Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is the second installation of Castlevania on the GBA, and it continues to provide what people have come to expect from Castlevania.
Full Review
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance Review
By, Charles Crosgriff II
Backdrop
.hack Part 1 Infection (Dot Hack) begins with a bang. Something disastrous happens to your character‘s real world friend, while innocently playing a 20 million-subscriber base, wildly popular online RPG game (MMORPG), The World. To unravel the mystery of your friend’s misfortune, you become an online, ingame rogue hacker, exploring every corner of The World, even some virus-infected ones.
The hero is armed with the special skills of Data Drain and Gate Hack, and some colorful, talented fellow adventurers to fill the two other available party slots. Different adventurers must accompany you depending on the plot‘s development. You have some control over the others in your party, including upgrading them through trades or gifts. You can play only a single class, Twin Blade. Other characters are from different classes, with varied strengths and weaknesses, from a mage type (Wavemaster) to a bully (Heavy Axeman).
Gameplay
Gameplay takes place in three principal areas – towns, fields, and dungeons. Towns house The World’s servers. There, the player can save the game, buy magic scrolls and useful and unique items, store items, buy equipment, and talk and trade with lots of other players in character online. One town has an unusual ranch to check out, a patent homage to an enduring feature of just about every Final Fantasy.
The town’s Chaos Gate provides instant teleportation to a particular wide-open Field, containing monster encounter hotspots, a mystical spring, treasure, and lots of mysterious food. You enter three distinct keywords, some known at the game‘s onset, and others learned through play. Whatever keywords are entered, the difficulty level of the destination is helpfully revealed. This prevents a low-level party from being massacred. Once the keywords are entered, you travel through the Chaos Gate. (You can enter specific keywords learned to continue the plot, do side quests, or do unlimited exploring. Or, you can instruct the Gate to enter random keywords, and take your chances. There‘s also an option to enter any keywords you wish from a word list.) Every Field houses a single Dungeon. The dungeons, where you spend much of the game fighting for your life, are not overly large in size, and always range between three and five average levels.
Many have compared Dot Hack to Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II (PSO) on the Gamecube. Let us gently discredit this. We feel Dot Hack has far better graphics than PSO. The Fields and Dungeons contain many colorful, over stylized backdrops and settings, including weather effects. Dot Hack’s monsters resemble the beautifully-drawn monsters of the later Final Fantasy’s. Dot Hack’s world is gigantic with a seeming infinite number of locations to explore. PSO’s world is relatively small, and plot is threadbare, with meaningless, though fun, side quests, which instill no enthusiasm in the player. Dot Hack’s plot is deep and complex, with each subplot advancing the story just a little bit further. (Remember though, the end of this game in no way comes close to wrapping up the story, to be completed in the three games to be released later this year.) One visual treat, however, was lifted directly from PSO – the cascading rings that accompany the teleportation of characters to and from different areas.
Combat
Dot Hack’s combat engine can best be described as modified real-time. Much like the action-RPG, Kingdom Hearts, button mashing can be effective to beat monsters. Monster combat icons appear as large yellow twirling landmarks. As you approach, the landmark dissolves, monsters come at you big-time, and, undoubtedly, players will feel a healthy adrenaline rush. Some of Dot Hack’s many monsters do not stand around waiting to be pummeled, rather some you need to catch. Dot Hack lets you turn combat almost into a turn-based affair. The player needs only to hit Triangle in the middle of battle to pause the game instantly. From there the player can give orders to the others in the party, anything from healing someone, reviving another, casting a spell, designating a target monster. Without jeopardizing your party from the hailstorm of monster blows, combat becomes a calmer, more strategic, experience. This will help the many action-challenged. Camera angles play a big role in successful combat. You must be facing a monster to do any damage. As in many games, manipulating opposing environmental elements, like fire vs. water, is a key to successful monster combat.
