You know, this is a deceptively deep platformer. In between the platforming and swimming, there are puzzles, spikes (and stars to collect) trapped in blocks you destroy, and a pretty large array of moves. Who knew a starfish could be so agile? I’m up to 3-3 now, and I seem to be hopping around the back of a giant turtle. You know, as you do.
I already have, and have played a little of, the 4th game in this series. I was hoping to start with the first game, but can’t get it for under a million pounds, and this was about 9p on Play Asia a while ago so I picked it up. It’s a cute platformer with some puzzley elements and collection, and many of the levels involve some sort of quest. So far, I’m on level 2-2, having just collected some furniture …
So I went rummaging around for three books that Mina suggested I might need. I actually had one already, and the other two were found pretty easily once I’d taken a good look at the map. I found another boss (Legion) who was alarmingly easy to kill, and then got another soul or three. After all that, I had the books required, and the three souls it was suggested I equip (Flame Armour, Succabus, and Giant Bat – all traits …
Bossaroo! Did the third boss-room-that-isn’t-a-boss first of all today, and then moved on to the actual next boss. At first, it seemed like it was going to be a giant bat, but then a huge hand came out of nowhere and squashed the bat, killing it. Instead, I had to kill the two hands and two eyes of a, uh, thing. Balgone? Something like that anyway. It was actually pretty easy once I’d sussed the fact you could jump on …
Death = DEAD! Well, sort of. He got sucked into some sort of whirlpool thing. I’d got the lightning doll soul, which really helps, and gone up a couple of levels. In the room just past Death was a soul giving me the power to swim (I guess Soma never got his bronze swimming certificate), so off I went into the waterways in the bottom of the map. Found lots of new baddies, souls, weapons (I now have an ice …
Well. It looks like Death is the next boss after all. I spent ages exploring every single part of the map that I could get to, and found some more weapons, potions and armour (and collected a few souls along the way), but found no other bosses. Now I have to traipse half-way around the castle again to get back to him! Bah.
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 …