i always see harmony listed as one of the black sheep of the metroidvania CV games, one of the weak links and the worst in its trilogy, but i don't think this is true, it's got some issues but i also think that a lot of what typically gets listed as its weaknesses are actually its strengths and i came away from it thinking it was one of my favourite games in the whole series, it's just such a fun game with a great map, some fun abilities, a really cool aesthetic and a really cute main character, plus it has one of the coolest new game plus modes in the series, this game really owns.

the first major thing that sets harmony apart is the castle, in that it's actually two of them, think soul reaver or silent hill origins. you teleport between two alt versions of the same space with slight visual variation and unlock things or barriers in one that help with the other, it's neat, though it's so confusing that at times it's as much of a detriment than anything else, like how sometimes you'll come across a wall that you can't break, but the way to get passed it is to go to the alt castle and enter that room and bam! now its open in the other, it's very confusing and the game not letting you know what is needed where on the map just confounds it, i spent hours walking around with every room i thought i could open, opened and got so lost, it was very annoying, but i do think the duel castle idea is very fun and i like it a lot and most people won't quite have my issue with getting lost, i am just very bad at these kinds of games!.

the magic system here is the other major thing and it is a bit different to the card system from circle but it operates under a similar idea, instead of cards from enemy drops you get spellbooks hidden in the map, which I do think is better, and these spell books change what your subweapon does, like say summoning something, using the weapon in a cool way like throwing a thousand knives (which I guess is where luna nights gets it from), or throwing around ice and lightning, my favourites were the shield which made traversal so much fun since it would also-kill enemies after a point just by walking into them and i loved the ice spells, they just looked so cool!, it can be a super versatile system and it's really fun finding out what does what and there's a lot less useless abilities like in circle, so I think in use its a better system, but I do prefer the cards, the experimentation with the cards gives them the slight edge. the gameplay beyond that is better than circle overall, while i do miss my sword attacks the game has such better movement since you no longer need to double tap to run and you can dash with the triggers, both foreward and backwards unlike symphony and this is such a good movement system, it makes getting around the castle look so stylish, if you play it right you can even kill enemies behind you using the dash, it's so cool and so fast paced, i love it. it being easier to control also makes it i think easier to play in general, where in circle i relied on rewinds a lot, here i rarely needed them and could usually dodge or tank hits just fine if i had a potion or two and this is so nice, it's rare for me to have a platformer feel really doable without cheats so this was really refreshing to me, and while some might label this as a bad thing, that's lame, they're lame, this makes it one of the more easily accessable games in the series and for that alone i feel like its one of my go-to reccomendations now for anyone wanting to get into the series, it helps this also has some amazing grind spots where you can level up fast like in the sewers and a shop where you can stock up on items if you need them, the shop is so nice to have especially, though i don't think you'll really need to abuse it too much. i also really liked how the metroidvania elements tied better into your moveset here than in circle, like how your wall breaker is a charge attack that'll hurt enemies or how the high jump can help dodging or how the different weapons do more damage, there aren't as many "only works for an obsticle" abilites like circle had.

the gameplay has more going on that just this too. once you beat the main campaign you also get the code for MAXIM MODE, which is like a new campaign where you rush through the game and beat all its bosses as maxim and he plays a ton differently to either the circle protag or juste, he has no spells or abilities but he has a triple jump, a boomerang-like ninja star and some other abilties like a Naruto clone rush, his is just a speedrun since you don't need to collect keys or see cutscenes or get furnature, just your powerups and rushing the bosses, it's fun! and his sword honestly makes his base combat more fun, he feels so fast! but I do miss my spells, the shield especially, and he doesn't level up which is kind of weird and makes fighting enemies feel pointless. it feels like a metroidvania,but without everything that makes it one, you don't unlock those abilities and you don't need to find keys or anything, you go where you want and kind of do what you want, it's very neat! even the enemies all scale to you so everything feels just as much of a threat, i really recommend giving this mode a try, its not even too difficult despite the lack of healing items!

the zones here are really good too! circle had some cool ones but they could feel a little generic, but here it goes a bit more wild with places like THE BONE ZONE or crystal caves or a cool hall full of mirrors and some cool one-off rooms like the room thats dark and you need to wear goggles to see more than 2 feet, the huge gross cacoon room you fight the final boss in or some of the puzzle rooms in the clock tower (there was a very cool one here where you have to knock a giant into some gears, the bone zone also has a some cool ones with knocking bones around to make platforms and even some cool box puzzles!), there's even some working elevators in parts of the castle, but they could have used some more of them, only 2 is a little lame. there's more normal areas too like a cave and a waterway and some living quarters and your big church and towers, but it feels more lively and fun here, especially that bone zone and you even have a ton of variences here with the two map gimmick, like how the crystals will change colour in a and b or how the sky will change in the areas with a sky view, there aren't any hugely drastic changes that i remember, but even these small ones make it feel fresh enough exploring them a second time.