Dot Hack’s cyberspace setting provides a wealth of Wow-inducing outbursts. The Data Drain option in combat is a great example. When a monster’s approaches zero, the player can Data Drain to reduce a horrendous, gigantic steel robot, for example, into a sniveling, puny monster, easily defeated with a single blow. Data Drain always results in a nifty, rare item or essential Virus Cores so you can Gate Hack areas of The World now closed, but needing investigation. One bad side effect – if you defeat, a Data Drained monster, but a single experience point is earned. One REALLY bad side effect – if you Data Drain too often without giving the skill a rest, you may overload and explode. Game Over. In the case of Boss monsters, Data Drain works the same, but what remains is no sniveling puny monster, but a full-blooded slightly less tough monster. All of this makes for interesting and captivating combat, a large part of the game.
Fresh Features
Dot Hack is replete with new and interesting features that kept us riveted.
To start, the entire background and story of a real world gamer becoming a rascal hacker, penetrating deep into a virus-infected online game, is quite novel. Combine this with Dot Hack’s emulating the look and feel of an online game universe. (Message traffic on the web shows many gamers mistakenly believe Dot Hack is a real online MMORPG, along with monthly fees! No real Internet connection is required.)
Just like in the real word, Dot Hack replicates your excitement level when “New” appears before a popular forum or on your email screen. Some of the game involves receiving emails as the plot develops, as well as new, crucial information surfacing on The World’s Board. (Look out for emails challenging you to a strange game of Tag.) The online game world looks very familiar with a bunch of characters wandering around the game’s towns, with the ubiquitous balloon icons talking typical “trash” to each other, even criticizing “newbies“.
Combat grippingly called for surprisingly strategic decision-making to succeed, not related to the usual attack or defend choices. Do you go for experience and upgrade your character or try for some special equipment or a Virus Core, vital to Gate Hacking? The innovative control of other party members became second nature to us after some practice. The game rewards a player taking chances, like entering a Field or Dungeon rated 5 levels above the player’s current level. On the other hand, the game scoffed at players entering areas much lower rated the their current level, by awarding negligible experience points for victory.
Dot Hack takes progress reports to a new level, by slowly unlocking books that contain much in the way of statistics and information. There’s even a monster compendium with tips for defeating them.
Some might complain about the minimal “Save Game” ability, but we thrived on it. You explore a very hostile cyberspace environment without the facility to save. Only in a server-hosting town is saving possible at the local Recorder. We may be a solitary voice in the Wilderness, but we like this throwback to the good old RPG days. Those of you old enough to remember the Wizardry series, may recall those fingernail-biting multi-combat treks back to the Castle just to save the game. In case you’re really stuck deep in a dungeon, a common item will teleport you to the outdoor field, from where you can simply gate back to town from the command menu.
Many pieces of equipment come with distinctive powerful attack, healing, and status skills, essential to combat dominance. The player must tradeoff whether to equip something that will raise defense or offense or something less vigorous that lets you use a powerful skill. Trading is the most successful way to upgrade equipment.
In a first, Dot Hack comes with a 45 minute anime video. This gives some great background on what’s going on in The World, as well as provide clues for completing the game. In a nice twist, voiceovers for game speech can be set for Japanese or English presentation. Listening to the authentic Japanese voices really keeps you glued to the game.
Though some may scoff at what follows as meaningless, we liked the game’s unlocking of some nifty new “toys” to like, some only available when the game is cleared. You can unlock many different background music play lists. Tired of creepy tunes, just switch to something more upbeat, or futuristic. Just like real world gamers, who constantly change their desktop wallpaper, new and different wallpapers are unlocked along the way. Some are concept art of characters, while others are full blown anime renditions of the characters. This makes for great fun, and seems to pump additional energy into the game. As you progress over a dozen special cut scenes or movies will become viewable after defeating the game.
