Castlevania : Harmony of Dissonance (2002)






English


Harmony of Dissonance is set in the fictional universe of the Castlevania series. The premise of the series is the eternal conflict between the vampire hunters of the Belmont clan and the immortal vampire Dracula. Harmony of Dissonance takes place in 1748, fifty years after Simon Belmont defeated Dracula's curse.[15] A result of Simon's fight against Dracula was that the villagers changed their opinion of him and the Belmont family.[13] Producer Koji Igarashi explained: "Simon was regarded as a life-saver, and people started to look upon him as a hero; little by little, the people started to gather around them. A village, therefore, was formed around Belmonts. Juste Belmont grew up in this environment with his childhood friends Maxim Kischine and Lydie Erlanger."[13]
The protagonist and primary player character is Juste Belmont, the grandson of Simon Belmont and descendant of Sypha Belnades,[7][16] who at the age of sixteen, gained the Vampire Killer whip.[17] Together with his amnesiac and injured best friend Maxim Kischine, he sets off to rescue his kidnapped childhood friend, Lydie Erlanger.[15] While exploring the castle, he encounters a merchant who stumbled upon the castle[18] and Death, Dracula's servant.[19]

Story

Juste meets Maxim at a castle where Lydie is being held captive; after a brief talk, he leaves Maxim outside and begins to explore the castle.[20] Within the castle, Juste encounters Death, who confirms that the castle is Dracula's.[19] He then meets up with a dazed Maxim, whose memory is slowly returning to him and they split up to cover more of the castle ground.[21] While trekking through the castle, Juste notices that the castle sometimes has different atmospheres.[22] He also meets Maxim several more times, but is baffled by how his friend seems to change personalities every now and then.[23] Regardless, in one of their meetings, Maxim reveals that he went on a journey to find and destroy the remains of Dracula, something Simon Belmont had previously done, but when he collected all six, his memory went blank.[16]
Juste encounters Death again, who explains that the castle has been split in two "layers" to accommodate the two spirits living in Maxim's body: his original spirit and an evil one created from Dracula's remains and his suppressed jealousy of Juste.[24][25] Maxim later confirms this and admits to being Lydie's kidnapper.[25] Juste meets his friend again in the other layer of the castle where he reveals that he lost his memory to protect Lydie. He then gives Juste his bracelet to help him locate her in the castle.[26] However, when Juste finds her, Death kidnaps her so he can use her to unite the two castles by destroying Maxim's original spirit.[27] Juste defeats Death, and proceeds to search for Maxim.
Along the way, he collects Dracula's remains, which are scattered throughout the castle. In the center of the castle, he finds Maxim with an unconscious Lydie, whom he has bitten. Maxim then declares that he has destroyed the original one's spirit.[28] Angered, Juste begins to fight him. However, during the fight, Maxim noticed that Juste wore his bracelet and resists the evil spirit's control over his body.[29] The evil spirit within him flees into a weakened form using the gathered remains and fights Juste, planning to use his blood to return himself to full power.[30] Vanquishing Dracula, Juste escapes the castle together with Maxim and Lydie, whose bite marks disappear.[31] She regains consciousness outside the castle.