Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

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Castlevania: Double Pack redirects here. For the second game included, see Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Developer(s)	KCET
Publisher(s)	Konami
Release date(s)	June 6, 2002 September 16, 2002 October 11, 2002
Genre(s)	Action-adventure game
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Teen CERO: 12+ ELSPA: 11+ PEGI: 12+ (Double Pack)
Platform(s)	Game Boy Advance
Media	64-megabit cartridge

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (commonly abbreviated HoD) is a video game created by Konami for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance system. It was originally released in Japan in 2002 under the title Castlevania: Hakuya no Concerto (Castlevania 白夜の協奏曲, Kyassuruvwnia Hakuya no Konteruto^?, Castlevania: White Night Concerto or Concerto of the Midnight Sun), and is part of the Castlevania series. Harmony of Dissonance is set in 1748, and stars Juste Belmont, a member of the legendary Belmont family of vampire hunters.

Contents 1 Storyline 2 Gameplay 3 Graphics 4 Enemies 5 Music 6 Reception 7 Trivia 7.1 Re-release

[edit] Storyline

Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance is chronologically set 50 years after Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and 44 years before Demon Castle Dracula X: Rondo of Blood.

Two years prior to the game's beginning, Maxim Kischine left on a training expedition in order to cope with his self doubt after Juste Belmont was chosen over him to receive the legendary whip of the Belmont Clan, the Vampire Killer. Two years later, Maxim returned from his training expedition, badly wounded and with startling news: a childhood friend of Juste and Maxim by the name of Lydie Erlanger had been kidnapped. Maxim had also lost a great deal of his memory of the events of the past 2 years. Even so, he was able to lead Juste to the site of the disappearance, where they encountered a castle that hadn't been there previously. Juste hurried into the castle as Maxim recuperated in the entry way, promising to join Juste later.

As the story unfolds, Juste discovers that Maxim, in his eagerness to prove himself, had attempted to emulate the actions of Simon Belmont; he had gathered Dracula's remains in an attempt to resurrect the Dark Count, so that he could defeat Dracula himself. Something went wrong, and Maxim himself was possessed by the spirit of Dracula. Knowing this, Juste set out to collect the remains himself so that he could destroy them in order to save both Maxim and Lydie.

After locating Lydie and the remains, Juste once again confronts Maxim, who has once again been overcome by Dracula's spirit. After Juste defeats Maxim, Dracula seizes the opportunity to escape Maxim's body and reform himself. Juste manages to defeat the Count in battle, but without Dracula's dark pressence, the castle begins to crumble. Juste, Lydie and Maxim escape with their lives.

There are 3 endings to the game:

- Best Ending (Juste, Lydie and Maxim escape)

This ending is acquired by defeating Maxim in Castle B while wearing the JB and MK bracelets, then defeating the two forms of the Dracula Wraith. In order to reach Maxim in Castle B, you must have all of Dracula's remains.

- Normal ending (Only Juste and Lydie escape)

This ending is acquired by defeating Maxim in Castle A.

- Bad ending (Only Juste escapes)

This ending is acquired by fighting Maxim in Castle B without having the two bracelets equipped.

[edit] Gameplay

Gameplay in Harmony of Dissonance follows the model established in the series' "reinvention" with the release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. At heart the game is a 2D action-adventure with level design based on similar principles to the Metroid series. The player collects new equipment and skills by exploring the game's castle setting and fighting increasingly powerful enemies and bosses, leading up to a climactic encounter with the castle's master.

Defeating minor enemies and bosses will procure experience points for Juste, and he will level up, similarly to most RPGs, when the statistical requirements are met. Occasionally, Juste will kill an enemy, and they will produce a set of armor for Juste's chest, arms, legs, or face. Equipment can also be found scattered about in corners of the castle. These items will contribute to the main character's stats, such as his attack power, and magic power.

Juste primarily attacks at close quarters using the series' traditional whip weapon, the Vampire Killer, which can be brandished to deflect projectile attacks, reminiscent of Simon Belmont's usage of the weapon in the Super Nintendo game, Super Castlevania IV.

A variety of ranged sub-weapons are available, one of which can be carried at any given time. Using a sub-weapon drains the player's supply of "Hearts", available by smashing lamps and candlabras found in the castle. Once no hearts are left or required number of hearts to use the sub-weapon are not available, the sub-weapon may no longer be used.

