Board 8 > Went through the Castlevania Advance Collection. Never played them before.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Thoughts:

Circle of the Moon - This one almost feels like my favorite even though it kinda sucks. There's major glaring flaws all over the place. Absurdly slow walking speed, double-tap to sprint, the DSS system is cool in theory but a mess in execution, way too many random breakable walls, its high difficulty doesn't really fit with the poor movement options, and your hearts not filling up when you save means you feel bad for using sub-weapons. With that said, I liked the vibe of the game and the map itself, so I still had fun and I almost started up a file on Magician mode until I realized I'd have to remember a bunch of random DSS card combinations.

Harmony of Dissonance - Played this for two hours and bounced off hard due to the visuals and audio. This game looks and sounds terrible, which is a shame because I really liked the dashes being tied to each shoulder button. Very jarring coming from CoM, which had good graphics and music, especially for a GBA game.

Aria of Sorrow - Yeeeah this one is objectively the best. Removes the shitty heart system, Soul system is just DSS but better, movement feels smooth, more weapon options, graphics and audio are on point, and it's even got a kinda-sorta story. Some of the upgrades are lackluster (why are there two related just to underwater shenanigans) and the game is definitely too easy, but if I had to replay one I'd pick AoS in a heartbeat even though I just got done beating it.

Circle of the Moon was notoriously hard to see on the OG unbacklit GBA, and it was a launch title. So for Harmony they overcompensated with the extra bright colors and art style. Worked great then, sadly doesn't translate well to ports now. I still very much enjoyed it last time I played it.

StartTheMachine posted...

Circle of the Moon was notoriously hard to see on the OG unbacklit GBA, and it was a launch title. So for Harmony they overcompensated with the extra bright colors and art style. Worked great then, sadly doesn't translate well to ports now. I still very much enjoyed it last time I played it.

So I just loaded up both games and played a bit of each with minimum brightness, and yeah that actually kind of checks out. Can see why they went that route. Still not a fan of HoD's music though, and something I forgot to mention that I disliked was that its jump is way too floaty.

CotM might actually have better movement than Aria of Sorrow if you didn't have to double tap to sprint. That bit of delay makes its difficult combat feel way worse than it has to.

HoD is a master class in bad level design

Congratulations, 15-20 years later you still basically wound up with the same opinions everyone has about these games

Neat

What do I win

Hey, same here! I powered through them a few months ago when that collection became available. HoD and AoS were new for me, but CotM was a teenage favorite.

I really disliked HoD and powered through for all the trophies only because of neuroticism. The visuals and music were both completely off-putting, and that dual-dimension layout... awful. AoS was a much smoother experience, but I still prefer CotM despite its more glaring flaws. I feel that game has easily my favorite soundtrack, and for whatever reason, the random drops just feel way more satisfying than in the other two games.

Also, collecting every Soul was such a worse grind than collecting every DSS card (but again, that's more of a 'me' problem).

Cotm the best

I thought the grind for both was bad, although it was marginally worse for souls. I didn't complete either collection because it took so long to grab some cards/souls even with save states that I couldn't imagine myself trying to get all of them. RNG drop rates for old games can be heinous time wasters!

Will agree that CotM's soundtrack is great.

I hope after the Rondo of Blood adaptation, Netflix makes a Castlevania show based on Aria of Sorrow. It'd be funny seeing Soma fighting Dracula with modern-day tech.

Just as long as he's not livestreaming the fight on Instagram or something.

Circle of the Moon shows it's age very much but damnit I still like it.

Harmony of Dissonance I beat once and never played again

Aria is easily the smoothest of the three games. It took me so long to get the ectoplasm soul of all things though...

Also Aria could easily have an adaptation like that, though most people won't actually know who Soma Cruz is. People who know anything about games at least recognize the name "Belmont".

Soma's identity would get spoiled for newbies in 0.01 seconds on the internet.

Lemme make a defense of Harmony of Dissonance though, 'cause I really love it (not as much as AoS tho).

HoD's music, graphics, and map design, when looked at individually, are pretty abrasive, dissonant maybe even.

BUT, I dunno, when you put them all together, I really like it!

Sometimes, I kinda want to get lost in a complicated castle with a lot of dead ends and keys--it's why I didn't really like Dread which always locks you into two rooms to make sure you don't have to worry about the entire map.

And I kinda like the feeling of being in a part of the castle where the visuals and sound are a little unsettling, off-putting. A lot of the underground parts of Castlevania 3 feel this way too, I think, especially some of their absurd color palette choices (flourescent colors mixed with super dull colors).

I genuinely find the story pretty creepy too; when I think about this game, Maxim's scary unpredictable behavior is one of the first things I think of, and how in most of the endings of the game, he or Lydia just friggin' die.

So I think that's where the Harmony comes in, sometimes it's cool to make a game where all the pieces are a little displeasing to experience. I think to really be gothic horror, you gotta be a little ugly.

I'm another HoD apologist. I think the game plays pretty well - like the controls and movement and stuff just feel good to me, probably even more so than AoS.

On the other hand I've never cared much for CotM. There's clearly something good there beneath the surface but it really needs a remake to fix the... everything... that's wrong with it.

AoS is good but I played it after DoS so it always felt a little lackluster in comparison.

ya go my soma cruz

Epyo posted...

So I think that's where the Harmony comes in, sometimes it's cool to make a game where all the pieces are a little displeasing to experience. I think to really be gothic horror, you gotta be a little ugly.

I can see this and also feel this way about certain games. This instance just didn't click for me though.

CotM is the best. Awesome bosses, plays like a charm, good challenge, good dose of atmosphere, top tier Dracula battle, solid assortment of post-game extras in the modes and arena.

HoD is actually pretty fun, it's smooth and the music is great. It's real flaw are the bosses, specially coming from CotM.

AoS is good, generally it's serviceable, but I never really felt its protagonist, soul grinding is a bad idea, and Julius carries the game IMO.

Loved circle of the moon as a kid. Shooter mode with the homing dagger was so much fun. So many secret areas.

But yeah aria of sorrow is objectively better

I don't think Aria of Sorrow is objectively better at all, I like Circle of the Moon more just in general

I don't care if it's the greatest game of all time, I ain't double tappin to run

CotM is by far my favorite of the three due to its difficulty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O5Qnmk-CaQ

This song rules, though

oh GOOD CALL that song is one of the best things about cotm. godlike.

haven't heard that smash version, that's very good too. miss the sick bass though. and miss the crash symbol at the climax. that's the best part.

I liked Circle of the Moon a lot, but that's partly due to it being my first Castlevania. Also it was fun experimenting with the DSS system.

Aria of Sorrow was good, but I wish it was just slightly more difficult.

Harmony of Dissonance...I know I've played it, but I honestly have no memory of it. I have no idea whether I beat it or just played for a few hours or what. It's just a total blank space in my memory.

Those ports didn't get shit thrown at them but maybe they should have
I am not sure it's possible to fix HoD graphics easily, but at least add a dash button for CotM