest comparison I can make to Symphony is the second castle.

I had no idea this was in the game, so it came as a nice surprise, but this is also where the game started to lose its steam for me. I just don't think "Castle B" is nearly as interesting as the inverted castle in Symphony. Another castle means more ground to cover, and while I think dashing feels great, all your other movement options feel a bit lacking, especially compared to Aria. I know comparing this to a game that came out afterwards is unfair, but I can't help it. Exploring both castles felt arduous towards the end, so much so that I beelined to the end even though I was around 190% map completion. I also found it quite easy to get lost, but I'm also dumb as rocks, so take that point with a grain of salt.

Despite growing a bit tired of this game towards the end, I still came away enjoying it. With how mixed the reviews are for this game, I went in expecting nothing more than a slight improvement over Circle of the Moon, but it's more than that. I will show Circle of the Moon some respect and finish it, but not now. Instead, I'll say this: don't skip this so you can jump right into Aria like I did. You might appreciate it more.

70%PC

colorful powerful, did the 2nd castle better than symphony of the night. good time

60%Game Boy Advance

Its fine. It's kind of shocking that it came after CotM since it feels so much more like an NES Castlevania.

40%Nintendo Switch

STRONG 4

70%Game Boy Advance

Got so-so ending where Lydie is saved and Maxim dies. Overall enjoyed it, although had to peek at walkthrough a couple of times. Lack of teleports makes backtracking tedious, also castle B is kind of a cheap way of padding the game (and going back and forth between both castles gets old pretty quickly). Overall a good game, AoS > HoD though

60%Wii U

This is the weakest of the few Metroidvanias that I have played to this point. It simultaneously copies/quotes Symphony of the Night while being significantly more confusing. I do give this game points for simplifying the overcrowded elements of that title, but I found it to be much less satisfying and way more annoying to navigate. I ended up 200%ing the map out of necessity when trying to figure out where to go rather than for the joy of exploring. It kept me through to the end but I will probably not be replaying.

90%Game Boy Advance

In a surprise, a revisit to Harmony of Dissonance showed me that it may very well have the strongest Metroidvania fundamentals in the series. Makes me wonder where that disappeared in IGA's more recent games.

100%Game Boy Advance

Excellent!

80%Game Boy Advance

a strong followup to Circle of the Moon

visuals:
+ great spritework and a lot of impressive effects for the GBA
- some color choices are odd (such a flashing green when getting hit) but i assume this was for sake of higher visibility on the original GBA

controls
+ dashing is a great addition, and much better than Circle's double-tap sprint
+ spellbooks + subweapons combos are fun (Not as fun as Circle's DSS tho)

Music
+ i like a lot of the compositions, there are a lot of memorable tunes
- the sound font is a bit dated, but it didnt bug me

Other
- There is a LOT of backtracking and confusing navigation elements in this game. Even if you know where to go, theres going to be a lot of walking back and forth thru the same hallways. I recommend a guide if you get lost for more than 30 minutes, it's the game's biggest weakness
- People complain about the game being too easy, and I think they would be right. you can stock a ton of potions and basically never be in real danger. But i prefer this to Circle's crazy difficulty spikes

80%Nintendo Switch

When coming into this Castlevania Advance Collection, I was told by many people that Harmony of Dissonance and Circle of the Moon were the samey games in the collection. But I surprisingly enjoyed Harmony of Dissonance quite a bit. This game is close to the same format of Circle of the Moon. Explore a castle, level up, upgrade stats, find and equip items, and defeat bosses to find abilities to overcome metroidvania obstacles. But there are quite a few differences that I find much more enjoyable than Circle of the Moon. Right off the bat, the movement is much more fluid and animated in this game. It feels a lot nicer to control the main character. Mostly thanks to the dash move which is super fun, which is also good for dodging enemy attacks. Next up the animation and graphics have a much nicer style than Circle of the Moon. This game looks very nice for being a Gameboy Advance game. Also, the game is pretty easy, but it’s much more reasonable than the frustrating mess that Circle of the Moon is. The last major difference is something I actually dislike. There are actually two castles in this game. Castle A and Castle B. Think of the Dark World from A Link to the Past. You can warp between either the A or B castle in order to progress. In some cases I like this type of game design, but I’ve always found this kind of design annoying. I find it confusing and almost lazy to a certain extent. Instead of making the current world more quality and have more content, you copy and paste the same map, change the colors, while you mix things up and add a few more things. It’s kinda cool, in A Link to the Past, and especially A Link Between Worlds. But this design is cumbersome compared to those two games. These two castles barely change anything. It feels like padding to just find out where to go. Even though I’ve never been the biggest fan of this design, those two Zeldas did a good job placing secrets, content, and other major gameplay components in the other world. And even in general Harmony of Dissonance is very confusing in terms of direction and objectives. Also finding every part of Dracula, or the parts of Vlad is really dumb and just padding. After doing everything in the game, go find 6 items that look like any other item in the game. Not to mention they are spread across both Castle A and B. I enjoyed the improvements and general gameplay of Harmony of Dissonance, but the map progression was pretty bad if I’m entirely honest.