Harmony of Dissonance distinguishes its gameplay from that of its predecessors through a new magic system, which is displayed very similarly in the 2003 release of the PlayStation 2 game, Castlevania: Lament of Innocence. Various spell books are hidden throughout the castle, and combining any of these with any of the sub-weapons will provide the player with a new magic attack far more potent than the sub-weapon itself. This drains a separate stock of Magic Points (MP), instead of hearts.

Unique to Harmony of Dissonance is the forward dash move. By pressing one of the shoulder buttons (depending on which side the player is facing), Juste will dash forward with a short burst of speed. Symphony of the Night had the backward dash move, but Harmony of Dissonance adds a forward variation as well, which is also gained in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow as the soul of an enemy.

Juste will also, like Symphony of the Night, gain certain Relics through exploration of the Castle's areas, which will help him to reach previously inaccessible areas, and also gain new moves to add to his repertoire; an example of these is the Griffin's Wing, which allows Juste to utilize the super-jump that Alucard uses in Symphony of the Night, thus allowing the player to scale high cliffs and ledges. Other items include the Crushing Stone, which allows Juste to charge energy into the whip (if the player holds down B), and release a powerful shockwave that can destroy stone barriers. However, since the attack requires the player to hold B to charge it up, it precludes the use of the whip-brandishing move.

The castle in Harmony of Dissonance is actually made up of two castles, one that is in the physical world, and one in the spiritual world. The use of parallel worlds is comparable to another Konami franchise, Silent Hill, but is most similar to the Light and Dark Worlds of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Structurally, each side the castle has the mostly the same room layout, but monster types, items, and other aspects vary between the two versions, with the difficulty of the spirit world castle typically being harder than that for the physical world. Initially, the player can use special warp rooms that connect one part of one version of the castle to a different part of the other castle, but later unlocks rooms that warp to the same location in either version of the castle.

Harmony of Dissonance has a much more corridor-like structure than its GBA predecessor: the spaces the player has to work their way through are tight and maze-like. Zig-zagging is a common motif - almost an encouragement to use the dash mechanic. As it is also focused very much on action, many straight hallways are incorporated. The overall design of the castle is an open-ended style, allowing users to take paths in a different order each time they play the game. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the viewpoint, HoD has very little in terms of secret rooms and breakable walls, which is somewhat of an oddity, seeing how the previous games of similar nature contained so many of them. There are also stores throughout the castle for the player to acquire potions, armor, and other useful items in play, though some stores require that the player has met certain conditions for them to be available.

[edit] Graphics

The game uses a wider range of techniques that most players noted being non-apparent in its predecessor, Circle of the Moon. Critics hammered CotM for being too dark to see on the screen of the handheld, and HoD goes in the opposite direction by presenting brighter colours and special enemy attacks, as well as greater distinction in between areas. Minor details, such as odd paintings in the Clock Tower, contribute to a more horrifying game. Complex parallactic effects are also used, as are occasional flashes of lightning and and other graphical effects.

HoD also employs multi-jointed creatures and rotating sprites, and its animations are also significantly more complex than its predecessor's.

Despite all of this, HoD's graphics still have been criticized by some players for employing too many greys and reds, and also for the general murkiness of the main characters' sprites. Rumors have circulated claiming this could be due to the game being resized after originally being developed for a home console, although it is more likely that certain sprites (such as Maxim's) were simply taken from SotN, scaled down and recoloured).

[edit] Enemies

Like SotN, the game draws heavily from previous games for its enemy selection. Nearly sixty of the castle's inhabitants have been drawn from SotN, and, consequently, the Japanese-only Demon Castle Dracula X: Rondo of Blood.

Due to the game being created on a system with much less of a capacity to handle the myriads of details seen in SotN, HoD's reuse of the characters is noticeably different. Resolutions have been downgraded to fit the requirements of the game's space, and some enemies have lost the use of some of their previous repertoire of attacks. Some have not been so much drawn blatantly from prior creations, as have been upgraded. Castlevania 3's Owls make a return in a much more impressive fashion, coincidentally, only inhabiting the game's graveyard.

HoD's new enemies are possibly the oddest denizens yet seen in a Castlevania game, and contribute further to the horrific influences of the game. Their designs have been described as occult and indefinable at times.

The legion of bosses is also drawn from previous games in most cases. SotN's Legion/Granfalloon beast makes a return, though in a less gigantic fashion, as does Castlevania 3's Skull Knight. The multi-form boss, Shadow, could even be described as being similar to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening's final boss in its concept. Despite the reuse of ideas, HoD's bosses have been praised highly for allegedly displaying some of the best character graphics for the handheld.

