I have only played Harmony of Dissonance with this hack applied, so I can’t really compare this hack to the original, except of the controls of the character you play in the original.

I played as Julius Belmont (sort of recreating the events of 1999 stated in the story of the series). His dash is way longer than Juste’s, so he’s way more agile. Besides that, he possesses his subweapons/abilities from Aria of Sorrow, including Hydro Storm and Grand Cross. I don’t know if this is an intentional element of the original, but playing through this hack, I noticed just how open this game is. Many late-game bosses are accessible quite early (Death among others), and can kill you quickly.

It felt very refreshing to explore the castle and have no idea where you end up actually going, no clear goals in sight. One thing that disappointed me, however, is that a quest, seemingly mandatory in the original, is completely skipped in this hack. I’m talking about the gathering of Dracula’s Remnants, which are spread throughout the entire castle. Yes, they still are in this hack, except the remnants don’t do anything. In the original, you need to collect them all to be able to access the final boss. In this hack, you can skip them altogether. Not realising this, I went to gather them all thanks to the fun hints this game gives on their location. At one point, a bug made one of the collected Remnants suddenly disappear from my inventory. This made me think I couldn’t reach the final boss anymore, until I realised the fact that there’s no need to gather these items.

On one hand, this made me happy I was still able to finish the game. On the other hand, it felt sad I didn’t even need to gather anything, and by extension, explore a lot of the castle, in order to reach the final boss. Apparently (not sure on this) in this hack, the final boss room opens up once you defeat a certain other boss.

The gathering of remnants honestly were a great reason to explore a lot of the castle. It’s disappointing to discover they were useless after all. I did explore almost the entire castle on my own accord (before I even knew of the Remnants), because it was my first playthrough. Now that I have discovered all you need to do to beat this game, is reach the boss that unlocks the final boss, then defeat that final boss, it feels as if the exploration was wholly pointless.

So, I had loads of fun with this hack, but upon finding out there’s not much reason to explore the castle as thoroughly as I did, I think it will be quite hollow on replays. I also think that people who did play the original Harmony of Dissonance may be disappointed even on their first play through the hack, since they already do know of the Dracula Remnants based on their experience playing the base game.