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I had played a couple Castlevania games before Symphony Of The Night and wasn't thrilled but that changed after SotN and until Harmony of Dissonance's release, SotN was hard to beat. But along came HoD and boy did it feel like I was playing SotN on the go.
The story is pretty simple at the start, the player plays Juste Belmont and is a friend of Maxim and Lydie. So when Lydie is goes missing in a mysterious castle, both Juste and Maxim split up to search the castle to find Lydie. It gets a bit complicated and boring later on like most Castlevania games.
Really the gameplay is the main attraction and it's a 2D side scroller at its best. Lots of action with both fighting and platforming and having tight usable controls makes whipping, casting, and jumping a breeze.
Circle of the Moon was the previous Castlevania on the GBA and had real flaw of being very dark and made it really hard to see on the GBA. In HoD that problem was solved with colors that simply popped out and showed the capabilities of Nintendo's hardware.
The sound was also top notch for a GBA game with sound FX sounding close to real counter parts and the music being full and rich that gave the game true depth and almost gave SotN's soundtrack a run for its money.
Overall Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is a great game. For fans of Symphony Of The Night it's a must play but for the uninitiated to the Castlevania series it is a great game to start out with.
8/10