Though Dot Hack’s extras and new wrinkles enhance the RPG game experience, much of the gameplay will ring true to those who enjoy RPG‘s. Expect plenty of exploration in a huge 3D world, frequent monster combat, tons of treasure to earn and discover, upgrading your character’s weapons and armor, and needing to level before tackling pivotal story dungeons. The status screens for the characters and all equipment are well laid out and easy to grasp.
Time for Completion
Game length in hours always concerns many purchasers. A short RPG normally takes a lot of flack, and many online are asking about Dot Hack‘s time for completion. (Some have questioned whether Bandai should have released a single 80 hour game for $50, rather than four 20-hour games for $200 for a single story. This matter is beyond the scope of this review, but our high opinion of this game as a standalone is obvious.) Our experience, playing the plot without doing side quests or extra exploration, is in the 12 to 15-hour range. Players side-questing and extensively exploring, aside from the main plot, can expect to spend 25 hours to complete the game. You can even continue to advance your character, after game completion, to get a jump start on Part 2 due in May. In the next game, your character can be imported from Part 1.
Furthermore, imagine trying to explore every nook and cranny of the fields and dungeons accessible by a large number of 3-word combinations. Doing that would put the game in the 50-hour range, if not more. However, at a certain point, new items dry up, and a single experience point is earned for any defeated monster, no matter how tough.
Shortcomings
While, as is evident above, there is much to recommend in Dot Hack, certain concerns to varying degrees deserve mention.
From the “Why oh why did they leave this out?“ File. Pregame game board traffic and information about the Japanese version released months ago had many salivating for replaying the game in “parody” mode. This mode apparently converted all Dot Hack’s game world characters into satirical comedians. Sorry to say, this highly-anticipated feature is missing from the version released here.
The game requires massive amounts of button pressing. Every item or treasure uncovered from combat victories or exploration (opening chests, searching expired adventure remains, collecting food for Grunty’s, as examples) must be confirmed with a button press. When there could be 50-100 such occurrences in a single dungeon or field, over the course of the game, finger cramps seem inevitable. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance also required lots of bashing for buried treasure and chests, but the items literally flew into your inventory, a much better way to handle this.
The manual is woefully terse and lacking in some crucial information and guidance. While the ingame tutorials fill in many of the gaps, one extremely important gameplay feature is missing from both the manual and tutorials – instructions on control your characters directly during combat.
Final Word
We got a kick out of Dot Hack. The feeling of “just one more dungeon” dominated our lives for the 3 days to completion. The engaging environment held our attention without much effort. The strategic nature of combat, plus the convoluted plot kept us going for hours on end. The constant unlocking of both frivolous and important gameplay features created a “what’s next” anticipation. Now, if I could only read Japanese better, Dot Hack Part 2 is already out in Japan!
Final Grade: B
It seemed like it took Konami forever to release a follow-up to the acclaimed Symphony of the Night, but within a short matter of time the Gameboy Advance became the home to a few successors.
In Harmony of Dissonance, the Belmonts return to action as players take control of the legendary Simon Belmont’s grandson, Juste Belmont. Two years ago, Juste’s friend Maxim left on a training expedition. Maxim suddenly appears one day, severely wounded and with only a vague recollection of the past two years. Though his memory is vague, he informs Juste that their friend Lydie had been captured. Despite his wounds, Maxim leads Juste to Castlevania, where he’s sure Lydie has been taken…
The biggest complaint with Konami’s previous Castlevania game, Circle of the Moon, was that it was too dark for the Gameboy Advance’s dim screen. Konami took note of this and gave Harmony of Dissonance brighter colors and larger sprites than its predecessor, decreasing the strain on the eyes and making the game easier to play on the original Gameboy Advance. Even with the brighter colors, the atmosphere still has the same dark tone you’d expect of a Castlevania game.
The graphics themselves are just as nice as a Castlevania veteran would expect. The sprites and backgrounds are on par with, if not surpassing those of Circle of the Moon. The castle’s inhabitants are bigger than before with a nice amount of detail.