[edit] Music

The music written by Soshiro Hokkai is certainly HoD's most heavily disputed area.

Most of the outcry against the game's soundtrack is due to the use of the GBA's PSG channels, unlike Circle of the Moon, which uses PCM.[1] (The GBA's PSG channels were originally intended to provide compatibility with older Game Boy games.)

The second component of this controversy is the actual melodic compositions themselves. The music is quite unconventional and gloomy; it ends up being almost depressing at points. The way the instruments are utilized also has provided some source of discomfort for people; the songs are quite heavily layered with multiple melodies, and this sometimes (ironically) gives a feeling of dissonance.

Despite the general dislike for the music, some players have been known to readily defend the songs, and also to proclaim the soundtrack to contain some of the best the series has yet had, such as Juste's theme, "Successor of Fate,", the Marble Corridor's "Offense and Defense" and the Chapel's theme, "Chapel of Dissonance."

A persistent false rumor is that Mana, guitarist of Moi dix Mois and Malice Mizer, composed the music for this game. In fact, Mana did not write any music that appears in the game itself; he only wrote a promotional cell phone ringtone "La nuit blanche". This ringtone was only released in Japan.

In an interview, Igarashi stated that this was the first time his development team (KCE Tokyo) had made anything for the GBA, and they had no idea of the system's capabilities. (Circle of the Moon was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe, an entirely different team.)

[edit] Reception

Most reviewers and players criticized the way the dual-castle mechanic was handled, and claimed it to be needlessly convoluted.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Trivia

• In the Cave of Skeletons, several background details make references to other games in the series; most notably, the large statue, reminiscent of Dracula's final form in Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, another statue which is clearly intended to resemble Camilla's mask (Vampira) from Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, the skeletons of the duo from Super Castlevania 4, Slogra and Gaibon, and also a skeleton of a Medusa.

• There is a monster found late in the game called the Simon Wraith. It's dressed as the original Castlevania hero and wields a whip and acts just like the actual Simon Belmont in the original Castlevania, including poses for attacking and when defeated. However, in Japanese, its name was "Shimon," which is how "Simon" is written in Japanese. The kanji literally means "Gates of Death." This is a type of pun unique to the Japanese language. The whip-swinging skeletons are also referred to as the "Gates of Death" in the English Castlevania 3 manual.

• There are a few items that refer to characters from older Castlevania games. Sypha's Crystal will increase your MP recovery rate, while Christopher's Soul is a whip attachment that will let you shoot fireballs from the whip when your health is full (like the old Game Boy games). However, these names were changed for the American release.

• The menu screen music is a remix of the name entry screen in the Famicom disk version of Castlevania. The Game Over music is also from the first two Game Boy games.

• The Thunder and Bible Spell Fusion will create two glowing energy orbs which float in front of you and block enemy attacks. You can also run them into enemies to directly damage them, but the orbs can only take about 16 hits, and they shrink to reflect how much energy is left. This Spell Fusion is pretty much a replica of the early form of the Shield power-up from Gradius, Konami's prolific shooter series. It even uses two sound effects from the first Gradius game; the power-up confirm sound is heard upon activating the spell, and the shot impact sound is heard when something hits the shields.

• When Juste halts on a sloping surface, or lands from a fall, he'll assume the pose displayed by the older games' protagonists (Simon Belmont, Trevor Belmont, etc.).

• The keyholes that warp Juste around the castle are the same ones found in Castelvania: Symphony of the Night. Also the gate that warps Juste between Castles A and Castle B is the same one that Doppelganger 10 used to enter Alucard's world.

[edit] Re-release

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance was re-released in North America in January of 2006, along with Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, as part of Castlevania Double Pack. Both games are contained on a single GBA Game Pak. This pack also appeared in Europe later that year.

v • d • e Castlevania series

Castlevania • Vampire Killer • Simon's Quest • Haunted Castle • The Adventure • Dracula's Curse • Belmont's Revenge • Super Castlevania IV • Chronicles • Chi no Rondo • Bloodlines • Dracula X • Symphony of the Night • Legends • Castlevania (N64) • Legacy of Darkness • Circle of the Moon • Harmony of Dissonance • Aria of Sorrow • Lament of Innocence • Dawn of Sorrow • Curse of Darkness • Portrait of Ruin Kid Dracula • Characters • Sorrow characters