Juste is for sure the best dressed member of the Belmont clan.

I personally think the GBA Castlevanias' quality matches the order they came out in. Harmony sits neatly in the middle. The music bring is down just a bit, but to me wasn't distracting. Circle wasn't QUITE as good, but close. Aria feels like the sequel to SotN, through and through. I've actually played through all three, multiple times. I'm an addict to the Metroidvania formula haha. Great review!

Does anyone else notice that Juste looks a LOT like Alucard?

Some tracks of Harmony are still worth it, some examples are: "Offense and Defense" or "Vampire Killer 2002".

The music was an attempt to emulate the VRC6 soundchip

Even though the quality of the sounds for the music in this game is kinda low. The composition is excellent, Juste Theme at the start is my favourite song on any castlevania game.

Atleast Harmony Of Dissonance's OST is original and not a recyclevania music. While the quality is bad in lots of people's opinions which don't I actually like, the music is still well composed. Also I love the authentic GBA sound chip. If HOD was a nes game, no body would complain. So it's basically you're playing Shovel Knight on 3DS..

I did not enjoy playing this part of the franchise but I will give it another try. COTM and SOTN are superior in every respect.

I know this is an old video, but I had to comment. This is one of the more fair and balanced reviews I’ve watched for HoD. I love this game. People make WAY too big a deal about the music. To me it suits the tone of the game and reminds me of the NES CV ost’s, which are amazing despite being 8 bit. It might have sounded jarring at the time for ppl expecting updated sounding arrangements, but the compositions themselves are solid, just a bit dated sounding at the time I guess. But at this point it’s all retro, so I don’t get why ppl are still hung up on it. Also, not sure what ppl find so confusing about the map. I was able to 200% the game my first play thru with minimal backtracking. Just go to the uncolored spots on both maps to see what you missed. Not that confusing 🤷🏻‍♂️ I personally find CotM’s layout far more annoying with so many vertical platforming sections and repeated enemies with dull backgrounds. (Still like CotM too tho) IMO it’s AoS>HoD>CotM

Nice review! I'm pretty sure I played this one but, wow, now it's been so long. You have some good things to say about it though so it'd be nice to revisit. Also, I probably didn't pay much attention to the music back then on the GBA, but you have some good points. It's a shame this doesn't carry that same level of quality. It's not terrible, but you absolutely expect more from the music in a Castlevania title.

Well you spent plenty of time bashing the music :P I will say that I really enjoy most of it. "Offense and Defense" track being my favorite. I just think the music fit the mood for the game which was a gritty, gross, Castlevania adventure. I was surprised when I first played it that they went with an oldschool gameboy audio. I'm a sucker for chip tunes though, so I am biased! I've only played the NES, SNES, PC Engine, SOTN and the GBA Castlevania games. This game was an excellent example of the 2D Castlevanias that I much prefer. I tried Castlevania 64 a few times, but I just can't get into it. I never owned a Nintendo DS. Missing out on the titles there. I heard they were quite excellent too. This game was a lot of fun. I totally blew through it when I got my hands on this and the other GBA titles. Aria of Sorrow was amazing... Looks like you reviewed that one too. AWESOME :)

you talked about it being a notch easier, from the other games, I think becasue of the fluid combat that it had, the simple whip combined with the backward forward Dash, helps you close distance and run away really quick from enemy attack helped the combat be more accessable and easy to learn, this is what gave the player the Edge in combat.

I would say this game has the most creative enemies like the Simon Wraith

I just beat it 200% and I've got to say that this was a solid game. Compared to CotM, the visuals, animations, moveset, gameplay, and difficulty balancing were all big improvements imo. The spell book and sub weapon combos were also much better than the card system of the last game. Not to mention, Juste having one of the best dashes I've ever used in a 2D Platformer/MetroidVania makes traversing both castles very quick. The collectibles for Juste's room was also a nice touch for completionists like me. However, the experience wasn't perfect. I thought the screen was a bit too far zoomed in on Juste. I also wasn't a huge fan of the music. Also, some of the parts of vlad were hidden a little too well for my tastes (mainly the two connected to save rooms), and some key items are deceptively presented as standard equipment, leading to a couple of moments where I was stuck. However, the biggest offense I had with the game was the two castle system. It just felt like filler as the mechanic of changing one thing in Castle B to affect Castle A wasn't done enough to warrant all of that additional backtracking. The two castles are also identical in layout with the exception of color palette, enemies, collectibles, and bosses, making traversing through the other castle tedious after exploring a new area. Thankfully, it wasn't enough to hamper the experience as Juste's speed and the hunt for all of the game's collectibles in both castles softened the blow of what would have otherwise been a tedious addition to the game. I think I would have preferred Konami to just expand the first castle and remove the connections to the second (or make the second castle its own thing like in SotN where it was flipped upside down and required no backtracking to the OG castle). Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed HoD. I like it better than CotM, but it doesn't quite live up to SotN. I haven't played AoS yet, but that's next on my list.

I barely remember anything about this game. At all. I beat it to completion out of some sense of fanboy duty but I didn’t enjoy it in the slightest and I’ve never touched it again. The music was an issue, but I just remember it being a tedious confusing slog.

I found the dashing to be the bane while playing this title it drove me mad and leading to a lot of deaths and after you meet death and maxim to link both castles via warp rooms but this was my first castlevania game to ever beat then following arria of sorrow so that's a plus for me. I'm playing this on Wii U again to get ready for castlevania requiem for ps4 so I can be more comfortable paying syompany of the night this Halloween cool review.

