This Week In Retro: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Patreon)

June 6, 2002: Justice for Juste

by Diamond Feit

I don't want to play the role of grammar police or lingual prescriptivist but whenever I hear the word "overrated" my temper flares up. All tastes are subjective and everyone gets to use language in a way that feels true to themselves, but if you describe a popular work as "overrated," please think about what that word really implies. Nothing in our world can be universally liked; look hard enough and you'll find critics who outright hate even the most beloved films, books, or games from years past. Yet to subjectively declare that a piece of art is "overrated," you are passing judgment on a perceived majority and deciding that you hold the mental high ground above all. Worse, you assert that a mythical correct amount of enjoyment exists for all art, and woe be those who find too much entertainment from something that might be, in your eyes, only mediocre.

If you think that a film, book, or any work has received a positive appraisal which it does not deserve (and you feel you must express this opinion instead of letting it go), I implore you to focus your efforts on describing why it doesn't work for you personally. Take American Sniper, the 2014 film that scored big at the U.S. box office and became a miniature pop-culture sensation despite the fact that I loathed it. I can rail against that film's politics, the unchecked bad behavior of the protagonist, or that absurd plastic baby that Bradley Cooper pretends to comfort, but I cannot in good faith say it is "overrated." I consider it racist garbage and its success worried me immensely at the time, but that doesn't make my vision of the film superior to all those people who enthusiastically saw it as a celebration of an American hero.

In light of my disdain for the word "overrated" I must stand my ground in support of its antonym, "underrated." Underrated makes sense. Instead of deciding that too many people like something too much, "underrated" highlights a work that may not have received enough attention or acclaim. For example, you've probably heard of Pocky, a Japanese snack that has found fame around the globe and even has its own unofficial day on November 11 (because the four ones of that date represent four chocolate-coated sticks). I seldom eat or buy Pocky because I prefer the similarly-shaped Toppo, as it contains a delicious chocolate core instead of a thin coating. Does that make Pocky overrated? No, it's fine, but I maintain that Toppo is underrated because few people outside of Asia have ever tried it.

This long-winded (but delicious) introduction has been but an aperitif to this week's topic, one of my favorite Castlevania games that, simply put, doesn't get enough respect. Sandwiched in-between a launch title for the Game Boy Advance and followed by one of the best games in the franchise's decades-long history, Harmony of Dissonance embodies the very notion of "underrated."

For those who need a reminder, before anybody publicly kicked around the term "Metroidvania" to describe games set in a single interconnected world, Castlevania made a name for itself by blending horror tropes with straightforward action games (and a whip straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark). 1997's Symphony of the Night certainly sold well, but that title alone did not redirect the entire franchise; Konami continued to dabble with 3D action titles as the "main" face of the series, all while turning back the clock with a remake of a remake as the next Castlevania game on the Sony PlayStation. When Circle of the Moon debuted day and date with Nintendo's brand-new Game Boy Advance in 2001, it signaled to fans that deep, 2D, exploration-heavy Castlevania games had a future—at least on handheld systems.

One year later, following the success of Circle of the Moon, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance launched on the Game Boy Advance. Like Circle before it, Harmony locks players inside a large castle and challenges them to search every room and find every secret in order to topple this house of evil. The similarities go further: Both games arm the protagonist with a whip and pair him with a friend/rival vampire hunter whom he periodically encounters as he traverses Dracula's abode. This deuteragonist grows angrier over time, eventually revealing that he is an unwilling pawn being manipulated to aid the vampire lord's resurrection. The hero must fight his friend before he can face the mastermind behind this plot and destroy their plans (and the castle itself).

While Circle of the Moon told a story of outsiders being drawn into the Dracula-Belmont struggle that has defined the series since the beginning, Harmony of Dissonance features Juste Belmont, grandson of Simon who served as the hero of the first two games. When Juste and his fellow hunter Maxim discover a castle in the wilderness, even though they know all about Dracula's penchant for returning from the grave by now, they can sense an unusual air about this particular incarnation of the infamous "creature of chaos." The Grim Reaper informs Juste that, due to the presence of Maxim and his initial discovery of Dracula's remains, both the troubled vampire hunter and the castle itself have been "split" into two entities. Juste must explore both castles to collect all of the vampire's relics in order to save his friend and prevent Dracula's return.

Most members of the Belmont family, as seen throughout the Castlevania games, have a stock "barbarian" look with shoulder-length hair, plates of armor that protect their vital organs without constricting their movement, and belts or straps to carry all their gear. Juste Belmont, however, looks more like one of the creatures he hunts; with his long flowing white hair, open-laced shirt, and an ankle-length red coat, a casual fan might mistake him for a descendant of Alucard. Beyond his fashionable appearance, Juste also stands out among Belmonts due to his magical abilities, which grant his body a constant blue aura. He's also rather nimble as Castlevania protagonists go, with both a backdash and a forward-dash available from the start of the game.

Juste's magic works in conjunction with the usual array of subweapons from classic Castlevania games, empowering him to deliver distinct elemental attacks depending on his present equipment. Similarly, hidden stones in the castle allow Juste to power-up his family's enchanted whip. By offering players all these offensive tools to combine as they see fit, the combat in Harmony of Dissonance feels more varied than most Castlevania games, even though Juste never trades his whip for any swords, spears, hammers, or rocket-powered grenades.

