User Reviews (11 - 21 of 42)

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One heck of a good time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have to say I loved it, its a great time, from the moment I got it. The graphics are awesome and it feels like you are playing Symphony of the Night. I bought Circle of the Moon and it was good, but this one is a lot better. The game plays faster thanks to the dash buttons. There are enough extras to keep you entertained with the game for a while. Many people do feel dissapointed cause the game really is on the easy side. But if you are looking for a good time not some hard action game so hard too beat it will get you frustrated. This game has a beautiful look, an fast paced feel and it gets you intrguied enough in it that you wont stop until you beat it. Love it

Best Game Ever Made for GBA!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is so much better than the previous Castlevanias. Except for symphony of the night. Great adventure, storyline, and suspense. The main thing is you go around and build up your character and collect items that allow you perform certain movements or boost your players attributes. The spell books and items are way better. Mix spell books with items to really enhance the effects. My favs are wind and dagger,wind and cross,and fire with book. The castle(s)are divided into sections that are set at different levels of gameplay. Excellent graphics, the controls may take some getting used to. One of the things i like most about this game is you grow with your character. You get better as the game goes on and so does gamplay. This is a must have for the Game Boy Advance system!

Hours & Hours of Adventure!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I just purchased this game and have played it for about 3 hours already, and I must say I was impressed by it's graphics, and the game's easy to get into gameplay. The game is absolutely beautiful and you can pick up tons of items, weapons, spell books, etc. There's many different enemies your pitted against.....the bosses in this game are some of the best ive ever seen on a handheld. Absolutely beautiful boss designs! This is one of those must-have games for the GBA. I also recommend Zelda: A link to the past/4 swords, Metroid Fushion, Street Fighter: Alpha 3, and MK: Deadly Alliance.

Castlevania continues it's reign of quality

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The Castlevania series are my favorites, for sure, and this one's another gem for the collection.This one's about Juste Belmont, blood descendant of Simon Belmont,a master vampire hunter who has slayed the Count on multiple occassions. The plot is different than just slaying Drac though. Juste's friend Lydie has disappeared within the walls of Castlevania, and Juste and
his childhood friend Maxim Kischne set out to find her, yet everything ends up going awry somehow...Just to boot, Maxim's body is invaded by Dracula's spirit...BUT...The real aim of this game is to find all of Dracula's Remains (Fang, Tooth, Nail, Ring, Eye, Heart) though most players will not realize this without help from a strategy guide of sorts...

As for the actual review, there are a variety of things right and wrong with this game. To boot, we have superb graphics, boasting some of the most vivid, easy-on-the-eyes background scenery on the Game Boy Advance, but the blue aura surrounding Juste makes him seem somewhat out of place. Not to mention when he walks and jumps, he seems like he's magnetically attracted to the ground-but that's a completely seperate problem!

The castle is huge. There's so much to explore, and I'm glad they brought back the teleporter system, which predecessor Circle of the Moon sloppily butchered. There are two castles, one being a harder version of the other (a Symphony of the Night element.) with greater puzzles and challenges. Everything's easy to adjust to, and it never seems like you have to guess where you're going, which is another thing Circle of the Moon did wrong. Also brought back is the currency system with the Merchant's Shop though the items are a little cheap...which can add or take away challenge depending on what the player wants...even though the game is challenging without being strenuous as it is.

The music is well orchestrated, but the sound quality is a throwback to the days of NES. A select few compositions are simply superb, while the rest are mediocre. Listen closely for the one in the Sky Walkway, which is haunting. Moving on...

The bosses are redundant and often pointless (Getting a jewel that inreases MP restoration rate for getting rid of one of the game's harder bosses for example...and MP is not important) but some are unique and well-thought of (the Devil, for example.) Death (Grim Reaper) also makes a lovely appearance (or four) One thing they stole from Symphony, however, that they shouldn't have is the cheesy dialouge. Yes, it's back. Misplaced curse words and utterly stupid scriptwriting at some points add a flavor of kiddy gameplay to the game- not that the game is, however, a kiddy game. My biggest qualm, however, is that the game is simply a pain (...) few points, if that tells you anything. Some enemies have no pattern to them, hence, they're so unpredictable that it makes the game frustrating. But you'll adjust over time, and the good far outweighs the bad. The best of the three Castlevania GBA games, by far, if simply for the replay value (very, very high...) and the overall quality. It would have made a successful Playstation game. The 2nd best in the series, in my opinion, even with the negative points.

