04-18-2020, 11:41 PM
Well, I'm bored, so I'm going to do another review. I finished playing this one a while ago.
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Konami, 2002, GBA)
This game and I have a love-hate relationship. This Action-RPG Metroidvania is the sometimes-neglected middle-kid of GBA Castlevania titles, between Circle of the Moon and Aria of Sorrow.
First of all, the play control is good. It's about equal to that of HoD's predecessor Circle of the Moon with its play control, which, while a bit slow, is consistently slow. It's easy to figure out, and like Super Castlevania IV, you can control the movement of your whip with a certain precision by holding down the attack button. The somewhat complicated "DSS" system is replaced by a simple set of five magic books.
The biggest problems with this game end up being the graphics and music. In trying to imitate Playstation Castlevania game Symphony of the Night they added some blur effects to the animation of your lead character, Juste Belmont, which were rather needless and took up space that could have been used to actually put down a decent soundtrack. These only existed for one specific DSS setting in Circle of the Moon and were scrapped completely in the third and final GBA CV title, Aria of Sorrow. Now, while most of the backgrounds were decent, some were a bit fuzzy/blobby. The character graphics for the enemies were a fair bit better than CotM but those of the lead character were not at all. One could make the argument that they were worse.
But the graphical smegups pale in comparison to the epic fail that was the soundtrack. First of all, what the crap are you doing using chiptunes with a 16-bit-plus game in a non-ironic sense in 2002? It's one big anachronism when combined with graphics more in line with the SNES days! I mean sure, there are a couple good tracks, like "Offense and Defense," which you hear in the Marble Corridor. Honestly, I wish someone would do a metal cover of that sucker! But the serialistic and even borderline-atonal nature of some of the tracks rubs me the wrong way, and it did so to a lot of reviewers, although most of them were more upset about the use of chipset. And really, this was only to make up for the excess of space they used on needless graphical effects which really added nothing of value to the game.
What irony, then, that the sound effects are actually really good, including recorded voice. One of the funniest ones is the "NANI???" you get whenever you are cursed. But overall, I find nothing wrong with the sound effects at all.
The level design is another thing I appreciated. As a Metroidvania, having the right level design makes all the difference. Bad level design can make it either too easy or too hard, and although there are a couple of tricky puzzles, there's nothing outlandish in the game design, which is always a good thing. They decided to call on the whole light world/dark world trope that first showed up in games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past and would later manifest in games like Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which doubled the size of the overall world. It was kind of neat, too, that as with those two games and others that use this trope, what you do in one world affects the other, and in the case of this game it really isn't needlessly complex. The size of the world is really the only legitimate justification that could be used to defend the use of chiptunes, but that was far from the only thing they did that took up more space than a typical game of this sort!
Balance of challenge? I've heard complaints that this game was too easy, and indeed it is one of the easiest CV games of the lot. There's no real curve, either, it's just a flat progression upward of difficulty as you get further on in the game, with a few bumps and potholes in the road at the bosses. Seriously, some of the bosses are too easy for where they are in the game! Some, like Death, present a bit of a spike. But let's just say, don't expect typical Castlevania difficulty.
The story is actually not bad. It centres around Juste Belmont, who is the grandson of Simon, the legendary protagonist of three of the first four CV games. Some reviewers complain about it being too derivative of other games using a "possessed companion" and/or "evil twin" trope, but the "evil twin" does make some sense given the dual world. Thing is, said twin is not of Juste himself, but of Juste's companion Maxim, who shows up with some amnesia after having gone missing... and later leads Juste to this castle after their mutual female friend Lydie is kidnapped. We eventually find out that this castle has a twin of sorts, and there are a few twists after that. Not going to say any more on the subject.
As for the fun factor, this game is a little weird. For whatever reason, there is an empty room that you can furnish by collecting furniture and other stuff dispersed throughout the two castles. One thing I want to ask... why do this when there is no way to interact with any of it? Another thing... why is the room exactly the same in both worlds, which no other room besides save points is? I mean sure, it is fun for completionists like me. Something a little more fun is the Metroidvania-style backtracking for items, which isn't as prevalent in CotM but shines through here. And at least you don't have to farm enemies to do it! The replacement of DSS with a simple magic-book scheme is either a blessing or a curse (or both) depending on how you felt about it. If you wanted lots of abilities, it'll be a bit of a disappointment. If you didn't want to have to farm enemies to get said abilities, not so much.
Anyway, it's not a bad game, but it's the worst of the 3 Castlevanias for GBA and it probably ranks among the worst Castlevanias in the franchise.
Play control: 17/20
Graphics: 12/15
Music: 6/15
Sound effects: 10/10
Level design: 10/10
Balance of challenge: 7/10
Story: 8/10
Fun factor: 7/10
Final score: 77/100 B
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Konami, 2002, GBA)
This game and I have a love-hate relationship. This Action-RPG Metroidvania is the sometimes-neglected middle-kid of GBA Castlevania titles, between Circle of the Moon and Aria of Sorrow.
