Harmony of Dissonance is a step up from Circle of the Moon. It certainly falls short of Symphony of the Night in a number of areas, but it is simply more fun to play through than Circle of the Moon.
Harmony of Dissonance's shortcomings definitely include the way it looks and sounds, unfortunately. The spritework is nowhere near as good as Circle of the Moon (or Aria of Sorrow, which is the next in the series). The monster sprites that they carried over look fine, but every new sprite I noticed just looks fairly terrible, in terms of both design and animation. The sound effects can be grating at times and the music is at best forgettable but actively annoying for much of the game.
Key/lock mechanics here are definitely more meaningful, with more abilities that actually contribute to your combat and movement options acting as keys. There are a couple that feel bad, with some annoying inventory management involved (crushing whip needs to be equipped to break walls), but much better than Circle of the Moon.
The way the castle opens up is very awkward and unsuccessful. There is an alternate castle that the game tries to hide but also have you travel through before you know it exists, which creates an alternate kind of teleportation room that is a strange one-off. It feels like there are much simpler ways to achieve what the game is going for here. The end result is just confusing and weird, rather than being a cool epiphany.
Navigating the castle itself is much better by the end of the game though -- there are more frequent and more useful teleportation rooms available.
Juste controls much better than Nathan, mainly due to being permanently in run mode and the shoulder buttons dedicated to dashing left or right. This makes using the whip much more manageable and the game itself feel better to play.
The difficulty is tuned way down (too much) and the additional freedom of control makes it even easier. I definitely wasn't challenged throughout the game, unfortunately.
Replacing DSS from Circle of the Moon are spell books. These are just pieces of equipment that alter the function of your subweapon in some significant way. It is interesting enough, and lets you adjust your playstyle somewhat, but the implementation is a bit awkward. They use mana, but don't revert to using hearts when you are out of mana, and the fact that you have to collect a subweapon to see what effect the book will have means experimentation is cumbersome. I found that the daggers are so overpowered that I didn't really need to engage much with this, unfortunately, but it is definitely a cool idea.
If you love Castlevania games, Harmony of Dissonance is probably worth a shot. It is fun enough and easy to play through. I would have trouble recommending this to any but the hardcore fans though. There just isn't enough of real interest or satisfaction here.
Harmony of Dissonance's shortcomings definitely include the way it looks and sounds, unfortunately. The spritework is nowhere near as good as Circle of the Moon (or Aria of Sorrow, which is the next in the series). The monster sprites that they carried over look fine, but every new sprite I noticed just looks fairly terrible, in terms of both design and animation. The sound effects can be grating at times and the music is at best forgettable but actively annoying for much of the game.
Key/lock mechanics here are definitely more meaningful, with more abilities that actually contribute to your combat and movement options acting as keys. There are a couple that feel bad, with some annoying inventory management involved (crushing whip needs to be equipped to break walls), but much better than Circle of the Moon.
The way the castle opens up is very awkward and unsuccessful. There is an alternate castle that the game tries to hide but also have you travel through before you know it exists, which creates an alternate kind of teleportation room that is a strange one-off. It feels like there are much simpler ways to achieve what the game is going for here. The end result is just confusing and weird, rather than being a cool epiphany.
Navigating the castle itself is much better by the end of the game though -- there are more frequent and more useful teleportation rooms available.
Juste controls much better than Nathan, mainly due to being permanently in run mode and the shoulder buttons dedicated to dashing left or right. This makes using the whip much more manageable and the game itself feel better to play.
The difficulty is tuned way down (too much) and the additional freedom of control makes it even easier. I definitely wasn't challenged throughout the game, unfortunately.
Replacing DSS from Circle of the Moon are spell books. These are just pieces of equipment that alter the function of your subweapon in some significant way. It is interesting enough, and lets you adjust your playstyle somewhat, but the implementation is a bit awkward. They use mana, but don't revert to using hearts when you are out of mana, and the fact that you have to collect a subweapon to see what effect the book will have means experimentation is cumbersome. I found that the daggers are so overpowered that I didn't really need to engage much with this, unfortunately, but it is definitely a cool idea.
If you love Castlevania games, Harmony of Dissonance is probably worth a shot. It is fun enough and easy to play through. I would have trouble recommending this to any but the hardcore fans though. There just isn't enough of real interest or satisfaction here.