With a sexy leading man, a return to the series's central rivalry, and a host of new powers to explore all working in its favor, why did Harmony of Dissonance fall short critically and commercially compared to Circle of the Moon? The tired familiarity of its narrative did not go unnoticed, as Castlevania has done the "hero must fight another hero" story several times before. Harmony's double-castle twist did not land well either, as the stunning surprise of an entire inverted castle in Symphony of the Night still lived rent-free in many fans' minds. Traveling back and forth through two highly-similar environments makes the late-game in Harmony of Dissonance feel like a chore, especially since the overall map is much smaller than that of other Castlevanias, leading to a lot of backtracking through the same hallways and past the same monsters repeatedly.

Part of Castlevania's appeal has always been its show-stopping boss battles, and Harmony of Dissonance under-delivers in this area. There's simply not as much creativity on display here, as many of the brutes Juste must dispatch are nothing more than jumbo-sized versions of standard enemies. A giant minotaur is imposing, sure, but fights against a ginormous merman, peeping eye, or slime do not intimidate in the slightest. A few bosses even pull double duty; the aforementioned minotaur exists in both versions of the castle, as do two variants of Legion, the famed cluster of corpses first seen in Symphony of the Night. I think the game's final battle against a throbbing mass of Dracula's leftover body parts, however, stands as one of the series' most memorable climaxes.

For a series with a long history of outstanding soundtracks, the music in Harmony of Dissonance struck a sour note with both critics and fans, perhaps the game's gravest perceived sin. Circle of the Moon relied heavily on sampled instruments to offer remixes of classic Castlevania tunes that, while lacking in originality, wowed players at the time with their audio quality (especially for handheld software). Harmony of Dissonance went in a different direction, using tracks composed with the Game Boy’s sound chip. According to a 2002 interview, sound producer Soshiro Hokkai said "In order to create a Symphony of the Night-level game on a more limited handheld platform, we had to impose some limitations on the music, and opted for PSG sound."

For those who don't speak tech, this means that the music in Circle of the Moon sounds like an actual symphony recorded every tune, while the harsh, electronic notes of Harmony of Dissonance lack any such "realism." In 2002, that struck a lot of people as a step backwards, as the Game Boy Advance represented a new generation of hardware, an improvement on Nintendo's 1989 machine that was already low-tech when it first launched 13 years earlier.

With a wide variety of artists and composers using chiptunes in their music today, I think the Harmony of Dissonance soundtrack feels more contemporary now than it did in 2002. Sampled instruments have their charms (I certainly enjoy the jazzy sounds of Super Castlevania IV) but when I hear music from Circle of the Moon I find the audible background hiss a distraction. Harmony of Dissonance lacks that issue, as every sound produced by the software is there by choice, and I dig its crunchy, synthetic vibe.

I missed these GBA handheld Castlevanias at first launch, playing them years later when I bought a Nintendo DS Lite and took advantage of its backward-compatible cartridge port to catch up. I began with Circle of the Moon and almost immediately rejected it for its frustrating card-based magic that relied on random drops. I can remember buying it on eBay and posting it for sale shortly thereafter to get it out of my house. Harmony of Dissonance, on the other hand, won me over with its speedy hero and his broad assortment of spells, and it helped remind me of why I had been a Castlevania fan for almost 20 years at that point in time.

Two decades later, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance stands as the awkward middle child of the GBA Metroidvania trilogy, far less beloved than the first-born Circle of the Moon or the subsequent, baby-faced Aria of Sorrow—the latter of which would shake-up the series almost as much as Symphony of the Night had done in 1997. Konami never swept Harmony of Dissonance under the rug, but the company did it no favors with the 2010 release of the strikingly similarly titled Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, a high-definition remix of past art assets. Simon Belmont, Richter Belmont, and Julius Belmont all made the cast of that game's classic vampire hunters; poor Juste did not, making Harmony of Dissonance his only appearance in the entire series (save for a brief cameo as a spirit in Portrait of Ruin).

Thankfully, this tale of an underrated video game has a happy denouement, as Harmony of Dissonance lives on as part of Konami's Castlevania Advance Collection, currently available on Steam and consoles. This faithful port looks fantastic on the big screen with its almost-too-bold color palette a welcome delight for the eyes. Developed by the always superb M2, the Castlevania Advance Collection adds a few simple quality-of-life enhancements like save-states, a rewind feature, and even a quick-view of unique collectibles in each area on the right side of the screen, letting players know at a glance if they're still missing a part of their inventory. I sat down to revisit Harmony of Dissonance this week and much to my surprise, I ended up playing through to the end—the good ending, at that.

I still think Harmony of Dissonance and Juste Belmont deserved better than a one-and-done outing two decades ago, but since the entire Castlevania franchise seems stuck in limbo now, I can't think of a better outcome than a high-resolution, readily-accessible version of said game that fans can enjoy for years to come. Most people probably bought that collection for Circle of the Moon or Aria of Sorrow (and at least one person had to have Dracula X), but whatever their motivation, everyone now has ample time to revisit Harmony of Dissonance and discover its underrated beauty.

OK, maybe "underrated beauty" is a stretch…Juste, as drawn by Ayami Kojima, has always been hot.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.