BOTTOM LINE: Harmony of Fun
GRADE: A

good... but there are better...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Being a long time castlevania fan, I was really excited about this game. I however was somewhat disapointed with it. What the game gets right is great play controll, cool areas, some neat items and a neat gothic-vampire-esque story. But this game has almost no difficulty (except for collecting ALL of the relics... that is a chalenge)... To be honest, the only time I died was while playing the final boss, and even then, that death could have been easily avoided if I had used one of my 13 potions. The magic system in the game is ok, using spell books with weapons to create powerful magic, but these spell books are too easilly obtained (except for the last book, the summoning tome, which reqires a little bit of searching)and just a little too powerful. The bosses are also VERY uninspired and boaring compared to previous castlevania bosses. The game is a great time killer and is fun, but if you are looking for some gothic, vampire slaying action, You should probably look at Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, or Castlevania lament of Innocence. If you're a fan, then pick it up ..... but if not, you might want to consider another castlevania game.

Harmony not as melodic as Circle

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: September 27, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I purchased this game 2 days ago and gave it a try last night. Well first of all I'm a little dissapointed.

Music
The music is very simplistic. It's obvious they spent little time on that. I'd compare it to Castlevania for the original NES. Circle of the Moon however has great music and gameplay. It even opens with an opera singer.

Gameplay
Not bad. The controls are simple to figure out. The items, spells menu is a little simple. Circle has a well designed look and feel. I particulary like Harmony's quick save feature. Circle was a little tough becuase you had to battle your way back to a red room to save.

Brightness and characters
They claim the characters are larger than COM. Well that may be true, but the detail is a little lacking. Look at a game like Pinball of the Dead or COM. Now that is some well designed characters. This game is considerably brighter than COM which is better for some. For me the COM was fine when you used the correct lighting.

As a result, I don't see why this game got rated higher than 3 stars. To be fair, I was comparing it to Circle of the Moon which is a phenominal game and doesn't compaare. They did make Harmony brighter than COM which is a ++. Although, I do play both on a TV viewer or use a bright light on the GBA and it's just fine anyway. The music on Harmony is simple like a 8-bit NES game. COM is far better MIDI style.

Castlecrazed

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: November 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I enjoyed this game right from the momement I picked it up!
This was my first Castlevania game, so I am not comparing it to the others. The graphics were great! The game was just hard enough. Some aspects were easy and some hard. I am not really into insanely difficult RPG. Fun and interesting is what I like.
Well worth the money.

Best Castlevania of all time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

One would think the Belmont family had run out of young men to fight Dracula...not really. This time we've got Juste Belmont, heir to the Belmont throne, masterof accult affairs, and amatuer interior decorator. HOD once again faithfully copies the PS1's SOTN. The DSS card system from COTM have been replaced with magic books that you can combine with your powers, plus you can save anywhere! Otherwise, there's nothing new here...other than Juste's yen decorating empty rooms with furniture that he finds. Vampire hunting takes such a toll on the mind (and if you think I'm kidding, ask Buffy!). Now you can kiss those bleary eyes and holgen lamps good-bye. Not only can you actually see the graphics, but they have also been improved, with huge srceen-filling monsters, and with 3-D effects that gracefully glide across the screen. Sadly, something is midding in the music, it's muddy, ploding, and reminds me of the old four-channel NES soundtracks. (And that's not a good thing). The biggest flaw, though, is the lack of challenge, the attack spells are WAY stronger than his whip, and most of the bosses are pushovers. It's worrisome to see such a great series start to fade.

Gameboy Masterpiece it IS!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: February 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you like Castlevania, especially Symphony of the Night on PSX then you will LOVE this game. It's that simple.

My god, it's Symphony of the Night on GBA...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: September 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Firstly, let me say that this game's sound is definetely not up to par with that of CoTM. It WILL remind you of an 8-Bit GameBoy Color game. You WILL be dissapointed. But that will NOT stop you from buying this otherwise perfect masterpiece of a game.

The game is, from what I've heard and seen, vastly similar to SotN, but also reminiscent of CotM, so you get the best of both worlds, as far as zombie-spank action goes. The graphics are clean, clear, and surprisingly bright, but this doesn't really detract from the overall spooky feel of the game. The controls are tight, responsive, and you'll never feel lost as far as the buttons go.

So, if you have even a marginal interest in the Castlevania series, I suggest that you do yourself a favor and pick up this game ASAP. I guarantee that you will not be dissapointed. Now all I'm waiting for is the release of Metroid Fusion in November...

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