As expected of a Castlevania title, Harmony of Dissonance features a solid soundtrack fitting of the mood. It’s not particularly memorable, but it does the job. The sounds are nothing special, featuring the usual collection creaks of doors, snapping whips and haunting cries. Although rarely heard, there are a few spoken lines and words (in Japanese), a nice touch for a Gameboy game.
If you’ve played a previous Castlevania game, then you know what to expect from the gameplay. Initially, Juste can jump, dodge forwards and backwards and whip. Taking a page from Super Castlevania IV on the SNES, Juste can also let his whip “hang loose” and waggle it around to smack enemies in awkward directions. Hidden in the castle and generally guarded by a boss are items that will allow Juste do things like leap a few stories high and bust open walls.
Along the way, players can pick up secondary weapons, ranging from the classic Castlevania weapons like axes and boomerangs to new toys like holy fists and bibles. These items are fueled by hearts found throughout the castle. Each use of a secondary weapon drains a specific amount of hearts, so players won’t be able to chuck the powerful boomerangs at everything in sight. Conservation is the game to play, because these secondary weapons can be pretty darn helpful against more powerful bosses.
Spells are also present, but in a different form from previous games. There are five books in total – fire, ice, wind, earth, and summon – which alter the effects of secondary weapons. For example, using the ice book with a boomerang equipped will create a whirling star that floats behind Juste and flings icicles at enemies. Each usage decreases Juste’s Magic Points, but no biggie: they replenish themselves fast enough. Although it’s a simple system, the spell books add just a bit more flare and strategy to the game.
Also new to Harmony of Dissonance is the ability to collect furniture and decorate a room. No, I’m serious: furniture and decoration, ranging from beds, curtains and chairs to a tea set and a phonograph, are scattered throughout the castle. Players collect the items and take them to a specific room in the castle, where they are displayed (unfortunately, players have no say where things go – the room is arranged automatically). By the time the collection is complete, players will have a completely furnished room. While it sounds silly that Juste would take time to decorate while his friends are in danger (he actually comments on the sparseness of the room before deciding to decorate), it does add incentive to scour the nooks and crannies of Castlevania.
Better still are the rewards earned from beating the game. In addition to several different endings (including a few secret endings), players earn the ability to play as Maxim instead of Juste, play a “Hard Mode” version of the game and play the Boss Rush mode, which pits players against all the bosses in the game in succession. Castlevania veterans should really get a kick out of utilizing the Konami Code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, and Start, remember?), which allows players to play as the original Vampire Hunter, Simon Belmont (well, alright, chronologically the first Vampire Hunter would be Sophie Belmont, but Simon was the first character featured), in Boss Rush mode, complete with graphics, music and sound effects straight from the NES Castlevania.
Unfortunately, Harmony of Dissonance’s major detractor is its low level of challenge. The Castlevania series, long known for its solid difficulty, takes a step back in the challenge department. In particular, the bosses are incredibly easy and generally involve little more than repeated whipping. Only the occasional attack requires any sort of dodging, and the predictable patterns make it easy to know where it’s coming from. Even the “hard mode” isn’t significantly better. Harmony of Dissonance should only take about four or five hours for a first play through, unless you get lost…
…and that brings me to my next point: the hardest thing players will encounter is the navigation. The layout of the castle isn’t as smooth as in Circle of the Moon, and oftentimes no hint of the next destination is given, leaving players to wander around and backtrack till they can find their way. This tends to be frustrating more than challenging.
Harmony of Dissonance has some significant shortcomings: it’s a short, easy adventure with the only main challenge being deciding where to go next. Even with the short adventure, Harmony of Dissonance does feature some nice replay features, like the Boss Rush mode and a second character to play through the game with. It also features that classic Castlevania gameplay that will make it worth owning for any Castlevania fan, and a worthy addition to anyone’s library.
Final Verdict: 78%
