Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is a 2002 action role-playing game developed and published by Konami for the Game Boy Advance. The second installment of the Castlevania series on the Game Boy Advance, the game was released in Japan in June 2002 and in North America and PAL regions later that same year. Harmony of Dissonance is set in the year 1748, fifty years after Simon Belmont vanquished Dracula's curse in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Harmony of Dissonance focuses on Simon's grandson, Juste Belmont, and his quest to rescue a kidnapped childhood friend.

Similarly to previous Castlevania titles, the game employs role-playing game features alongside more traditional action adventure game elements. Progression is split between two versions of the titular castle, requiring Juste to traverse both maps in search of abilities, armor and weapons to combat an assortment of enemies, including various bosses. In addition to his whip and subweapons found around each castle's grounds, Juste can perform more powerful magic attacks by finding spell books that can imbue sub weapons he finds in each castle with elemental properties, as well as augmentations for his whip that can destroy certain obstacles blocking progression to certain areas of each map.

Koji Igarashi produced Harmony of Dissonance with the intent of "creat[ing] a game that was similar to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night", the critically acclaimed PlayStation game that he had worked on. Harmony of Dissonance sold 126,000 units in the United States in its first three months of sales, but it was not a success in Japan. Critics praised its graphics which was considered an improvement over its predecessor, gameplay, and return to elements from Symphony of the Night, while criticism was directed towards its confusing map design, story, and music.