I’m lost. I think. I killed another boss, and got a power-up to do the Jesus thing and walk on water, which let me access a couple of new areas. However, I then stumbled into some kind of garden filled with giant chickens, and then into some strange castles in the sky that are linked together in a strange way with really difficult wear-jaguars (or something) and devils in. Then I appeared to be in a clock tower, and it …
I’m 35% through this already! Lawks. Killed the Manticore easily this time, as I found that if you stand in the doorway, you can’t be hit. Grenade-tastic! After that, it was STOP! Hammertime! As in, I met Hammer. And he told me he was going to set up a shop by the castle entrance. As you do. I then collected a soul that gave me a double-jump (finally!) and had a bit of an explore some more, heading vaguely to …
Squeezed a bit more of this game into my day, exploring an area I’d have found far more easily if I’d actually looked at the map I’d found. Worked my way up into some sort of bell tower, but couldn’t find anything to do up there, so came back down again. I then found another save point, followed by a Manticore boss, that killed me. So it’s harder than Harmony if nothing else…
So, no sooner had I finished Harmony, I was on to Aria. They’re even on the same cartridge (hence the same box art on the left there), so I didn’t have to swap games or anything. Ace. Only played for about half an hour so far, and Soma’s sword (rather than Juste/Nathan’s whip) is taking a bit of getting used to. I’ve already found a few things about Harmony that I prefer to this (yes, I know – and I …
Well. After getting a couple of keys, I was able to get around pretty much the entire map. Picked up the Griffin’s Wing and Crush Boots too, so I then could get round the entire map, and killed a few more bosses on the way and collected fahsands more power-ups and some well ace armour. I reached Level 48 or so, and my DEF stat was so high that almost no enemy could deal out more than a couple of …
Grr! I’m stuck again! I’ve explored everywhere I can, and even though I now have the smash-through-walls whip attachment, I have exhausted every area there is. I have killed a couple more bosses (including a Giant Merman), and found a load more HP/MP/heart Max power-ups, and have explored 125% of the castle(s) now, but I have no idea where to go next. There are loads of doors still locked, a hole in the floor that is sealed, and at least …
After half an hour of searching, and finally resorting to watching the first part of a speedrun on YouTube, I eventually found somewhere I could reach but hadn’t been to yet. And so, I had opened up a huge new area! In fact, my exploration status went from about 65% of the castle, to 102% in this evening’s play. No, that isn’t a mistake – it turns out there are two castles. Cripes. Both are effectively the same layout, but …
Hmm. Some of the flaws are starting to show in this game now. The map isn’t as easy to navigate as in Circle of the Moon, especially in the way that there are rooms which serve no purpose than to slow you down. No baddies, no spikes, just a poorly laid out room to navigate. They’re not hard, just annoying. Then there’s the structure of the bosses. You don’t seem to have to do them all in a specific order, …
And so it’s out with Circle of the Moon, and in with Harmony of Dissonance. I’ve played it for almost an hour and a half already, and I’m enjoying it. There’s something not quite right about it, though. Maybe it’s the way Juste (your character) has a bizarre blue glow and shadow trails. Maybe it’s the fact I had to start again completely powerless. It could be that L and R perform dashes rather than special moves. Or perhaps it’s …
After trying several times to kill Dracula, I gave up. The final boss has two phases: one where he appears and disappears, and has three attacks – poison clouds, laser beam, and meteor strike, and after that he flies around a lot, then turns into a load of bats and a giant eyeball. The first phase was easy, especially if I used the DSS card combo that effectively grants you double energy. The second, however, was not. Dodging Dracula flying …
Damn that Devil thing! I either get past it unscathed and then have my HP demolished by the Dark Armours, or the thing kills me. Thankfully, I found a fantastic way of killing Hugh without me losing much energy at all – shoot a load of crucifixes away from him, then jump over him and them as they come back, they all pass though Hugh and Super Damage ensues. Aces. So after a couple of attempts with this tactic, he …
I’m getting near the end now. I can smell it. That, and I’ve uncovered more than 80% of the map and have only one “magic power” left to obtain. Killed Camilla, who was actually very easy once I took my time about it and actually dodged her attacks rather than blindly trying to whip her. My axes proved very useful too. My power-up gained was Roc’s Feather (isn’t that Link’s power-up? Hmm…) which lets me jump very high indeed. Then …
Off I went to the bit where the acid water was, and as expected, it became normal water again. I then worked my way through quite a few lizardmen, ice women things, and some witches, before finding a huge ice demon thing which killed me. So I tried again, took a slightly different route, and found a save point. Just past that, was the next boss – Camilla (who is the woman right at the start of the game who …
It was waaaaaaay harder than I remember it from 12 or so years ago, but today I conquered the game. Excellent. Dracula took 8 attempts (although I’d tried yesterday about 20 or 30 times), but in fact, his final “form” was much easier than his first few. I managed to force myself to only get a hit in when it was safe, concentrating on avoiding projectiles rather that smacking him in the face. This really helped. Getting my health back …
So very, very nearly there! Finished A (and killed a Mummy at the end), then moved onto B, which was a bit of a boss-a-thon in the end, with some bats, Death (it seems the other Death wasn’t Death at all), and a big blue gargoyle thing. And then, Dracula! Thankfully, at this stage in the game you can continue from just before each boss, so I don’t have to go far back each time I run out of lives. …