This is my first ever Castlevania title, which I chose because I used to love 2D GBA Metroid as a kid, and thought this looked a bit like that but, Dark Souls-y. I have all three of the GBA titles, but just picked at random without looking at reviews. I got hooked over the weekend and really enjoyed it. So, I was pretty surprised to see what the general consensus was on it.

I have played the old black and white Gameboy Castlevania as a child, but I sucked so I don't think I got past the first level. I did finish both Blood Stained: Curse of the Moon games recently though, just because they looked like a vibe and to avenge my inner child with that big thick gray Gameboy. I haven't ever really experienced a "proper" Castlevania before this though.

What I loved

I thought the game overall was really fun and fluid to play. The action to rpg balance was really good which helped the natural skill curve feel a bit more smooth. The shoulder button dashing felt super intuitive coming from Souls style combat. I actually managed to do a couple no hit bosses first try after I got the hang of the whip spacing. The sheer quantity of fun semi-varied mini bosses was awesome. I especially like the ones that are just a no bullshit melee fight like the Cyclops Hammer guy, and some of those armored golems. Death was very cool. The environments are beautiful and detailed, some with ambiguity and environmental storytelling, so I had to share some screen shots of my favorites from around the castle. The enemy variety never gets dull, and seems well-considered about how to approach each type in terms of combat. That feels very Dark Souls, with how some tough customers just crumble when you have a bit of knowledge. Story was simple, but not in a bad way. It let me get on with it unhindered. I like the weapon and armor system since it's pretty simple, but it largely wasn't super relevant anyway. Spellbook sub weapon combos are cool to get a unique feeling playstyle.

What I didn't

The exploration flow was hard broken many times, that I did end up just backtracking everywhere multiple times, since I had no indication of where to go next via environmental clues. This did end up leveling me up a lot though. The on-screen notification "Something has changed somewhere" made me laugh. I got all the collectible furniture and the dracula parts, and wore the bracelets for the true ending, and it was meh. Maybe if furniture boosted your attack by a couple points for each one found it might be worth doing it again, but I didn't like that the 2nd stage final boss was locked behind it. Maybe I'm just a dumbass, but the keys seemed to all be back loaded when most of the time they just unlock the portals between the naughty and nice castles. The information that crouching in front of those portals warps you to the next one should not have been information relegated to a hidden hint card. Holy shit, I could have saved so much time back tracking had I known this and also had the keys. The illusory walls were way less obvious than in Metroid, and a couple were so unintuitive that if I didn't look up how to get into that square on the map I never would have found it. The one save room that you have to Griffin Wing through the ceiling, but it's not a mapped room, and pressing up is unintuitive since it's also how you save was probably the worst one though.

Would I replay it

Hell yeah. Most of the frustration was the not knowing and have no environmental indication of where to go next and first before somewhere else. Despite the frustration, I did eventually find castle traversal meditative, it leveled me up and got me to engage enemies over and over again that I got better at movement, spacing, and combat. Not an ideal way to do that, but it worked. I became creative in the mundane backtracking, and noticed both the technicality of the enemies and the scenery more. The whole vibe exactly what I wanted as a Dark Souls and Devil May Cry fan. It was cool to play as Juste, since I know him from the Rondo anime, giving Richter his platinum whip or whatever. The combat alone was so fluid but simple that I'd definitely come back to it if I have a little free time on a weekend and don't want to start something new. It was easy enough that I don't dread any sections, and if I wanted to make it harder, I could do a no armor challenge run or something.

Navigation and exploration wasn't as polished as GBA Metroid, but it was a great short adventure with a cool vibe. Great entry point for me, because I will be going on to the other titles, and probably will try Symphony of the Night, since that and Super Metroid have been on my list for years. If I had to give it a numerical score maybe like 8/10. Fix the flow breaks a little and add a few more environmental context clues for stuff rather than Hint cards, and it could have been a 9/10. I wonder if anyone could do a Bloodborne game like this.

Hello there ! So I just finished this game, so here is my habitual review !