First of all, the play control is good. It's about equal to that of HoD's predecessor Circle of the Moon with its play control, which, while a bit slow, is consistently slow. It's easy to figure out, and like Super Castlevania IV, you can control the movement of your whip with a certain precision by holding down the attack button. The somewhat complicated "DSS" system is replaced by a simple set of five magic books.
The biggest problems with this game end up being the graphics and music. In trying to imitate Playstation Castlevania game Symphony of the Night they added some blur effects to the animation of your lead character, Juste Belmont, which were rather needless and took up space that could have been used to actually put down a decent soundtrack. These only existed for one specific DSS setting in Circle of the Moon and were scrapped completely in the third and final GBA CV title, Aria of Sorrow. Now, while most of the backgrounds were decent, some were a bit fuzzy/blobby. The character graphics for the enemies were a fair bit better than CotM but those of the lead character were not at all. One could make the argument that they were worse.
But the graphical smegups pale in comparison to the epic fail that was the soundtrack. First of all, what the crap are you doing using chiptunes with a 16-bit-plus game in a non-ironic sense in 2002? It's one big anachronism when combined with graphics more in line with the SNES days! I mean sure, there are a couple good tracks, like "Offense and Defense," which you hear in the Marble Corridor. Honestly, I wish someone would do a metal cover of that sucker! But the serialistic and even borderline-atonal nature of some of the tracks rubs me the wrong way, and it did so to a lot of reviewers, although most of them were more upset about the use of chipset. And really, this was only to make up for the excess of space they used on needless graphical effects which really added nothing of value to the game.
What irony, then, that the sound effects are actually really good, including recorded voice. One of the funniest ones is the "NANI???" you get whenever you are cursed. But overall, I find nothing wrong with the sound effects at all.
The level design is another thing I appreciated. As a Metroidvania, having the right level design makes all the difference. Bad level design can make it either too easy or too hard, and although there are a couple of tricky puzzles, there's nothing outlandish in the game design, which is always a good thing. They decided to call on the whole light world/dark world trope that first showed up in games like The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past and would later manifest in games like Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which doubled the size of the overall world. It was kind of neat, too, that as with those two games and others that use this trope, what you do in one world affects the other, and in the case of this game it really isn't needlessly complex. The size of the world is really the only legitimate justification that could be used to defend the use of chiptunes, but that was far from the only thing they did that took up more space than a typical game of this sort!
Balance of challenge? I've heard complaints that this game was too easy, and indeed it is one of the easiest CV games of the lot. There's no real curve, either, it's just a flat progression upward of difficulty as you get further on in the game, with a few bumps and potholes in the road at the bosses. Seriously, some of the bosses are too easy for where they are in the game! Some, like Death, present a bit of a spike. But let's just say, don't expect typical Castlevania difficulty.
The story is actually not bad. It centres around Juste Belmont, who is the grandson of Simon, the legendary protagonist of three of the first four CV games. Some reviewers complain about it being too derivative of other games using a "possessed companion" and/or "evil twin" trope, but the "evil twin" does make some sense given the dual world. Thing is, said twin is not of Juste himself, but of Juste's companion Maxim, who shows up with some amnesia after having gone missing... and later leads Juste to this castle after their mutual female friend Lydie is kidnapped. We eventually find out that this castle has a twin of sorts, and there are a few twists after that. Not going to say any more on the subject.
As for the fun factor, this game is a little weird. For whatever reason, there is an empty room that you can furnish by collecting furniture and other stuff dispersed throughout the two castles. One thing I want to ask... why do this when there is no way to interact with any of it? Another thing... why is the room exactly the same in both worlds, which no other room besides save points is? I mean sure, it is fun for completionists like me. Something a little more fun is the Metroidvania-style backtracking for items, which isn't as prevalent in CotM but shines through here. And at least you don't have to farm enemies to do it! The replacement of DSS with a simple magic-book scheme is either a blessing or a curse (or both) depending on how you felt about it. If you wanted lots of abilities, it'll be a bit of a disappointment. If you didn't want to have to farm enemies to get said abilities, not so much.
Anyway, it's not a bad game, but it's the worst of the 3 Castlevanias for GBA and it probably ranks among the worst Castlevanias in the franchise.
Play control: 17/20
Graphics: 12/15
Music: 6/15
Sound effects: 10/10
Level design: 10/10
Balance of challenge: 7/10
Story: 8/10
Fun factor: 7/10
Final score: 77/100 B
Spammers Beware! I will destroy you by the POWAH of the JARK SIDE! ALL SPAMMERS WILL BE EXTERMINATED ON SIGHT.
Spammers EXTERMINATED: 120
(06-11-2022, 10:13 PM)Kyng Wrote: I love how [Abacab] has a track with a section named "Lurker", when the album title itself looks like Lurker's attempt to spell "Abacus" or something .
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