I will now fade from this world… but I find some pleasure in this… with the cursed powers of yours, destiny calls you to hunt for all eternity.
-Dracula, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
The Castlevania Advance Collection proves that it’s never been a better time to get into retro gaming than right now. Currently, the physical collection market is an absolute mess thanks to WATA. However, there are a plethora of classic adventures that are (legally) playable at your fingertips.
In the last five years alone, we’ve seen compilations like the Mega Man Legacy Collection, the Capcom Beat’em Up Bundle, the Disney Afternoon Collection, and so on. Among those listed, no one would have ever expected a trio of Game Boy Advance-era Castlevania games to be re-released. And yet, here we are.
The Castlevania Advance Collection, released last week after the September Nintendo Direct, brings together three Game Boy Advance Castlevania games – Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, and Aria of Sorrow – along with the SNES release of Dracula X.
The Launch Title
Circle of the Moon was a launch title for the GBA and stars Nathan Graves, an orphaned son of two vampire hunters who, together with Morris Baldwin, banished Dracula a decade prior. Morris took Nathan under his wing and trained him alongside his son, Hugh. Nathan is Morris’ successor and received the revered Hunter’s Whip before the game’s beginning, much to Hugh’s consternation. The game then begins with the three of them investigating a castle in Austria. It’s there that they discover Camilla – a loyal servant of Dracula – reviving the dark lord.
Dracula captures Morris and sends Nathan and Hugh – jealous of Nathan’s success – down into the bowels of the castle. The two vow to rescue their master and defeat Dracula. However, Hugh’s growing envy for Nathan gets in the way of their mission. Circle of the Moon was removed from the current Castlevania timeline by series producer Koji Igarashi and was instead relegated to be a standalone title in the series.
A Return To Form
The second game, Harmony of Dissonance, takes its inspiration directly from Symphony of the Night. The story begins 50 years after Simon’s Quest and stars Juste Belmont, Simon’s grandson. The story starts with Maxim Kischine – Juste’s best friend – returning from training with serious injuries and memory loss. Maxim leads Juste to a castle and tells him that their childhood friend, Lydie, is inside against her will. Juste verifies that the castle does belong to Dracula while plumbing its depths. He discovers that the castle split into two “layers.” This is similar to the normal and inverted castles of SotN. Maxim caused this split by gathering the relics of Dracula to destroy. Dracula, however, used Maxim’s jealousy with Juste as a way to slowly corrupt the man and thereby give him a path back to life. It’s now up to Juste to recover the artifacts, save his friends and defeat Dracula.
Castlevania in the Future
The third game, Aria of Sorrow, is my personal favourite of the series and was the first Castlevania game I’ve ever played. Set in 2035, the game stars Soma Cruz. He is an exchange student living in Japan. Soma journeys to the Hakuba shrine with his childhood friend – Mina – to watch a solar eclipse. Instead, both of them were drawn into the eclipse and dropped inside a castle. There, Soma learns that the castle is Dracula’s. It was sealed inside of an eclipse after the final battle between the Dracula and the Belmont Clan in 1999. Furthermore, Soma can take command of monster souls and use their abilities for his benefit. The mysterious Genya Arikado instructs Soma to head to the Master’s Room. It is there that Soma will find the answers to why he has these powers.
The Outlier of the Group
The final game of the collection is Dracula X, a SNES game that’s also a remake of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. Richter Belmont, the scion of the Belmont family, learns that Dracula has been resurrected. Furthermore, he has kidnapped both his girlfriend, Annet and her sister, Maria. Richter must now travel through seven areas to rescue his girlfriend and her sister and defeat Dracula. What’s unique about this title is that there are multiple endings, depending on who is saved at the end.
The New Additions
Konami published the Castlevania Advance Collection and M2 handled its development. M2 was a good choice as they had extensive experience porting retro games to newer consoles. In a similar vein to games such as SEGA AGES Sonic 2, M2 retained the original look and feel of each game. They also unobtrusively added modern conveniences. Features include things such as save states and a rewind function – extremely useful for Dracula X, which is a notoriously tough title to get through.
M2 also included a replay function where players could save and load in-game replay data. Accessing these many functions is as easy as pressing ZL mid-game. Within this menu, one can also remap button controls and also toggle higher quality sound.
In terms of visual filters though, the GBA games have only three available to them: Standard, Full, or Pixel Perfect. With the Standard and Pixel Perfect filters, you can add background wallpapers to fill the space. Dracula X, on the other hand, has five filters; two of which utilize scanlines for that retro aesthetic.
The collection’s main menu also grants access to all the music within the four games. A gallery filled with various concepts and promotional artwork is also available to view. The gallery also contains scans of the game manuals for the American, Japanese and European versions of each game. Speaking of versions, the collection allows players to change the regional version of the games to play.
Quality of Life Additions
By far, the neatest quality of life functions added to the three GBA Castlevania games are the Gadgets and Encyclopedia. Each game has a different and specific gadget overlay. In Circle of the Moon, the gadget overlay will show which monsters drop cards for the game’s Dual Set-up System (DSS). In Harmony of Dissonance, the gadget overlay will show what unique items and abilities can be collected in each area. Finally, in Aria of Sorrow, the gadget overlay will show whether or not the player has collected a monster’s soul. The ZL menu enables/disables gadgets.
Finally, the Encyclopedia grants players an extensive amount of knowledge of the game split into several pages. The first and second pages show a full list of items, weapons, armour, and accessories. The third page gives an overview of each game’s primary mechanic. Finally, the last page contains a full bestiary complete with item drops.
Personal Thoughts
As I mentioned above, my very first experience with the Castlevania series was with Aria of Sorrow. It’s mainly through this game that this collection resonated with me. I did play Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance afterward before working my way backward through the series catalogue. While I have little nostalgia for the earlier games (save for the original Castlevania, which I’ve recently beaten for the first time and subsequently learned to speedrun), the GBA titles hold a special place in my heart and it’s great that Konami involved M2 with its development. They have a way of retaining the original look and feel of these classic games while including modern conveniences that don’t hamper the experience.
Whether you’re a fan of the Castlevania series, a fan of the Metroidvania genre, or a newcomer to the series/genre itself, the Castlevania Advance Collection has plenty to offer.
Pixel Perfect
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Ryan Cheddi – our friendly, neighbourhood caffeine addict – is a man of many talents: an engineer, a gaming historian, a fiction writer and a streamer. He is also a self-avowed Sonic the Hedgehog fan. You can check out his cool beans at his site – Games with Coffee – or find him on Twitter as @GameswCoffee, and Instagram as @games_with_coffee. He streams on Twitch, also as GamesWithCoffee.