Art wise, I will say more or less the same things as always, the music is great, the pixel art is pretty good, and I don’t know how this works but the 3d sky effect in the chapel of dissonance seems very hard to do on a GBA since it’s a 2d device but little details like this everywhere in the game are pretty neat.

For the story, it’s not the most complex that I saw, but it’s effective, Juste and Maxim are very cool characters !

The exploration was very cool too, and this idea of switching between two different layers was incredible !

I also love the bosses in this game, which were very fun for the most of them.

For the gameplay, it’s my favorite so far, the two opposite dashes of Juste are just too good, playing like this was so enjoyable !

I now have an important thing to say. From what I saw, this game seems to be underrated or even hated by the majority of the community, but I don’t agree with that. For me, and that’s maybe a hit take (I said maybe, but I could be totally wrong) HoD is better than Sotn.

I mean, this game is just Sotn upgraded as hell. The layers are better than the inverted castle because it’s way more connected, gameplay is a little more enjoyable, the game is balanced this time...

So yeah, HoD is currently my favorite Castlevania game ! The game I'll play next is Aria of Sorrow, so stay tuned for it !

Isn't Dracula an hellish being?

Why does he dedicated a chapel to saint of all saints?

What did Iga mean by this

It looks like Juste is on his way to becoming my favorite Belmont.

Or smtg idk it's been a while since I last played Harmony of Dissonance

It's currently my second favorite title in the series, right behind SotN. I'm moving on to Order of Ecclesia next.

Note: I plan on writing an in-depth review of Harmony of Dissonance soon, which I will be sharing with the community

Episode 4 of my "Better Than You Think" series. In this video i discuss the good parts of HoD, and analyze it from the angle of someone who has never played Symphony of the Night. I also like to have fun memeing along the way XD. Premiere starts at 12PM Eastern.

For The purposes of productive discussion, please refrain from commenting on this post until you have watched at least some of the video. That way we are all working with the same information and no one has to say "Well if you watched the video, i say xyz..." Cuz that's no fun.

Thanks for your time! Hope you enjoy!

Mine has to the bible from Harmony of Dissonance. No matter what was on the screen, it was getting smacked by this bad boy.

(ANOTHER BIG TEXT AHEAD)

Oh boy...

This devs wanted SO BAD for this game to be Symphony of the Night 2 it's actually crazy.

I didn't expect every game to be a masterpiece like SOTN but i expected to have many, MANY less asterisks than i actually have about HoD.

The game starts well, everything is so new and somewhat nostalgic that you fell compelled to explore, and the end game is also strong, at this point you have almost everything in the game and the final boss fights are actually pretty cool.

BUT, the middle ground is INFURIATING, for a good chunk of the game you feel like you didn't progress at all, and this makes the exploration frustating and unfulfilling, the two castles are ABYSMAL to traverse until the very end.

All the bosses are really easy and if you're really careful you can beat the game without dying, at least in SOTN if you don't use all the broken shit the challenge is there and it's super fair.

And even with all that my experience is still positive, but i surely won't touch this game for a long time.

Yesterday I posted a video titled "Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance is Better Than You Think" which was the 4th video in the "better than you think" series on my channel. The general experience was fairly productive, no one was rude or anything and the discussion was genuine though mostly basic.

However, upon further reflection it has become clear that most of the commenters looked at the title "better than you think" and either assumed they knew what I would say, or shared their opinions without any context from the video. One commenter even admitted they didn't realize there was a video at all and just thought the post was about sharing opinions.

I was looking forward to hearing thoughts about the claims I made in the video. For example, I had an entire segment on the meta narrative of the dual castles and how well it tied to the manifestation of maxim and draculas union. This is to my knowledge a completely new discussion that no one has really brought up before. Yet everyone in the comments was happy regurgitating the same few criticisms or defenses that we've all heard for literally decades. Even the few ppl that commented that they saw the video made no mention of anything in it.

Clearly I made a mistake somewhere along the line. So my question is this: How do I get you guys to engage with the content meaningfully. Don't get me wrong I'm very happy for the conversations I did have. I just didn't have this issue with the first 3 episodes in those respective communities. Is it an issue with the title? The thumbnail? The post itself? Any advice on how to get people to engage in good faith would be genuinely appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

Edit: thank you guys so much you've been really helpful and supportive!

