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Two GBA classics in one package

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: May 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Pretty much anytime Castlevania makes an appearance on a hand held, you know it's going to be sweet. This double pack features both Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow; two of the best games to ever be released for the GBA. In Harmony of Dissonance, you play a descendent of the Belmont clan, armed with your trusty whip, while Aria of Sorrow takes place in the future. In both games, you storm a foreboding castle and take on hordes of murderous monsters and beasts as you navigate through the labyrnth-like castle. The graphics, sound, and control in both games are superb 2-D blasts, and are two of the best Castlevania games ever designed. If you missed out on both games when they were first released, consider this your second chance to pick them up, and if you're still holding on to your GBA and are craving some fantastic side scroller action, look no further.

2 classics for $30 dont miss out again!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: January 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Aira of sorrow and harmony of dissoance were originaly released a few years back on gameboy advance but due to limited printing of the carts the only way to play them was to pay a stupid amount of money for a second hand copy(unless you purchased them when they first came out).

Anyway here is the chance to redeam your sins and pick the games up the second time round.

Castlevania is a explration game much like Metroid, you explore draculas castle but not all areas can be accessed at once. During your explration you will upgrade your wepons,level up, collect souls/books and fight many well thought out bosses.

Harmony of dissoance uses a boos system where you collect books hidden around the castle and by combining books you upgrade your wepon allowing you to progress.

Aria of sorrow uses a soul system, by defeating bad guys some times there souls will release and each soul gives you a different ability or attack and there are loads to collect alowing you to progress through the castle.

Both games contain severial endings bad and good ones the bad ones are usally easy to get but the good ones will require you to collect certian souls and compleate extra areas of the castle.

I really cant recomend these games enough konami is a great developer and 2d castlevania is what they do best so grab a copy now before they become rare again im sure you dont want to be paying $90 on ebay next year.

Aira of sorrow is the prequal to dawn of sorrow on Nintendo DS so check that one out to, also circle of the moon the first GBA castlevania.

A Trip To Dracula's Castle...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: July 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Recently, I bought a DS Lite. I was ecstatic to find out that Gameboy Advance cartridges would play on it because I have never owned a handheld before and so its like buying two systems for the price of one. This Castlevania double pack was the first GBA game I bought because I like 2-D side-scrollers and it was such a great value.
I found Harmony of Dissonance to be the weaker of the two titles. This game is gorgeous and its huge. In this game Dracula's Castle has split into two identical parts and to clear the game you essentially have to clear the castle twice. Now getting to different parts of the castle is not a straightforward task as the two castles form a huge labyrinthin maze where some parts of Castle A are only accessable after traveling through parts of Castle B. This wouldn't be so terrible if this game did not include a metric ton of backtracking. I know that backtracking is part and parcel of Castlavania, but in Harmony you must find 6 parts of Dracula's body. They are either well hidden or require a specific skill to get to. It's a huge pain to remember which room in which castle that place that you couldn't quite get to hours ago was. In stead of the backtracking aspect being reward for methodical players, it is a nessecity and a chore. For me, Harmony of Dissonance just over stayed its welcome as it is just too long. Also the high jump skill is so difficult to use as it requires you to press up then down and the A button at the same time with juuuuust the right timing on those itty bitty controls that it alone is almost enough to make me hate this game.
Castlevania is often praised for its music, but the music of Harmony will not be winning any prizes. The only track that really stood out was the one for the Airways Pathway stage, and only because it sounded like it was ripped out of a Kirby game.
On its own Harmony would rank about a 2/5 from me.
The real reason to own its cartridge is Aria of Sorrow. Aria is a treat to look at, it has wonderful music, its just the right length, and it makes a few key changes to the gameplay. In Aria, the main character has access to many types of weapons instead of being confined to the whip, each with there own advantages and disadvantages. Knives, guns, hammers, swords, lances- picking the right weapon for the right occasion is crucial. Abilities are gained through collecting souls that you find by exploring the castle or be defeating enemies. Souls can be switched on the fly from the status menu so instead of making insane and cumbersome button configurations for each skill, you just equip a different soul. It's that simple. Dracula's Castle may be smaller this time around, but I found this journey to be much tougher. The castle is arranged to be more straighforward this time around so backtracking is kept to minimum unless you just have to see all 100% of the map.
Aria is a great game and on its own it would net a 4/5. It's the real reason to get this.

