Castlevania Advance Collection

[darksnowman]

How has this been overlooked for a discussion thread. Buy it.

I've had this collection since the sales at the turn of the year. It contains Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow and Vampire's Kiss (a version of Rondo of Blood). Christmas/ New Year didn't really feel like the time for Castlevania so I only dabbled a bit on Circle of the Moon and left it at that until this time of year would roll around.

Couldn't remember where I was heading in CoM so I proceeded on to Harmony of Dissonance this week which I've had a great time going through again—the last time was back on the Game Boy Player. It just feels good dashing or sliding around and whipping everything off the screen. They knew how to nail these fundamentals and build from there.  

Admittedly, the trail went cold at one point but it didn't matter for a good while because I was just enjoying checking around for the next path that would no doubt open up. I think it was during this period, I figured I was on the hunt for the boost jump (for some reason I was expecting new boots) as that seemed to be what the dead ends were telling me... only to come off a ledge at one point with an enemy below, so I instinctively pressed the jump button while in midair... and double jumped. It was a different item entirely that bestowed this ability so I headed back around again, collecting stuff from previously unreachable areas but still nothing really opened up. Ultimately, I ended up squinting through a wall-of-text guide—it was no mean feat to figure out what the last "story" thing I did was—until I read you need to actually equip a bracelet in order to open a door. That had me entirely stumped but at least I was up and running again and never looked back after that. Could have been carelessness on my part because I don't remember a sticking point like this on the GBA.

This collection shows you in the border what pickups you've got in whatever area you're currently in, with question marks to let you know if there's anything else. This was very handy and probably helped keep me engaged during that time I was running around looking for where to go next. They could have taken it further and added a menu to allow you to quick check all areas because as far as I could tell, you had to be in the area to see this info. Further QoL could include map improvements to depict why a dead end was impassable which would have cut down on some circling back just to remind myself. Since they already added collectables in the border, I wonder if they could have squeezed the map in too? And with those bracelets, it would have been nice if just having them in your inventory was enough rather than needing to actually equip them because it goes against the logic of wanting your best gear equipped at all times.

There's also a nice selection of background images to choose from but these are a bit pointless since the game window covers it. There's also art, box art and instruction books to peruse. 

Since I had such a good time, I needed to refresh my memory on which was the better received between the double-pack games (Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow) because I know one is supposed to be a dud. I'm surprised to see it's the latter by a landslide. Not saying that's necessarily mistaken, just there's not a lot wrong with Harmony of Dissonance bar the couple of niggles I've mentioned. Apparently the music is bad but I dunno, it didn't make my ears bleed or anything.

Castlevania just went from strength to strength during these years. I'm already looking forward to an Aria of Sorrow replay this time next year.

[Glen-i]

2 hours ago, darksnowman said:

How has this been overlooked for a discussion thread. Buy it.

Already did ages ago! Geez, get off my back, dad!

It's a solid collection though!

Edited October 27, 2023 by Glen-i

[Ashley]

Do you ever look at a title and think "didn't you consider the acronym?"

[darksnowman]

On 27/10/2023 at 10:37 PM, Ashley said:

Do you ever look at a title and think "didn't you consider the acronym?"

If you're enjoying that, I can also do you some Castlevania Anniversary Collection and Contra Anniversary Collection. I'm also willing to hand over the reigns if you want to take over as father figure to Glen-i.

[Ashley]

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One was our favourite when we worked at Game. 

[darksnowman]

*reins

6 hours ago, Ashley said:

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One was our favourite when we worked at Game. 

Ha, cod bro. That's pretty good. They knew what they were doing with that. Nothing similar's springing to mind except TMS is SMT backwards and I like the way it feels to say DQB2, so I've found this potentially smirkworthy list, some of which you might have sold.

• Tony Hawk's Underground (THUG)
• League of Legends
• Master of Orion
• Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (apparently lovingly known as STFU)
• Kung Fu Chaos
• N.U.D.E.@ Natural Ultimate Digital Experiment
• Work Time Fun

[Ashley]

2 hours ago, darksnowman said:

Ha, cod bro. That's pretty good.

If someone was going to the stock room we'd say "can you get a COD 2 BRO?"

The things you do in retail to amuse yourself.

[darksnowman]

21 hours ago, Ashley said:

If someone was going to the stock room we'd say "can you get a COD 2 BRO?"

Wasn't it part of your contractual obligations to speak like that anyway?  

21 hours ago, Ashley said:

The things you do in retail to amuse yourself.

Now that's what you call "Work Time Fun".

[Jonnas]

I'm very fond of Harmony of Dissonance (or CHoD, according to these last few posts). It's very smooth to play, the plot is engaging enough, the visuals are psychedelic and ethereal, and the soundtrack is eerie enough to match. Helps that it was, in fact, my first Castlevania It's a shame the map itself is so needlessly large, but it sounds like the QoL changes from this version help a lot I also like how the game marries the Metroidvania genre with Horror. This game still has the creepiest (and grossest) Legion in the series.

But to be perfectly fair, Aria of Sorrow has it beat pretty handily. CAoS is sublime, and the best Castlevania of this genre (of the ones I played, anyway).

I'd also like to take this opportunity to share something I've been listening for these past few weeks: the most thorough Castlevania retrospective I've ever seen.

That's seven hours (!!!) of content, and it's pretty liberal with spoilers, but I found this guy's takes to be pretty fair, and he certainly did his homework when contextualizing each release. If you don't/can't/won't listen to the whole thing (understandable), you can just check the parts where he talks about specific games, since they're adequately timestamped (for example, Harmony of Dissonance is at the 3:22:38 mark, and only lasts 14 minutes).

[darksnowman]

I often see that video come up as recommended but I invariably scroll past it because of the length. So thanks for highlighting that it's divided up. I watched the parts for Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow and it was good to see he gives HoD a fair shake. With the AoS refresher, it's clear it's the better game... which I have no problem with, it just bugs me the way people feel the need to put HoD down when (rightly) praising AoS. Imo they're all good/great games in their own right, and it'd be alarming if the sequel didn't improve on what went before. Tbh, I don't think we knew how good we had it with Castlevania on the GBA and DS. 

On 30/10/2023 at 11:34 PM, Jonnas said:

This game still has the creepiest (and grossest) Legion in the series.

I thought Legion was pretty stinking in Portrait of Ruin with the way the bodies fall away. *shudders*

[Jonnas]

On 01/11/2023 at 12:03 PM, darksnowman said:

I thought Legion was pretty stinking in Portrait of Ruin with the way the bodies fall away. *shudders*

That happens in a few titles, yeah. There is one particular instance where that is used to great effect in this one Castlevania game...

Spoiler

Aria of Sorrow. You enter some catacombs, and there are several naked zombies walking around, they don't present a threat, you don't know what's going on... Then you enter one particular hallway and BAM! the zombies are slowly forming Legion. It's a creepy, really well done introduction. They do fall off the main ball occasionally as well, and now they'll attack.

(I also think this is the one game where the center was a fetus the entire time..? I might be wrong on this one)

But what gets me about the Harmony of Dissonance version of Legion is how sturdy it is, how it refuses to lose parts, how it starts to slowly open... Plus, the one body that refuses to fall, staring at the fourth wall with its eyeless face... It gives me so many creeps.