No, it's definitely the worst for several different reasons. The first and biggest issue is the movement, the physics specifically. Juste has this sort of moon jump where he's incredibly floaty whenever her jumps and don't even think about attacking while you're in there air, it then locks you into place so you're now following whatever trajectory of this moon jump you're on. Juste "Michael Jordan" Belmont.
Originally Posted by Gameguy
Is Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance really the worst game of that lot? It's actually the only game from that list I played, I do own some of the other games mentioned but I haven't played them yet. I forget how far I got in Harmony of Dissonance but it was a fair portion, I ended up trading it to another collector who was looking for a copy. I forget what I traded it for but it was for something I wanted more, I only traded it because I thought I'd find another copy but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe I have a record of the trade still saved somewhere.
In any case I don't remember it being bad, I thought it was pretty good from what I played.
The map design is pretty trash because many of the same enemies are scattered in multiple areas of the map. There's a specific path that you'll be going through, but there are some areas you can go through early so the areas will be easier, but then some areas that you have to go through later and the enemies are also easier. Once you get a third of the way or a half of the way through the game, and this is both on normal or hard difficulty, the game's enemies will just start dealing low damage against your character and only one area in the game, the starting area on the B castle has enemies that will deal reasonable damage to your character.
However, Juste also has a dash. IGA clearly didn't understand the reason for the backdash so he added a forward dash too, a forward and backdash that you will never not use instead of your normal movement. Even if you're not a speed runner you're going to just be dashing to attack cancel and backdashing to attack cancel repeatedly and then dashing again to move where you want to go etc.
The level design isn't "bad" it's actually rather good I think. It offers a lot of platforming throughout but when the physics of the character suck it's meh. The real problem with the level design is that it's rather lazy. IGA was like, you know what, we can make the game twice as long by adding a second duplicate castle just like on SotN. There are some changes between each castle but they're mostly identical and again as I stated, the balance is just lost less than halfway in that it just turns easy.
The bosses are actually good and the thing I do like most about the castle is all of the references. As someone who thinks Castlevania 3 isn't very good because it's just unfairly difficult, there's a lot of references to that game specifically, but there are also references to other games. The giant bat if you've ever played any Castlevania game with a bat boss for one, but it's basically like the version in Rondo of Blood. The skeleton and cyclops bosses are references to the bosses in Castlevania 3, they don't play the same, but they're pulled straight from there. Then the Pazazu boss is also from Castlevania 3 and this one plays more similar to how the boss does on that gam e There is a section in the castle has a statue of Dracula's final form on Castlevania 3 while if you return to that same section in the other castle, it shows Carmilla instead.
The problem is that hte game just feels like you're just filling up the space to get 100%, dashing and attacking, dashing and dashing, just just the goal to collect everything and fill the entire map. I've played it many times so that could be my experience because of that, but the controls are just so bad and the game is padded out to include double the content because hey, SotN did it.
Now. I'm going for all the trophies on Castlevania Advance Collection so today I just decided to go and finish Julius mode on Aria of Sorrow. The character plays a lot like Juste but better and worse at the same time, he can attack and still move in air so you can attack and then move backwards to have your whip hit enemies and stay attacking the same direction without turning around. He has no backdash but he can just phase through enemies(although I've heard other people think this is just him running around enemies) instead of backdashing. He also goes like four times the speed of Soma and his jump is extremely floaty, so this is the reason why what could have been a great mode was pretty much ruined.
In Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, Julius, Alucard, and Yoko are actually given speeds of movement and physics proportionate to Soma, so that it still feels like the main character's movement. The characters can't collect anything, but this right here and how the characters play make the mode as equally good as the main game. Dawn of Sorrow is already the best game in the series, but it's also got an extra mode that is just as good as the original game. Amazing game.
