Castlevania Advance Collection Review (Switch eShop)

Konami has been bringing back some of its older Castlevania titles recently. While the 2019 Castlevania Anniversary Collection primarily focuses on the “Classicvania” style of games (progression based on stages, limited lives), it features the “Metroidvania” style (open exploration, role-playing elements) popularized by Symphony of the night.

As the title indicates, the titles contained in the Castlevania Advance Collection originated from the Game Boy Advance – Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, and Aria of Sorrow – with the SNES version of Castlevania: Dracula X, missing from the previous release, released as a bonus.

Circle of the Moon (newly named Castlevania when originally released in Europe) was a launch title for the Game Boy Advance in 2001 and stars the whip-wielding vampire hunter Nathan Graves. It was developed by the Konami team in Kobe, who had previously worked on the two Nintendo 64 games, so it looks and feels different from many of the other later Metroidvanias.

The main feature is the Dual Configuration System (DSS), where two cards can be combined for various effects, including upgraded weapons, increased stats, spirit summons, friendly familiars, etc. However, the problem is that specific enemies drop cards randomly, which means you have to hunt them down, kill them, and then exit and re-enter the room until they give up their card. Needless to say, it is a bit tedious. Also, by default, Nathan’s walking speed is pretty slow and while you get the ability to sprint early on, it also makes navigation a bit clunky.

Still, the visuals are decent for an early Game Boy Advance title (and when playing on the Switch, they’re a lot easier to see than on their native console) and the soundtrack is solid too, even if much of it is repurposed from games. previous. Plus, there are some particularly brutal (and aggravating) boss battles, which put the difficulty level somewhere in the middle between challenging Classicvania titles and smoother Metroidvania games.

Harmony of Dissonance (2002) marks the point at which Symphony of the Night assistant director Koji Igarashi took over as producer on the Castlevania series. His first order of business was to bring the look of his games closer to Symphony, including hiring artist Ayami Kojima for packaging and character illustrations. The game stars Juste Belmont, a direct descendant of Simon Belmont, as he explores Dracula’s castle to rescue his missing friend. There are several elemental spell books to find, which can be combined with secondary weapons for a variety of cool attacks.

In direct response to the dark visuals of its predecessor, the graphics on the Harmony were made much brighter to make them more easily visible on the GBA’s non-backlit display, although the colors look exaggerated on adequately lit displays like the Switch. It’s still an engaging game overall though, particularly the large, multi-segmented enemies, animated via sprite rotation effects. However, due to this additional stress placed on the Game Boy Advance CPU, the quality of the music suffers, depending on a synth closer to the original NES. Even without that degradation, the Harmony of Dissonance soundtrack is highly unusual, largely eschewing the loud melodies the series is known for in favor of eccentric, sometimes abrasive music.

Like Symphony of the Night, there are two castles to venture through, but you explore them in parallel rather than waiting until the last half of the game. There isn’t much variation between them and they both have the same basic layout, which makes the tiered layout feel bloated. Outside of spell books, there aren’t a lot of fun gear or items to find either, except for a strange sub-quest where you’re looking for furniture to decorate a secluded room. Still, controlling Juste is a blast thanks to the forward and run functions, assigned to the shoulder buttons, so both combat and exploration remain fun despite the game’s many other glitches.

Aria of Sorrow (2003) is where Koji Igarashi and his team were able to more faithfully replicate the highs of Symphony of the Night. In the year 2035, the adolescent Soma Cruz finds himself in a solar eclipse that contains Dracula’s castle, who seeks an outlet for his dark power. Soma controls as much as Alucard did in Symphony, along with various melee weapons, compared to whip-centric characters in the previous two GBA games. With the Tactical Soul system, each enemy has a soul that Soma can randomly absorb when defeated, granting him some kind of unique ability. It is similar to Circle’s DSS, but is better implemented as there are many more enemies and therefore many more powers to use. It also combines separate magic and heart gauges into a single group, which regenerates on its own but replenishes itself faster when you win hearts. In fact, it cleans up some of the clutter found in Symphony of the Night’s equipment system and makes it much more manageable and balanced.

Michiru Yamane returns to compose the soundtrack, which is the best of the three GBA games featured here. Due to technical limitations, neither the visuals nor the sound are at Symphony level, but they are still excellent and it is an overall fantastic game. The map designers were finally able to give the exploration a good flow, keeping it from getting tedious, and while the plot twists are incredibly predictable, they are still great when they do happen.

The stranger is Castlevania: Dracula X, known as Akumajou Dracula XX in Japan and Castlevania: Kiss of the Vampire in Europe. Originally released in 1995 for the SNES, it is based on the PC Engine Akumajou Dracula X game as it features the same hero (Richter Belmont) and some of the same enemies and design concepts, but is otherwise a completely different game.

It is also much worse. The PC Engine Dracula X was so brilliant thanks to its rich design, with several branching levels, many unique enemies, and an additional playable character in the form of the cute girl Maria. All of those items are removed or removed from this entry – there are only two alternate levels for nine in total (compared to 12 in the PC Engine game), and although Maria appears in the game, she is unplayable. The visual style is also quiet compared to the brilliant anime and horror styles of the PC Engine game.

Even on its own terms, it feels stripped of the other 16-bit games around it, particularly due to a frustrating level design. He realized (correctly) that the final boss fight against Dracula was too easy, but they overcompensated here by filling the room with bottomless pits, making it incredibly annoying. The best that can be said about this version is that the soundtrack, adapted to the SNES sound chip from Red Book’s audio originals, is characteristically brilliant, with some tunes actually sounding a little better.

The build was developed by M2 and includes state save and rewind functions as well as screen filters for Dracula X (presumably none are included for GBA games as they were made for the small LCD screen rather than CRT) . They also have some little gadgets that help a bit, like indicators for Circle of the Moon and Aria of Sorrow that show the cards or souls thrown by enemies, and Harmony of Dissonance shows important items in the area. There is also an option for high quality sound that eliminates the hiss found in the audio output of the original hardware, but it is only a minor improvement.

The Gallery includes many illustrations, as well as full scanned packaging for everything except the American SNES Dracula X. Regional variations are also included, although the Japanese text makes most of them difficult to play, and outside of some level changes of experience in Circle of the Moon, they are mostly identical, and there are only minor censorship changes in Dracula X.

The settings are nice, especially the rewind feature that makes polishing cards and Souls less tedious, although there could have been more of them – a revised color palette that would make Harmony and Aria more appropriate for modern displays would have been. well, or something to adjust for item drop rates.