Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

A handheld legend. Reincarnated.

JP release: 6th June 2002
NA release: 16th September 2002
EU release: 11th October 2002
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
AKA: Castlevania: Byakuya no Concerto
NGC Magazine Review: 86%
Platforms: GBA
Version Played: GBA

After the success of Circle of the Moon, the main Konami team decided to do one themselves, making it even closer to Symphony of the Night. One criticism of Circle of the moon (and almost every early GBA game) was that it was very difficult to see on the console’s unlit screen, so companies tried to concentrate, which resulted in games that looked way too bright on later display. Juste Belmont had a glowing border around him which I found nauseating, so I ended up downloading a mod which adjusts the colours of the game.

You play as Juste, the grandson of Simon Belmont, who follows as friend of his, Maxim, who heads off to prove himself, gathering Dracula’s remains to bring him back and vanquish him, except it all goes wrong and another friend Lydia. Juste also seems to have inherited some magical abilities, making him a very powerful Belmont.

Throughout the game, you find five magic tomes, these can be combined with the regular sub weapons to create a large array of magic spells, which also makes the choice of sub weapon even more useful. These can be defensive spells or room filling spells and don’t use up hearts, giving you a bit more freedom in how to attack. The shoulder buttons can also be used for dashing left or right, which helps with speed as well as handy for avoiding attacks.

After you’ve explored a portion of the castle, you’ll get teleported elsewhere and carry on for a bit more before discovering that the castle has split into two “realities” that overlap each other. That means that the entire map is duplicated into two versions, creating two versions of each room. While tracking down the hidden rooms in both maps can be annoying, I enjoyed this much more than the inverted castle in Symphony of the Night.

Exploration feels pretty great with the map opening up quite quickly, and levelling up feels good as you can start dispatching early enemies quite quickly, and a lot seem to be designed in a way for you to just dodge them for when you want to rush through a section you’ve already been through. There’s also a lot of bosses, which are all good fun. Combat as a whole feels really good.

You’ll collect relics and other items as you progress, including the same double and high jump as before. My only issue is that a few abilities are tied to equipable items, so when you get more powerful stuff, you need to remember to swap back to the item you need to break though the specific walls. It turns out to be a minor inconvenience overall, but it’s still an oddity.

It doesn’t get in the way of how great the game is, and I found there to be little frustration, as I really enjoyed finding everything (the furniture you put in a room of the castle is nice to collect, even if it does nothing) and uncovering the entire map. There’s a lot to love about the game, it was just the original graphics that were the games biggest issue, but those were also done for a valid reason.

Fave

The classic Castlevania atmosphere raises this above other contenders and if you’re after a precisely crafted slow burner, you’ll find solace down in Transylvania tonight. Mwaha.
NGC Magazine #72

Remake or remaster?

An official colour adjusted version would ben ice.

Official Ways to get the game

Harmony of Dissonance is available in the Castlevania Advance Collection.