80%PC

good, but way too easy. Loads of backtracking. Easiest Castlevania i have played

50%PlayStation 5

Played this immediately after Circle of the Moon and was very disappointed. The lack of difficulty removes the important factor of tension from the exploration, where I would sometimes skip saving just to not sit through a few seconds of animation, because I wasn't concerned that I'd die even when encountering a boss for the first time. The exploration was also frustrating until the end of the game, with frustratingly long stretches of backtracking, where sometimes you'd use a newly acquired power just to discover another obstacle behind it that requires another power that you haven't gotten yet.

There were some cool ideas that excited me and encouraged me to get through the game (the reveal of the full castle map being the key one), but was ultimately happy to see this one behind me when I finished it, which is never a good feeling.

80%Nintendo Switch

I like it a lot despite the weird graphics. It's dynamic, and full of things to explore.

70%Wii U

Pretty fine for a GBA game. Enjoyed the surreal feel of the game.

100%Nintendo Switch

One of my favourite Castlevanias (probably due to nostalgia, who knows). This game needs more love, and it may just get that with the Switch re-release

40%Game Boy Advance

Definitely one of the weakest titles of Castlevania. Confused map and playthrough, weak design, easy enemies, bad story... If Circle of the Moon had one of the hardest and mostr frustating boss battle againt Dracula, Harmony of Dissonance on the other hand is so easy that its disappointing.

60%Game Boy Advance

In a word, Harmony of Dissonance is mundane. It's not bad, but it's not great either. Just don't expect too much.

Like Symphony of the Night, this sequel features a dual map system, albeit not as meaningful as the inverse map. You are essentially given more bosses to fight, most of which are not particularly difficult (especially if you abuse potions). Save points are infrequent, which means being forced to play safe so you don't waste time retracing steps. On the plus side, you are provided with a dash ability right from the beginning, which helps quicken the game and offers the player a powerful dodge mechanic.

The game demands a ridiculous amount of backtracking without providing any indication as to where to go. The insane rarity of the merchant increases the game's overall difficulty, as the game is balanced around you buying potions to survive. The story is practically nonexistent as well, and there are practically no secret rooms to explore, which is disappointing. If you decide to play this game and get stuck, don't hesitate to spoil yourself with a map to get an idea of where to go next, as you will more than likely end up wasting hours revisiting the same areas.

Overall, not a memorable experience. Go ahead and skip this game as you will not miss out on anything.

70%Game Boy Advance

Interesting title for the GBA. It's not as good as Aria of Sorrow but it's worth a look. This game is fun if your really like the Castlevania/Metroid genre, but it doesn't bring anything new. It's the kind of game I would recommend getting on the Wii U virtual console if it ever gets on sale. Otherwise, spend your money on Aria of Sorrow.

80%Emulated

improvement from circle of the moon in a game perspective but suffers from a good amount of the problems from the predecessor

+Pros
+amazing graphics with great animations and animated-backgrounds a good improvement from circle of the moon
+great gameplay in part thanks to a improved movement and combat
+exploring the castle this time is rewarding with armors and acessories scattered around the castle
+good music compositions
+the level design is better in general with more horizontal areas to explore

-Cons
-the progression of the game is completely annoying since they implemented 2 castles this time similiar to symphony of the night but instead of the second castle appearing after doing an specific action in the first castle the player encounters the second castle around the time you are exploring the first castle and after this point you need to traverse both castles in order to progress in the game
-the game also never tells when the player needs to switch castles in order to progress
-the magic books system although fun and good suffers from an insane amount of OP powers which greatly reduces the difficulty of the game
-the music while good suffers from a really bad mixing making it sound like a NES game
-easy boss-fights

60%Game Boy Advance

The game is almost a copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but a worst copy because they don't bring all the good things of the other game. The biggest problem with this game is the map exploration, you get stucked all the time with places to do double jump, and 2 types of doors to open, to get this problem worst it doesn't has teleports in good places to make travel more practice, and some rooms are complicated to pass. Because of this you have to pass the same area like 3 to 6 times in a gameplay. With the sensation that you did something wrong and get stucked in the game forever.

