Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance Playthrough (Game Boy Player Capture) - Part 1

[Note: This video and description were originally posted on Youtube on October 1, 2016.]

This is part 1 of my capture of me playing through Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance for the Game Boy Advance. This is not an emulator and was not played on the Wii U Virtual Console. This footage was recorded directly from my GameCube using my Game Boy Player with progressive scan mode enabled (you'll need the GameCube's component cables to do this and your model of GameCube must support component out as well). I'm playing on hard mode.

It's October again, so that means I'm once again celebrating Halloween by uploading Castlevania games all month. I still have a few more Castlevania titles to redo in 60 fps such as Harmony of Dissonance. However, this time I'm completing the game on the hidden hard mode. To activate this feature, you simply have to input your name as HARDGAME when you start a new file.

After beating Circle of the Moon back in 2001, I was excited to hear about another Castlevania game releasing so quickly on the Game Boy Advance. As I recall, I picked up Harmony of Dissonance either on its release date or a few months later during Christmas of 2002. I played through the game numerous times and generally found it to be a great pick-up-and-play title.

Harmony of Dissonance was a lot easier than Circle of Moon, and it certainly had lower quality music, but I thought it was a fun game to just blast through. I really liked the more responsive controls and the fact that I could upgrade the Vampire Killer whip with new metal tips. The Boss Rush mode was also cool, and the two Minotaur bosses were especially awesome (I have loved Minotaur bosses ever since I saw the first one in a Nintendo Power feature on Dracula X). I also liked the references to Simon's Quest.

Since Circle of the Moon had some rather repetitive-looking areas and used a rather dark color scheme (the original Game Boy Advance didn't have a backlit screen, which exacerbated the problem), Konami brightened up the palette with Harmony of Dissonance and created more diverse areas with more interesting backgrounds. However, Harmony of Dissonance's audio quality apparently took a hit due to the focus on graphics, so Konami would have to in turn fix that aspect in the next title: Aria of Sorrow.

Nintendo Power printed a near-complete guide for this game (including full maps) in Volume 157 (the June 2002 issue), so I'm using that to help me get through the game. The bosses can be completed out of order to a certain degree, so I'll be keeping track of the bosses I've killed in each video.

In this first part I created a new save file and defeated the first two bosses. I also obtained the Lizard Tail relic which gave me the slide ability.

Giant Bat boss fight - 17:18
Living Armor boss fight - 34:22

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR and the GameCube's component cables at 60 frames per second. I'm using an original model Game Boy Advance as a controller via a GameCube/Game Boy Advance Link Cable.