Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance Preview

By Giancarlo Varanini, GameSpotPosted May 17, 2002 7:12 pm PT

Get the latest details on Konami's next Castlevania game for the Game Boy Advance.

It wasn't really surprising to see Castlevania: Circle of the Moon receive so much praise when it was released alongside the Game Boy Advance in both Japan and North America. After all, it was the closest Konami ever came to delivering a spiritual sequel to the popular PlayStation Castlevania game Symphony of the Night. Indeed, Circle of the Moon even introduced an intriguing new special power system that let you combine various tarot cards to produce various defensive or offensive spells. But there were those who thought that Circle of the Moon was good, but didn't quite match Symphony of the Night because of its stiff controls, poor animation, and relatively bland background graphics.

Some of the levels in Harmony of Dissonance look similar to those in Symphony of the Night.

Recognizing the popularity of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Konami has been hard at work on the next game in the Castlevania series, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. The game is being developed by the original Symphony of the Night team, which is headed by producer Koji Igarashi. When we sat down to play Harmony of Dissonance, Igarashi explained that he thought that Circle of the Moon was good, but he felt that the gameplay wasn't quite up to par with that of Symphony of the Night. In fact, Igarashi went so far as to say that Circle of the Moon was 70 percent graphics and sound and only 30 percent gameplay. He wants Castlevania fans to see Harmony of Dissonance as being 70 percent gameplay and 30 percent graphics and sound.

It's an interesting statement to make, considering the substantial leap in visual quality from Circle of the Moon to Harmony of Dissonance. If you're a fan of Symphony of the Night, then you'll probably notice that the sprite of the main character, Juste Belmont, looks quite similar to that of Alucard's sprite in Symphony of the Night. They even appear to share the same running animation, though admittedly, Juste's running animation isn't quite as smooth.

The graphics in Harmony are significantly improved over those in Circle of the Moon.

The graphical improvements aren't restricted to the main character--the enemies and especially the backgrounds look better than those in Circle of the Moon. One of the first enemies you'll encounter is an enormous (as in filling up half the Game Boy Advance screen) mechanical creature outside the castle walls. Igarashi was quick to point out the individual joint movement on the creature and other large boss-type characters, which provides the enemies with a slightly more realistic look. While you'll still see some repetition, the backgrounds have much more variety than they did in Circle of the Moon, and some actually look as though they were stripped right from Symphony of the Night. Overall, the game looks great, and its use of vibrant colors makes it relatively easy to see under normal lighting conditions, and thankfully so, considering how difficult it could be to see Circle of the Moon if your Game Boy Advance didn't have direct light. It looks as though the Symphony of the Night team has done an excellent job of pushing the Game Boy Advance hardware, and they seem to have reached a point where Harmony of Dissonance not only plays like a true sequel to Symphony of the Night, but also looks like one.

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