Since the Castlevania Anniversary Collection was released, I’ve been hoping they’d release an Advance Collection with the GBA titles. Of course, what I meant whenever I thought or said that was that I wanted Aria of Sorrow on my Switch. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to play Circle of the Moon again, and discover that Harmony of Dissonance wasn’t as bad as I remembered, but this was always the star attraction of the package.

Replaying it after so many years was never going to be anything other than a delight.

Ah, Harmony of Dissonance. Easily the weakest of the three GBA Castlevania titles. I remember being so disillusioned with this game that I didn’t even bother to beat the true final boss. Replaying it now I’m not entirely sure why though…perhaps just because it had the misfortune of being bundled with Aria of Sorrow, which is in every way the superior game.

But it’s really not all THAT bad!

I’m no stranger to weird video game names, I’ve been playing Square Enix JRPGs since I was seven years old. But usually the names are weird across every region. Who on earth thought that “Dracula X” needed to be renamed to “Vampire’s Kiss” in EU territories only? How does this even make sense?! Is it a reference to that awful Nicolas Cage film of the same name? I certainly hope not…

Anyway, I had planned on saving this until last, but my curiosity got the better of me.

To say that I was displeased with Nintendo for broadcasting a Direct at 11pm three days ago now would be an understatement – I have a regular sleep schedule which punishes me quite severely when I deviate from it, and bedtime is 10:30pm or god help me the next day – but waking up to find that the long-rumoured Castlevania Advance Collection had been released that night was almost enough to make up for it! Finally, after 20 years, I had the opportunity to actually finish Circle of the Moon, my first Castlevania game, foray into the Metroidvania genre, and a game that had left a lasting impact on me growing up.

And it was so very satisfying.