Topic: Harmony of Dissonance had a weak Dracula fight

[Lumi Kløvstad]

And my guess is that it's all Simon Belmont's fault.

Not in canon, mind, but rather, due to his status as an unlockable character in Boss Rush. Simon Belmont was restricted to his old 8-Bit NES sprite from 1987, and all the... gloriously limited movement that original Castlevania allowed him to have (though use of a Gameshark could add in Juste's movement upgrades with some hilariously stilted sprite frames).

But I surmise that this is the real reason that the Dracula fight in harmony of Dissonance was so weaksauce. They had to hamstring the boss and its AI so that it was possible to beat it with a self-crippled-by-comparison NES character without giving the NES character HP-wall levels of tankness.

In story, the weakness of Dracula is chalked up to it not really being fully Dracula, but rather just his reanimated remains (translated as "Wraith" in English but in fact closer in nature to that of a Revenant) being possessed by the cast-off Mister Hyde-esque side of Maxim's personality, which was in turn created by Maxim being possessed by echoes of Dracula's emotions haunting his former body parts. Because that's a lucid plot for the ages. In other words, the Revenant/Wraith is a weak Dracula fight because he's only... sort of but not quite actually Dracula. At least in story.

The real reason seems to be that they had to nerf him so a 15 year old gamesprite could whip his head off without cheating.

Just a revelation that I had.

[VladCT]

Huh, no wonder I could just divekick the first form to death.

[zangetsu468]

Firstly, Wraith is the English version, Nagumo or Shiroi previously mentioned the Japanese translation of the same word being "Phantom". Wraith seems to fit the bill better overall imo as phantom has different connotations.

Secondly, the Dracula Wraith is weak (first form especially) the way the Simon's Quest Dracula is weak. I think there are definitely similarities between the two bosses, despite the fact one is a Wraith which resembles Dracula due to his remains, and the other is actually him attacking Simon with his fang.

[X]

The Dracula wraith for HoD was weak because it wasn't truly Dracula. It was Dracula's bodily remains, but it did not have Dracula's soul. That, and the Dracula wraith simply cannot withstand an assault from a Belmont armed with the Vampirekiller.

Game-wise it was weak too. Just kneel and whip it to death while avoiding the claw that dips down towards you. Rinse and repeat. Done. Yup.

[Ratty]

And my guess is that it's all Simon Belmont's fault.

Not in canon, mind, but rather, due to his status as an unlockable character in Boss Rush. Simon Belmont was restricted to his old 8-Bit NES sprite from 1987, and all the... gloriously limited movement that original Castlevania allowed him to have (though use of a Gameshark could add in Juste's movement upgrades with some hilariously stilted sprite frames).

But I surmise that this is the real reason that the Dracula fight in harmony of Dissonance was so weaksauce. They had to hamstring the boss and its AI so that it was possible to beat it with a self-crippled-by-comparison NES character without giving the NES character HP-wall levels of tankness.

In story, the weakness of Dracula is chalked up to it not really being fully Dracula, but rather just his reanimated remains (translated as "Wraith" in English but in fact closer in nature to that of a Revenant) being possessed by the cast-off Mister Hyde-esque side of Maxim's personality, which was in turn created by Maxim being possessed by echoes of Dracula's emotions haunting his former body parts. Because that's a lucid plot for the ages. In other words, the Revenant/Wraith is a weak Dracula fight because he's only... sort of but not quite actually Dracula. At least in story.

The real reason seems to be that they had to nerf him so a 15 year old gamesprite could whip his head off without cheating.

Just a revelation that I had.

That was probably a factor, but I've always throught the main reason was IGA's desire to tone down the difficulty. Konami probably got complaints about the difficulty of Circle of the Moon, along with the dark palette. So we got a much lighter, markedly easier game the 2nd time around. The easy end boss fight is just one more sign of this. Honestly the hardest part of HoD for me was always just keeping the two castles straight.

[zangetsu468]

That was probably a factor, but I've always throught the main reason was IGA's desire to tone down the difficulty. Konami probably got complaints about the difficulty of Circle of the Moon, along with the dark palette. So we got a much lighter, markedly easier game the 2nd time around. The easy end boss fight is just one more sign of this. Honestly the hardest part of HoD for me was always just keeping the two castles straight.

I don't necessarily believe this to be the case. The difficulty may have been a factor, but COTM was the handheld successor to SOTN, therefore why would they make it more difficult than its predecessor? This as well as COTM receiving high praise from reviewers such as IGN, who gave it even higher marks than SOTN. HoD is simply notoriously easy, and they didn't include a Hard Mode which Castlevanias almost always have. (I'm not sure they really thought deeply about this, or else they would have added one.)

COTM's box art was more "anime" in style to try and appeal to a broader audience. It makes sense, given that previously SOTN's art style was created to appeal to a wider audience, predominantly young women.

The lightness and brightness of the graphical palette was two-fold I believe, one being to more closely resemble SOTN, as was its protagonist and Castle design, the second for being visually clearer and brighter to the human eye, given COTM was very difficult to see on the original GBA which housed no built in screen light. HoD even outlined the sprites to Juste and Maxim in a different colour.