The other problem is the healing itens, you have a few throught the game, but rapidily you need to use and don't find the merchant. Who is essencial and is rare to find because there is specific places that he spawns and need some requirements.

The bosses are way too easy, killing them is child's play.

But the game is good when you have new places to explore and the graphics, the art are amazing. Some spells you found along the way are fun too.

70%Game Boy Advance

Expands about SOTN's inverted castle, which was too irksome for most. I think it's still a decent game. The main issue is the god awful music - but that's more fault of the GBA.

70%Emulated

I liked the speed and movement. The graphics felt like a downgrade from Circle of the Moon to me, the outline looks bad. The music is quite bad, which is a shame for a Castlevania game. Overall it felt good, although I didn't like that, unlike Circle of the Moon, the map did show places that had items you couldn't get yet. In CotM, the map was designed to show them incomplete. There where some good bosses, but most felt like a pushover. I liked some of the puzzles/races/gimmicks

80%Game Boy Advance

Easiest of the Igavanias. You can get very high defense later in the game that makes the enemies deal very little damage. Interesting magic system with many spells. Most robust magic system. Thin plot. Very colorful. Great music as usual. Main character, Juste, has a dash you can spam that helps increase the game's pace. Aria of Sorrow is better but this was still good.

80%Game Boy Advance

A fantastic handheld Castlevania game. It's held back a bit by its frequent lack of explanation for systems and items. Playing with a walkthrough to reference occasionally makes this a much better experience. I like the double castle concept though and it's definitely not a game to skip for the GBA.

70%Emulated

Harmony of Dissonance is, in terms of gameplay, nothing more than a solid entry in the Castlevania series. While it fixes some of the more frustrating aspects of Circle of the Moon such as the wonky control, HoD doesn’t offer anything new to the formula established by Symphony of the Night aside from its own problems. There is a noticeable lack of secret rooms, bosses are pushovers, and many areas are long corridors completely devoid of enemies, but these issues are somewhat mitigated by a confusing layout and the utilization of two nearly identical castles. In short, navigation is a chore. Passages opened in one version of the castle will effect the other, and with dimension flipping rooms being few and far between, there is a lot of tedious backtracking that kills the pace of progression. Even so, the core gameplay is great, especially with such tight controls.

HoD’s selling point is its graphics, but I felt the presentation was lacking. The liberal use of Mode 7 effects and large detailed sprites are certainly impressive for the platform and time of release, but I wasn’t very fond of the colors used as they seemed a little haphazardly chosen to aid in visibility. The elephant in the room however is that the visuals were given precedent over the music quality—the soundtrack comes off as much more dated than that of its predecessor, and that game was a launch title for the GBA. There are a few descent tracks, I really like what plays in the castle entrance, but most of it sounds like a garbled mess.

60%Game Boy Advance

-

40%Emulated

Feels good, but the double Castle thing makes traversal really annoying & confusing

80%Game Boy Advance

The castle isn't too memorable, which is a bit sad. The mechanic of mirror castles is interesting but not as much as in SOTN. Still better than its predecessor.

80%Game Boy Advance

Story 4/10
Level Design 8/10
Characters 6/10
Gameplay 8/10
Graphics 7/10
Music/Sound 6/10

Difficulty MEDIUM

Overall 79%

80%Game Boy Advance

Great fun! Good example of my favorite genre. It would have been nice if secondary weapon drops were more frequent, or somewhat randomized. Dashing is a great addition, and can really help you play like a pro.

80%Emulated

The inclusion of a "shadow" tower element that you can enter and exit quickly is an interesting evolution of the SOTN twist, but it makes backtracking a chore. Fortunately, the game feels incredible - fast and responsive - with a good variety of boss fights and enemy types. With better music and less superfluous power-ups (heading down a difficult side path to find a useful "furniture" collectible is bad), might've been a 9/10.

80%Game Boy Advance

Liked it more than AOS, but the backtracking is a bit tedious.

80%Nintendo 3DS

Great game

70%Game Boy Advance

Bon jeu d'action/plate-formes qui ravira les fans de Castlevania. Il y a une nette