GBA Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance: Visual Improvement (Hack) GBA

[RageBurner]

A tweak of Piggy-Chan!'s HoD color hack, made with permission.

Author(s): Pemburu Vampir
Version: 1.1
Date: 11th of August, 2025
Status: Complete
Source: https://romhackplaza.org/romhacks/c...ssonance-visual-improvement-game-boy-advance/

Download from Repo​

• Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance (Visual Improvement)

 

[Erik Óptero]

I don't think any of the flashing in the original game would be removed by this but the brightness to overcompensate for the original GBA's dark screen, the outlines of a lot of sprites were removed and I think these hacks improve on the "Definitive Edition" HOD hack from years ago which was just visual and not gameplay changes. The biggest ask for this game would probably be expanding the rom and having most of the music redone (the same compositions, just higher quality so they're all in-line with the quality of the entrance area music) with higher quality so it doesn't sound awful, but that's a lot harder than what's done by a recolor/palette hack.

About music: do you mean like an MSU1 version? :d??

 

[Abominat]

Big fan of these color correction hacks. It's a lot more convenient than messing around with emulator filters that never look quite right.

 

[CHEESE ENJOYER]

I found this patch to fix the game's soundtrack, it might be useful to you

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5483/

It just swaps it for music from other games. It doesn't fix the original music in this game.

 

[Going Gorillas Bananas]

Between the recolor and animation enhancements I consider this to be the best version of my favorite GBAvania (yes, I like HoD over Aria; I never said my opinions were sound.)
As for the soundtrack: Yeah, it;s mid for the most part--except Sky Chapel, my beloved--but it "sounding like an NES game" is hardly a dealbreaker in my eyes, especially since the game is basically one big reference to the first two.

 

[Akimuakior]

This one with the localization fixes and new chain whip edit are about as good as it gets. The only further thing that could be improved with this game would require someone able to do GBA music to actually redo the original music using the same compositions at higher quality so the quality matches that of what was done with Aria of Sorrow's music since the compositions themselves are fine. I'm actually surprised this game and Aria of Sorrow haven't gotten very many improvement patches over the years compared to the DS games. Aria in particular has a lot of baseline issues like luck not working, weird translations like "Curly" (it's supposed to be Kali), "Lubicant" "Skull Million" (Rubicant, Scarmiglion) "Skula" (Scylla) etc. Aria recolors have been great though.

I found this patch to fix the game's soundtrack, it might be useful to you

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5483/

 

[CHEESE ENJOYER]

jesus, there's so many rom hacks of this game i don't even know which one i should play

This one with the localization fixes and new chain whip edit are about as good as it gets. The only further thing that could be improved with this game would require someone able to do GBA music to actually redo the original music using the same compositions at higher quality so the quality matches that of what was done with Aria of Sorrow's music since the compositions themselves are fine. I'm actually surprised this game and Aria of Sorrow haven't gotten very many improvement patches over the years compared to the DS games. Aria in particular has a lot of baseline issues like luck not working, weird translations like "Curly" (it's supposed to be Kali), "Lubicant" "Skull Million" (Rubicant, Scarmiglion) "Skula" (Scylla) etc. Aria recolors have been great though.

 

[Akimuakior]

This one is hard. I'll try asking around

Thank you very much, mate, if you find a solution, let me know here, I'll be waiting for your answer

 

[Hopper01]

I only found this in the same forum but I don't think it will work unless you extract the patch from the ROM but I don't know how to do it https://retrogametalk.com/repository/gba-roms/castlevania-harmony-of-dissonance-usa/

This one is hard. I'll try asking around

 

[fourmonty]

is it skipping a bit? i change some core options, i think its fine now, bios if available off & forcee enable RTC on

 

[DemiDude]

this will be the perfect game to try out on my psp go

 

[Hopper01]

jesus, there's so many rom hacks of this game i don't even know which one i should play

https://www.romhacking.net/reviews/12377/#review

https://www.romhacking.net/reviews/12372/#review

Post automatically merged: Aug 29, 2025

Chain whip or normal whip?

I know it's subjective, but which did any of you prefer?

chain for me. but probably because it's newer to me who has been working/testing/playing on the normal whip for over a decade.

 

[JPZ]

Chain whip or normal whip?

I know it's subjective, but which did any of you prefer?

