Gaming Target - Game Boy: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

Written by Adam Woolcott on June 25, 2002

First Impressions: Hey la, hey la, Count Drac is back.

Given the fact that the Game Boy Advance is simply THE place for 2D games nowadays, it's not much of a surprise that Konami sees the platform as the perfect place to continue their mega-popular Castlevania franchise. After the stunning rebirth of the series with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the PlayStation, the series has had a boom in it's popularity; thanks to the Metroid-like level structure and the blend of RPG elements. The first GBA Castlevania game, Circle of the Moon, was an excellent game as well, but not up to the caliber of SotN.

With Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Concerto of the Midnight Sun in Japan), the same team behind Symphony of the Night returns, bringing this latest installment of the series hopefully up to the level of SotN Ц a tall task in my opinion, given that I feel SotN is easily the best PlayStation game ever made, and one of the top games ever created Ц but certainly not one that's totally impossible.

Harmony of Dissonance tells the tale of Juste Belmont, an Alucard-ish (the main character from SotN and Dracula's son) figure who's the latest in the famous Belmont family, renown for their vampire killing expertise. As you'd expect, Count Dracula is making his return and is out to conquer the world. Mr. Belmont is going to be dispatched to Drac's castle (of course, called Castlevania) to put a stop to it.

As you might expect, the gameplay of Harmony of Dissonance will be very similar to Symphony of the Night Ц with a few touches here and there added in. For instance, Juste will find spellbooks, which he can use to perform spells to go along with the power of his whip. These spells can be put to use for accessing new areas that were previously blocked for one reason or another.

The relic system from SotN returns Ц finding them will also let you access other parts of the castle that were not available before. Most of these will be given to you after a boss battle, but others will be scattered around Castlevania for you to find at your leisure.

Finally, the RPG elements make their return as well, giving the game some added depth. Juste will gain experience by killing as many enemies as he can (and since they respawn, this is not a problem), and will come across many different weapon enhancements and armor, along with many healing items. Of course, some items will certainly be better than others, thus it's wise to know what to do with each item.

Of course, the Metroid-like style of play returns Ц a semi non-linear castle to explore, where you don't have to go in a particular order, instead being able to either skip entire portions of the castle on the way to beating the game, or taking things in a different order each time you play it. It would be cool if you received a reward for exploring everywhere (like SotN does, with the inverted castle), but , unfortunately, there's no word on it being part of the game.

Perhaps the largest improvement over Circle of the Moon is the overall brightness of the game. Circle of the Moon was very, very dark, making it almost impossible to see, even in direct sunlight, on the already tough to see GBA screen. Harmony of Dissonance, though, is looking much brighter Ц not so much that the game is bright and cheery (which would ruin a dark series like Castlevania), but enough to be able to see what the heck you're doing.

The sound is apparently taking a big hit. Many have already mentioned that the sound is nowhere near as good as it has been in past CV games, which isn't a cause for concern, but just a small snag in the works. Given the enhancements to the gameplay (read: a much longer quest), it's not surprising that corners had to be cut somewhere due to the small size of a GBA cartridge. Unfortunately, it looks like the music had to be the one taking the hit.