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Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Castelvania: Harmony of Dissonance is a game that has a solid core, which can be summed up as ?sequel to Symphony of the Night?, and on top of that it adds a few neat ideas, and wraps all of that up with a practically insane amount of problems which are...everything else, really.
Let's start with the basic presentation. In SotN, your character looked like this:
In the first GBA game, Circle of the Moon, like this:
And here, well...
Is the white squid on your head causing that blue glow?
As far as I understand, that awful glow was added because people complained about CotM being too dark. Talk about overreacting! What's completely impossible to understand for me is the insane aftereffects for whenever you do...anything, which shatters visual comprehension far more than any kind of darkness could.
So your main character looks like ass. What else do you notice within your first few seconds upon starting? Well...how about the game also sounding like ass? Juste's theme, which you hear in the castle proper, is most definitely the best piece in it, and it still sounds terrible. Later pieces...you can imagine. The chase theme already is pretty bad and indicative of what's to come.
"Chase? in big quotation marks because seriously, that is just pathetic. Much like the rest of the game's feeble attempts at trying to emulate the atmosphere that other titles in the series can summon with a snap of their fingers.
Castle Entrance
Inside the castle, a shadow floats behind curtains in what could be construed as a menacing manner, if you squint. Your first obstacle awaits, basically a tutorial to tell you ?hey break shit with the whip maybe then you can proceed?, spoilers: There's never going to be anything done with that. It's only ever going to be ?whip shit, way opens?, and it's always going to be blatantly obvious.
Enemies! Zombies, yay! A corridor full of them! Many Castlevanias start like that, so I can't really begrudge HoD for doing the same...it's a decent introduction, as BFC said, to killing enemies with and without special weapons. Spoilers again: The Knife sucks, as it always has. There's a plethora of obvious branches in the path, none of which you can take yet; that's okay, it's a Metroidvania after all, yet...it does look kind of overwhelming, at first glance. Second and third too, but we'll get to that in a second.
In a commendable twist, the corridor ends at a brick wall. If only Juste could suck that glyph through the wall like another CV heroine! Alas, it's for later, taunting you.
So let's try those alternate paths! The first in obvious progression gives you the Bible weapon, which is really fucking goofy but also pretty damn good, and a Healthup. Exploration is good, kids! However, another wall...a recurring theme. HoD loves to give you a lot of path options, only to cut every branch short after a few seconds until way later. The beginning part has insanely many crossroads, yet the game is absurdly linear for what it is.
With a few exceptions in the form of little nooks and crannies, for example the two rooms that get you the Soul Orb. I...didn't take that path on my first (and only because holy shit this game is bad) playthrough until way later and was wondering why the staple damage numbers were absent. Silly me. To my defense, I was kinda playing in backwards order, having started with Dawn of Sorrow gotten for my DS, so I was expecting it to be just there...or not, as it is.
Holy Fist is cool though. Dunno why BFC didn't take it over the shitty Knife! Maybe because the punching sprite looks even worse than others.
Have you seen Juste's hair when he falls? Disgusting.
The real way to go is a little to the right, up a level, kill two skeletons, up a level, to the right, nothing, up a level, TWIST! there's nothing to the left. Finally something different, a few seconds, then a corridor with two skeletons...going up...notice a pattern?
Holy Water is okay in this game. A little situational, but good in those. Not useless like in some, not broken as in others...meh.
Armor Knights are indeed a pain at this stage, and even more for me. As said, I was working in backwards order. So...L is the backdash. Works like a charm. However, I turn left and expect to dash backwards to the right, nope, into the enemy I go.
You know what? Maybe I am just retarded. It took me more than an hour of playtime to figure out that the R button right-dashes. No joke. I thought they were seriously expecting me to go right most of the time so the dash was just default left because fuck you. Yeah, that made actually going left with enemies you really really want to dodge a little...painful.
Didn't colour my opinion of the game too negatively, though. That's my own stupidity at work. No, no, I began hating the game far later, but that's exactly that, for later.