After finishing Julius mode though, I went back to Harmony of Dissonance and started playing Maxim mode. Maxim also moves faster than Juste, around twice the speed. But there's a difference here. Maxim isn't quite as floaty as Juste. He's a little bit floaty, but he's also got some gravity to his jumps. Additionally when attacking with Maxim, the attacks are so quick that you don't lose your control. Him moving twice as fast as Juste means that you're not going to use the backdash and forward dash for movement, you're just going to normally move and you'll only use the dashes for evasion. This really does make the experience with Maxim, despite having free roam over the entire map a much better experience. Additionally, Maxim and Julius mode make the two characters deal preset amounts of damage per boss they defeat and they gain more defense the more HP ups that they pick up. With Julius, he's already over powered so you're only killing eough bosses to increase his damage to defeat the last boss. You could go straight to the last boss and finish them off without powering up, but I defeated a few bosses and still fiished it in 25 minutes. On Maxim mode, enemies hit hard. Very hard. It's like if you were playing a regular Castlevania game and every enemy hits the exact same amount per stage, so there's a pretty good level of balance when playing Maxim mode over Juste mode. tl;dr, Maxim mode is better than the main game on Harmony of Dissonance. Julius mode on Aria of Sorrow is trash, Julius mode on Dawn of Sorrow is just as good as the already excellent main game(not in Advance Collection) Also in the Dominus Collection, Portrait of Ruin's extra modes are once again feeling tacked on rather with how everything performs, Order of Ecclesia's Albus mode is decent
Then the final game on the Advance Collection(or the first game) is Circle of the Moon. The enemy AI is a little bit boring compared to HoD and AoS, where they move forward a bit, attack, repeat, or just pretarget your character with your attacks, or continue doing the same actions over and over, etc. But it works well for how the character attacks. Now. Nathan also has a moon jump, but it's weighted. You don't feel super floaty with this jump, you drop back dash immediately and you can also move while you're in air. Infact, a little trick I use when attacking in CotM is that I'll jump backwards, move forward and attack, sort of giving yourself a bit of evasion and movement to mask your recovery time rather than just being flat on the ground the entire time. Your recovery time is still the same, but it's about to end when you hit the ground, so you can then your action.
Circle of the Moon doesn't have extra characters, but the same exact character with different mechanics for that character. You've got Magician mode where your character starts with all the cards in the game at the very start, much lower strength and defense values, but a massive starting intelligence stat. Most attack spells use the attack stat for damage but some spells do use intelligence. Warrior mode is the next mode and that one you do not start with any cards nor can you gain any cards but you do start with higher strength and higher defense. Thief mode you start with lower stats but you have a massive luck stat. Then the final mode called shooter, you start with massively reduced stats in every area but your heart skills take off a much higher amount of damage. Additionally you can pick up a second dagger which turns your dagger into the homing dagger subweapon. I feel that these modes are better than every other version of extra characters except for Dawn of Sorrow's Julius mode which is again, just as good as the main game but with different characters.
When it comes to the Advance Collection. Aria of Sorrow is a great game, Circle of the Moon is a good game, Harmony of Dissonance is playable, not very good, and Dracula X is kind of a bad game because of just how unfair the level design and a lot of mechanics, but I probably like it more than Harmony of Dissonance. I'd rate both a 4/10 though as neither are actually "bad" but they're just meh for some reason or another. 5/10 to me is not average but your average good game, where 4/10 is your mediocre, and then bad and unplayable are 1/10-3/10. To me it's stupid that 8/10 is your "good games" from journalists, even Youtube videos, 7/10 is mediocre, and then everything 6/10 or less is considered bad and you almost never see less than a 5/10. Why do games need six points for bad, one point for mediocre, and three points for good, one of which is almost never going to be used? Isn't it better to have a very wide range of what a good game entails so you can see the difference of a 5/10 good game and a 9/10 good game. They're both good, but reading an IGN review, you see an 8/10 and you see a 9/10, there's not a very big variance to really tell you how much better. When 90% of good games fall under the 8/10 at IGN or Metacritic, you really see no relevance at all in the review score to tell how much better or worse games are than another similar game to give you an idea if you'll even like it. Anyways, just my thoughts on the scoring system and how broken it actually is.
Originally Posted by Gameguy