the graphics in general feel a little mixed in some ways, it just doesn't look as detailed as circle in the environments or even in many of the enemy and boss sprites, it's done mainly I think to be easier to see on the GBA screen, hence the saturation but it can be a little weird looking sometimes and it's just less instantly nice on the eyes, though, it's also so agressively GBA and so strangely colourful that it honestly makes up for it so much that i end up prefering it a little, sure some of the effects like the blue tunnel or the big statue cave are hard on the eyes, and some areas are blindbingly bright, but it's just such a vibe and it feels so emblematic of the systems graphical style that its hard not to love it, it's beautiful in its own way, where circle feels very SNES or even early ps1 pretty, this game is very GBA pretty, and that matters a lot to me.

the music is so good, it's a little worse than circle but it's still a very respectable OST in its own right and i think when you take into account how it's mostly original music where circles was a ton of remixes with a few originals thrown in? i think its super forgivable that not every song is a hit, the ones that are good here are really good though. that starting zone music is killer and maybe the games highlight for me music wise, it's just so catchy. offense and defence is a very atmospheric track that really makes its zone feel a bit more tense, approach to despair too, though it's a little more immediatly catchy, both super menacing and fancy sounding though, the clock tower music kind of puts me at unease too, something about it feels creepy. BUT THE BONE ZONE MUSIC, god that might be the games other big highlight, it's so just, cool sounding, i stayed here way longer than i needed to just to listen to it, one of the most memorable tracks in the game for me, same with chapel of dissonance which is the games fanciest sounding song, like a GBA trying to render the music from a fancy dance hall, cindarella vibes to me for some reason. the theme when you first hit the alt castle too, demonic castle is also so good, not super into the boss themes this time around though, not bad but none super standout, but the castle music is so good it makes up for it and the end credits theme is great too and the merchant theme is very funny to me. the OST on the whole sounds so crunchy, where circles was a lot more clear, this feels so GBA and while that sound might not be for everyone? it's so for me, it has such a unique sound to it and this is one of the games to best carry that vibe, give the OST a real chance, it does not deserve the hate it gets. the composers Michiru Yamane, of sword of etheria, many other castlevanias like curse of darkness, symphony of thr night and the DS games and even stuff like SD snatcher or rocket knight adventures and rumble roses or suikoden 4, super talented composer and i've covered her works a ton on here, and also Soshiro Hokkai of princess peach showtime, also sword of etheria, nanobreaker, suikoden 2 and even the upcoming aria of sorrow, both did excellent jobs and this OST is a shining mark for both composers.

the story is a little more interesting here but it's still not what i'd call good, the dynamic is between maxim and jauste cool and their frendship does feel a little real and I did like what it did with the castle and Dracula, but this is still just a platformer story with maybe 5 mins of total cutscenes if you count every ending, it works, juste is hot and he's one of the cuter castlevania characters~ and thats enough to carry a lot of the game for me, the art style taking from Ayami Kojima and having that aristocratic cuteboy vibe of a symphony rather than circles more early CV vibes also really appeals to me, like check out the box art or the picmix i made, it's got such pretty androgynous aesthetics, total husbando, i love him. it's also a nice and short feeling experiance, about 7-8 hours which works fine for me considering these are basically RPGs at their heart which is also why i think i prefer these to most metroidvanias, it's also nice to have shorter rpgs like this inbetween much longer experiances, there's even more if you go for the maxim route which i think you really should, he ads so much to the experiance and it's only an extra 3 hours if you rush it!

for ports you have a few options these days, the original which is sadly on the difficult end to track down, but more doable than some CV games, but you also have modern ports for every system which you can get fairly affordbly physically, even on the second hand market which is nice considering they were limited run releases, there's also a virtual console wiiu release but that's unobtainable now through legal means, but if yk yk. this release also has things like telling you what furnature is in what area and your rewinds and saves, it feels like the best way to play the game, same as with circle. there'd be tons of other games after too, with aria seemingly being the most well recieved of the GBA games and the DS games which recently got a re-release! plus other stuff like the ps2 games (my favourite), judgment which i just picked up and am so hype to play or the ps3 lords of shadow games (which get too much hate), no sign of a new game yet though, sadly :( . this team specifically had kept up the good work and did games like nanobreaker, sword of etheria, many other castlevanias, firefighter FD18, rumble roses , DDR and even some great older titles like the suikoden games, shadow of destiny and kensei sacred fist and the director, Takashi Takeda would go on to make my two favourite castlevania games, the ps2 duology and he was also involved with bloodlines as well as the vandal hearts series and contra hard corps. it's also hard to forget about the games producer and the man who would be the face for the series going foreward, Koji Igarashi, who would make most of the metroidvania titles plus nanobreaker and his own successor bloodstained, a game i kickstarted back in the day...... and got a refund for once the vita version was cancelled, i own it now on ps4 but i was very bitter at the time, but it ended well since i got hakuoki with the money and buying otome games is never a bad idea, plus i only paid 5 bucks for the copy i did eventually get! overall this is a great game and one of my favourite CV games, it took me a little into my run to really fully get on its wavelength, but once i did i loved it so much, it's a must play if you have access to anything that can run it.