 

[pawaclutter]

jesus, there's so many rom hacks of this game i don't even know which one i should play

 

[Akimuakior]

guess PM ing is the only way, if that's allowed here

I only found this in the same forum but I don't think it will work unless you extract the patch from the ROM but I don't know how to do it https://retrogametalk.com/repository/gba-roms/castlevania-harmony-of-dissonance-usa/

 

[_-_AceDragon_-_]

Later I will rewrite the Repo entry to further detail the walk cycle differences so people can tell. The TL;DR is that nicoZ's animation looks incredibly smooth and the best yet.

It's great. They've even taken care of the way the hair is animated, it's way better. Slightly regretting re-playing it last month now!

 

[Hopper01]

I only find the already patched ROM, the patch file is not available on the creator's page

guess PM ing is the only way, if that's allowed here

 

[Akimuakior]

Do you have link to this spanish translation?

I only find the already patched ROM, the patch file is not available on the creator's page

 

[pepsimanvsjoe]

It looks really nice. Having a grand time replaying HoD.

 

[Hopper01]

Hello, I wanted to know if you could make the recolor compatible with the Spanish translation of Harmony of Dissonance.

Do you have link to this spanish translation?

 

[Akimuakior]

Hello, I wanted to know if you could make the recolor compatible with the Spanish translation of Harmony of Dissonance.

 

[RageBurner]

Later I will rewrite the Repo entry to further detail the walk cycle differences so people can tell. The TL;DR is that nicoZ's animation looks incredibly smooth and the best yet.

 

[underhandwriter]

Devilart's is very different, actually. The problem is there are not enough animation frames to make it really smooth.

Yeah, the more I see them, the more I can see the differences. The latest one is great too!

Thank you for posting my hack here (I'm Pemburu but goes by many names lol). Currently version 1.2.2 is out due to me forgetting to implement some items descriptions from spiffy's Localization hack.

Post automatically merged: Aug 24, 2025

I'm glad it made you finish the game finally. congratulations! and thank you!

edit: your last screenshot surprised me with how good the chain can look

Awesome job on this hack! It looks amazing.

 

[CHEESE ENJOYER]

The new running animation looks more natural when switching into other animations like attacking, jumping, dashing etc. compared to the modified one from devilart in previous versions.

 

[Hopper01]

Hey! Thanks for the message and I hope your are not upset with the frustrated tone in my previous message. Apologies, if that was the case. I honestly appreciate the time and work dedicated to this patch as all others done before and I wanted that to be clear. :-)

I have read the list before my previous message, but it is still confusing if adding to the amount of options the details are scarce and the statements vague. For instance on the list says: "Replaced original Juste’s walking animation with ncoZ’s (BIG improvement)" - Ok, great, but how and why is it a big improvement?
After reading it I was also questioning myself if that previous option "Pemburu Animation" was the original or not - and before I assumed it was because the other option "Devilart", according to the discussion here, was not.

Pemburu was my modifications of the vanilla sprites although very tiny bits, like the whip, the arm during attack. You can say it's 90% vanilla with 10% modifications. As for Devilart's it's a modifications to the walking and jumping animation as stated before. Hope that clears things up. Also no apology needed, no offense taken. As far how is it a big improvement, I've already attached gif image showing why so, yeah. Also thank you for your appreciation of my work.

Post automatically merged: Aug 27, 2025

That nicoZ walk cycle really is quite the improvement (while still using the same number of frames?), hats off to the sprite artist.

Ikr it's crazy he had it and I happened to saw his work in a server and was granted permission to use. And yes while still using same number of frames.

 

[Moloch]

there was. but the walk animation is obsolete. so you won't find version with original sprites. Also I list down every changes in this page: https://romhackplaza.org/romhacks/c...ssonance-visual-improvement-game-boy-advance/

but if you want one with vanilla sprites, I can make one just for you
oh also there's a readme file in the zip in the site above, maybe that'll help.

Hey! Thanks for the message and I hope your are not upset with the frustrated tone in my previous message. Apologies, if that was the case. I honestly appreciate the time and work dedicated to this patch as all others done before and I wanted that to be clear. :-)

I have read the list before my previous message, but it is still confusing if adding to the amount of options the details are scarce and the statements vague. For instance on the list says: "Replaced original Juste’s walking animation with ncoZ’s (BIG improvement)" - Ok, great, but how and why is it a big improvement?
After reading it I was also questioning myself if that previous option "Pemburu Animation" was the original or not - and before I assumed it was because the other option "Devilart", according to the discussion here, was not.