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OPINION: Castlevania Harmony of DIssonance has the worst soundtrack in the series

kubev

Member

I actually really like this track. Also, while HoD does have a pretty weak soundtrack compared to most other installments in the series, I do prefer HoD's soundtrack to that of SCIV. Most of the tracks in SCIV don't feel like Castlevania music to me.

By the way, does anyone here still happen to know if Harmony of Despair is still playable online? Also, do many people seem to still play it regularly? I kind of wish Konami would add it to Xbox One backwards-compatibility, but I'm kind of tempted to purchase the PlayStation 3 version until then to see about getting back into this. Such a cool game.
 

kunonabi

Member
Circle of the moon is an unbalanced mess with an unoriginal soundtrack of all of Castlevania hits.

Most of the Castletroids are unbalanced messes and I'll take an uninspired greatest hits collection over my ears bleeding any day.
 

jb1234

Member
I think I like more of the tracks in it than I dislike. For instance it has the great Demonic Castle. How could you dislike that?

(The game kinda sucks, though. It's not terrible but definitely the easiest and most repetitive of the Igavanias.)
 
I love the idea behind the soundtrack. Different from the usual it was just very limited by the GBA's shitty sound setup and of course it was the game that prioritized visuals over music. People saying Order of Ecclesia has the worst soundtrack are crazy. It's easily one of the best in the series. And definitely better than any of the other handheld soundtracks.

I actually really like this track. Also, while HoD does have a pretty weak soundtrack compared to most other installments in the series, I do prefer HoD's soundtrack to that of SCIV. Most of the tracks in SCIV don't feel like Castlevania music to me.

WHA???
 

Tizoc

Member
I don't think it's a controversial opinion? I haven't played that game in like a decade, but I do remember the soundtrack being subpar. That said, I'd say LoS's is worse. :p

Lords of Shadow 1 you mean? I don't think it is bad, it's just forgettable. I can barely remember any of the orchestral tracks in it.
 

Foffy

Banned
Circle of the moon is an unbalanced mess with an unoriginal soundtrack of all of Castlevania hits.

Name one balanced Metroidvania in the series. Order of Ecclesia may be the only consistent one on balance, and it's already skewed more to the difficulty of older games.

Circle of the Moon suffers because it's a Metroidvania without a shop. You're really expected to play a lot of the game like a Classicvania in that the goal is to avoid damage, not stock up on potions.
 

8bit

Knows the Score
It's right there in the title! It's not called Harmony of Loveliness. ISTR the game was not great either, my least fondly remembered of that era.
 

Deft Beck

Member
The main reason that HoD is so dated graphically and sonically is because the development team wasn't made aware of the GBA's specs, so they lowballed the presentation elements.

The results were quite undercooked.
 

Zee-Row

Banned
Name one balanced Metroidvania in the series. Order of Ecclesia may be the only consistent one on balance, and it's already skewed more to the difficulty of older games.

Circle of the Moon suffers because it's a Metroidvania without a shop. You're really expected to play a lot of the game like a Classicvania in that the goal is to avoid damage, not stock up on potions.
I would say Aria and Order of Ecclesia. Order of Ecclesia feels like classic castlevania in the metroidvania style. Grinding for cards is not fun in circle of the moon.
 

Nairume

Banned
It checks out since he did say in this podcast that the only way he could beat CotM was with a Gameshark. Whined how Dracula was too hard (he is hard but only when compared to Igavanias, but it's not DRACULA X SNES or NES hard).

I was seating in my car remembering how I beat CotM legitimately back in 2001 when I was 15 so... what the hell, Jeremy?
For what it's worth, while I also beat Dracula in CotM when I was 15, it relied on a lot of cheesing of the mechanics. If I didn't enjoy the game enough at the time to experiment with the DSS, I'd have probably hit a wall too. On a recent replay, the game does have some incredibly bad boss balancing and I had a much harder time simply due to not really wanting to mess around as much with the DSS.

That said, I do think that episode of Retronauts was maybe a little too kind to HoD, though I guess its biggest flaw wouldn't be as apparent if they only played a little bit of it to refresh themselves on it.
 
The main reason that HoD is so dated graphically and sonically is because the development team wasn't made aware of the GBA's specs, so they lowballed the presentation elements.

The results were quite undercooked.
Errr...Wasn't this the second GBA Castlevania? How is this possible? Source...?
 

atbigelow

Member
Errr...Wasn't this the second GBA Castlevania? How is this possible? Source...?

COTM was made by a totally different team at Konami.


I think HoD's music really suffered from not getting the CPU cycles for mixing. AoS's music was pretty dang good; team just needed time to figure it out.
 

KayMote

Member
I guess I agree, but I have to say I still like some of the actual compositions. I've played this game around 12-13 years ago and I can still remember some of the tunes. But yeah the actual sound quality was pretty terrible.

And I'm really sad about people bashing this game so hard. It was my very first Castlevania I played through and I liked it that much that it basically served me as a gateway drug into this franchise, since I wanted to enjoy more of that.
 

13ruce

Banned
I guess I agree, but I have to say I still like some of the actual compositions. I've played this game around 12-13 years ago and I can still remember some of the tunes. But yeah the actual sound quality was pretty terrible.

And I'm really sad about people bashing this game so hard. It was my very first Castlevania I played through and I liked it that much that it basically served me as a gateway drug into this franchise, since I wanted to enjoy more of that.

Honestly the game itself is not that bad just the music sadly.

Still need to replay it someday cuz i never finished i was probably close to beating it. Both castles were pretty much nearly all mapped out but i was stuck somewhere.
 
It's not the worst in the SERIES, but it is the worst of the Metroidvanias yes.

It does have a few nice tracks though.
As a game in general it's no time the worst in the series but it is the worst of the Igavanias, I agree.

But it's soundtrack? I argue it is indeed the worst in the entire series!
 
Circle of the Moon was Dark Souls before Dark Souls.

I'm all for challenge, but CotM's balance, not to mention its damage scaling, was lopsided. There was that spike when you hit the Dragon Zombie. Plus the castle design was also lacking. Better than HoD still, but not by much.
 
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