Best GBA games you've never played

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was very excited to see Konami release this double-pack. Finding these games at a reasonable price before this release was next to impossible. First off I'll start with HoD. Graphically near similar to PS1. Deepest game of the three for GBA. Castle exploration was a lot of fun with neat secrets. Fairly difficult but not that tough. Music is average GBA quality. Story is negligible but if you played any modern Castlevania then you know what to expect. Replay value is excellent. Castle is huge. Worth purchase by itself but then you get a whole other game. AoS takes the game into a more modern setting with a new feature of soul consumption making it's replay value next to none in excellency. Graphically superior to most GBA games and near PS1 quality. Sound is Okay. Music repeats often. But good for GBA. Smaller castle than HoD but not by much. More linear than other entries. You are never really in over your head so difficulty is minor for veterans. Just make sure you got the right soul for the job. Both games are lots of fun. Especially, if you like Metroid games than this should be your next purchase. On my 10 best for all systems. Can't beat the value of 2 games in 1. If you get sick of one play the other. I play these on my DS and have no problem with controls or battery life. A must for long trips or short bathroom visits. Highly recommended.

Excellence In A Platformer

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: February 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've never been a big fan of the Castlevania series because I always felt that they were too hard. I was suprised when I found Double Pack, and it was a good deal for two seperate games that are both very good alone. Let me just clarify something- you get two games on one GBA cartridge, and you're able to switch from either at the screen that pops up when you turn the GBA on. Anyway, I didn't like Harmony of Dissonance as much as I liked Aria Of Sorrow because I feel AoS had a lot more depth with the weapons. You have a HUGE number of weapons to discover, buy, and weild. They all have their own speed and damage, and all kinds attack styles. On AoS, also, you have the ability to capture souls off random monsters as a drop, and they give you special abilities that you can choose from, like radiating fire, throwing a grenade, or letting you glide on a big jump. These are some amazing platformers, and they're nice and compact- just perfect for a road trip. These are, by far, the best game I've played on the GBA next to Minish Cap and Harvest Moon: More Friends Of Mineral Town.

I'm HOOKED!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm not a gamer----I usually play my BookWorm game for a bit and then quit. BUT, this Castlevania game is addictive. I LOVE it!! The monsters are GREAT...I find myself really getting into the game. My only regret is that I don't have a lot of time to play---wish I did. This is definitely going on trips with me.

Great set of Games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a must own for anyone who likes Castlevania games. Harmony of Dissonance is very similar to Castlevania Symphony of the Night in terms of gameplay, and any player will spend many hours playing through this game. Aria of sorrow is just as good if not better than Harmony of Dissonance. This is a great set of games to own and I hope that Konami never stops making these games.

Good deal, better games.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

For less than the price of the games seperately,the double pack gives you the opportunity to play two great games without any loss of the individually packaged ones. But even if it were a little more expensive, the Castlevania series are some of the coolest games ever, so it wouldnt matter.

Castlevania Double Pack

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

come on its Aria of Sorrow and Harmony of Dissonance, how could it possibly not be fun???

Excellent package

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: December 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

By themselves, these 2 games would probably get 4 stars, but together for the price of a game and a half I think it's worth 5.

Both games are inspired by the Symphony of the Night style gameplay (borrowed heavilty from Metroid) of having a large castle to explore at your whim, but needing certain abilities to reach certain areas. Both games also feature excellent save features that all portable games should have.

Harmony of Dissonance
This is probably the better of the two just because of its save feature. After you use your first save room, you gain the ability to save the game at any time (excluding during boss battles) from the pause menu, and continue playing. This saves all of your progress up to that point, but whenever you load up the save you will start back from the last actual save room you used. It makes the game a little less tense when exploring difficult areas, and can be used to save yourself some backtracking (which this game has in excess).

The only main weapon you get in this is the whip, but you get the usual assortment of mini-weapons (dagger, axe, holy water, etc) and can combine them with elements to form magic spells). It's a fairly simple magic system, which is just how I like it for short games like this.

This game was not that difficult, but still managed to be fun.

Aria of Sorrow
This game's save feature works differently, in that you can save at any time (after your first save room) but the game ends, when you start it back up, you'll be in the same location, and your save reverts back to the last actual save room you used. Not as useful in game, but nice when you have to stop playing unexpectedly.

This game brings back a large assortment of weapons for you to use. From slashing swords, thrusting spears, slow but powerful hammers, etc. It also replaces the mini-weapons idea with souls you (randomly) collect from your enemies. While the souls that enhanced you passively, and the ones that granted special abilities I found useful, the actual weapon-like ones I found diminished in usefulness as the game went on.

This game was actually somewhat difficult, with certain areas I dreaded going into.

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