Playing A Game Castlevania Advance Collection, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance PC

Castlevania Advance Collection is a faithful re-packaging of the GBA Castlevanias -- as is M2's way, it emulates the original games and wraps them with minimal modern conveniences. These are essentially the same games I played 20 years ago, for better and for worse.

(Though being able to play them on large backlit screens and with a more ergonomic gamepad is quite nice.)

Circle of the Moon was, in its day, a pretty impressive first try at bite-sizing Symphony of the Night's nascent Metroidvania formula. But its movement and combat mechanics haven't aged well; Nathan Graves feels frustratingly stiff and unresponsive to control, especially with this map's surprising abundance of pits to get knocked back and fall into.

The "Dual Set-up System" gameplay gimmick is more confusing than engaging, and the story is too threadbare to keep things interesting. So... while revisiting Circle of the Moon unlocked some fun memories of juggling my GBA, a flashlight, and GameFAQs printouts, I don't feel like I'm missing much by setting this one back down.

And then there's Harmony of Dissonance: Juste Belmont is more satisfying to control than Nathan was, but the gameplay mechanics available to him are comparatively plain. It just feels dull. And the distinctly poor audio quality of the soundtrack doesn't help.

Trivia time! While Circle of the Moon's soundtrack has that "classic Castlevania" feeling, it wasn't composed by Michiru Yamane, who followed IGA all the way to Bloodstained.

But Harmony of Dissonance was composed by Yamane, so that game's decision to "... sacrifice the music and focus more on the visual side of the game" (interview source) is, in retrospect, a real shame.

Of course, it shouldn't be surprising that Aria of Sorrow is what makes this collection worthwhile. It finally ditches the ancient sub-weapons, replaced by (a ton of) new soul abilities; it makes collectible equipment interesting, with weapon varieties that actually change how you play; it's got a story that, while still light, twists the usual Belmont-clan plot in a fascinating way...

But I'm getting ahead of myself, 'cause Aria of Sorrow really merits a post of its own.