Glad ai found somebody who feels strongly about Castlevania music. I have been thinking about these soundtracks. I think the problem with Harmony of Dissonance, fundamentally, is the heavy use of musical dissonance. It is a solid game I like very much. Musical dissonance is known to elicit ill feelings in people, and mimicking 8 Bit music with heavy dissonance probably sounded like a good idea. It is meant to harken back to the horror themes of the original games (right down to the Belmont main charactet) which were designed to be somewhat offputting to make the player feel more overwhealmed. This pairing in a Metroidvania style game is, unfortunately, ill suited for the soundtrack because the player has to inhabit that world for great lengths of time. The oppressive music isn't so immersive as merely aurally offensive. I rather wish there had been a subplot about Dracula's minion using music to manipulate the characters. Then it would break the fourth wall as that minion attempts to break the player's drive to beat the game.

The music is compositionally sound.

Can anyone help I've been trying to decide on either harmony of dissonance or circle of the moon for my gba but I can't decide on which one I should get

A four year old review video? Why tf not! 👍🏼 I gotta get my Castlevania fix somewhere lol. The map was a freaking mess in this game, in my opinion. The music? It wasn't all that bad. I mean, Juste's theme is pretty freaking cool. Especially the credits version 🙏🏼 I thought combining the spell books along with the elements was quite enjoyable, too. Thanks Wes 👍🏼

That filtering though. Go into your emulator options. There should be one for filtering, bilinear, trilinear, or whatever. Disable all that crap so it doesn't look like a child smeared colors all over the game.

I remember a shitty time in my life where I had no system, no handheld only a smartphone. I had a gba emulator and a ps1 emulator and the gba games I had other than Pokémon were the Castlevania ones. These were really good games, and not even just for gba but in general. I couldn't believe how close to SOTN they were.

Have you played any of the Lecarde Chronicles games made by fan creator Migami Games?

My likes did register, so I'm not sure what to tell ya. Nice videos!

This game is great, other than the map. Woof. That thing is a mess. I’ve never had an issue getting through other Castlevania maps like Symphony of The Night or Aria of Sorrow, but Harmony’s is such a chore to navigate. Backtracking is a total slog. The design just seems so… random. Like there’s no rhyme or reason to it’s layout. It’s a shame too, because the game is really good otherwise.

U spent way too much time on the music

Juste is so powerfull once you get the Gradius shields spell it wrecks everything

Aria of Sorrow > Harmony of Dissonance > Circle of the Moon Circle of the Moon is by far da worst💀

I l o v e. How This guy got torn up by a poor OST. Castlevania really did set some high standards.

The music is subpar for Castlevania standards . However it's Vampire Killer remix is amongst my very favorite.

I really couldn't get into this one. Something about the 2 castle layout really threw me for a loop and I hadn't returned since. I didn't beat Circle of the Moon either despite getting up to Dracula. I think it may be time to fire up the ol' GBA emulator and give these 2 a go again. BTW, although this game was a follow up to Circle of the Moon, it wasn't a sequel to it. It was actually a sequel to Simon's Quest.

Just listen to some van halen bra while you rock the SP😉

Harmony’s music is jazzy and avant garde, I love it. And Juiced is clearly peaking on mushrooms. Great game.

Harmony of Dissonance graphic are the most impressive out of the 3 Castlevania games but the music suffers. Aria of Sorrow struck the perfect balance with its graphics and music with great gameplay and that great story twist as the end......definitely the best GBA Castlevania out of the 3 GBA games.

I just replayed this today after decades, and here's my issue with it: 1.) The soundtrack, even if played by an actual orchestra, is not that good except for the Marble Gallery. It's not only bad sound quality, it's also bad composition. It's one of the poorest Castlevania soundtracks. 2.) This game requires way too much back and forth. Even if you know what you're doing, it's still a lot of backtracking. It's easy to get lost the first time playing t or if you haven't played it awhile. A lot of it is bad game design. 3.) The boss fights are WAYYYY too easy. I did the same exact strategy to every boss including Dracula. All you have to do is use the Cross mixed with the Wind book. Once you run out of MP, go nuts with the boomerang subweapon. Every. Boss. Goes. Down. Like. Wet. Tissue. Paper. using this method. 4.) The graphics aren't actually good outside of the Gameboy Advance's tiny screen. When you replay both Circle of the Moon and Harmony on an actual TV-sized screen, Circle of the Moon's graphics look way better. Harmony's graphics look very stretch and pixelated. 5.) The stupid shop system. Even number hearts. Odd number levels. All to buy some potions? Worst store system ever. 6.) While the spellbook system is very, very useful, it is also incredibly boring and simplistic. I would hardly call it a system.

The speaker on the GBA was awful. It had nothing on the original GB speaker.

The only bad part of the review is that he said the furniture was just for fun

It's funny that main game has one of worse soundtracks in series, but hidden mode has the best, loved one tracks from NES era :d

Am I the only one who actually like the authentic GBA sound chip?

WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE. ps good job

ok we get it the music sucks.

I find it super annoying that you also choose to use the worst song in the game for 80% of the video. I find most of the soundtrack to be pleasant enough in atleast its melodies, though the music for the castle top floor and treasure is unbelievably overused

I thought the graphics were unsightly at best, bland at worst. Also, why did Juste have a blue outline? He looked like a bad MS Paint copy/paste job.

This dude literally spent over half the video complaining about the music. For god's sake just turn the volume off.

I'm playing this for the first time in 2020 and I literally have it on mute. Also Aria is a way better designed game than this garbage

circle of the moon graphics weren't very good for GBA. lol, this was one of the worst graphics titles. aria of sorrow destroys this. "harmony of despair" lol.