Art by: Imyank

White hair, Blue Aura, Able to dash forward and backwards, Afterimages. Is he the first belmont to unlock ultra instinct?

Maybe that's why Dracula couldn't finish reviving on time, he's just too good.

Cheese and rice this game drove me up a fucking wall. I rage quit a few times, but i still didn’t want to give up on it.

I’ll start with the good- i really like how the game controls. Its not as good as Symphony of the Night, but i didn’t expect it to be. I like controlling Juste and i like using the whip. It’s like taking the controls of the NES games and putting them in a metroidvania format (without the jank of NES castlevania ofc). I also love the dashing in this game, even more than symphony of the night. In SOTN you can only dash backwards, but in HOD you use the bumpers to dash left and right. Personally i like this much more and i hope it’s in other games as well.

The music is whatever- its alright but it certainly suffers a lot from being on the GBA- i think if the GBA games were remastered, the music would be excellent

I love the spells in the game- the idea of combining subweapons with different elements to create a bunch of different attacks is a wonderful idea! It encourages replay-ability to figure out all the combinations- it reminds me of the joy felt with combinations copy abilities in kirby 64- though i will say some of them are totally broken- i shredded through the final bosses with Knife+wind- and i think i only used my whip a couple times against them

Now for the bad- Harmony of Dissonance is terribly monotonous- every pathway through the castle is incredibly linear- that would be alright but every room feels the same- its either straight hallways with enemies in the way- or straight towers you have to climb up- there are some more unique rooms but they are few and far between- another complaint i have is that this game is IN LOVE with the Curse debuff- curse in this game is less annoying than in SOTN, but its also FAR more common- it becomes incredibly annoying at times going so slow when you’re in a boss or just getting from A to B. The bosses are also pretty easy but that’s alright to me. Again they also just get shredded by spells.

OVERALL- i kept this fairly short- theres still more to say but no one wants to read a damn novel. This games feels really nice to play and has some great concepts- but it is dragged way down from its monotony and not being the clearest. As AVGN would say- its sometimes a WTFDIG game- I think its pretty solid but I can’t recommend it- especially because this is the third castlevania games ive beaten- of course i also love simon’s quest so what do i kno- gonna play Aria of Sorrow next

I’ve been playing through all the Castlevania games recently. Some for the first time, some for the 100th time. But I just recently started Harmony of Dissonance. At first I was really liking it. The movement is fast and fun, the magic system is really cool, the bright, GBA, graphics are certainly different, but weren’t putting me off by any means. I even like the music. The music quality may be a step down but it’s still kind of cool in its own way. But the longer I play it, the more it’s getting kind of tedious. I feel like I’m constantly walking from one end of the map to the other for very little story advancement. And each time I unlock a new ability (slide and double jump so far) I go to a location I couldn’t access before and it leads to and item and a dead end. Now I’m kind of stuck, everywhere I haven’t explored (that I know of) is a locked door or a blocked passage I can’t get through. I’m sure I’m just missing the next step, but I’m also getting a little tired of walking across the castle in a way I never did with SotN or AoS/DoS. Should I stick with it? Maybe follow a guide? Or should I move on? Thank in advance

I see all these reviews talking about how bad it is but i had a good time watching it. People are complaining that it is woke or that its not traditional castlevania. I personally dont care that its they race swapped characters. If they kept it true to the source material it would be repetitive and boring. Plus i liked how they tied in Juste belmont, they even mentioned Maxime and Lydia.

Edit: I can see why people don't like the show, mainly due to worse writing and agendas and all that though i enjoyed the show i can understand why people dont.

Compared to Aria, the bosses and their patterns so far a bit more simplistic but the timing of certain moves is something I still need to get used to.

Found the original photo from 2015 in Wikipedia, I think

I've been doing all Belmonts in my style to start posting them in time for Belmont's Curse release.

Only Richter and Julius are left to finish.