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Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance Visual Improvement (Game Boy Advance) Romhack - RomHack Plaza
Hack Name:  Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance Visual Improvement
Platform: 
Genre: 
Released by: 
Language: 
Status:  In-Progress
Patch Version:  1.2.3
Last updated:  August 27, 2025
Type of Hack:  Graphics, Text
Downloads:  492
Rating: 

New visual hack based on Symphony of Dissonance by Piggy Chan! on RHDN (I got his permission of course) which was based on Pemburu Vampir’s previous Palette hack, but this time with different take!

What have been changed:

-Fixed blood waterfall animation in Luminous Cavern B
-Fixed Bomber Armor’s bomb fuse
-Replaced Platinum tip with Spike tip
-Consistent blood color across the game
-Restored original whip length
-Added extra red palette to Juste’s coat (Thanks to Sorrow)
-Readjusted some enemies and players palettes
-Brightens up all torches and lamps
-Explosion and flame effects are much more brighter
-Changed palettes of Chapel of Dissonance and Sky Walkway B (also credit to Sorrow)
-Restored character portrait’s palettes
-Some other minor ones

-Version 1.1:
-fixed the status effect palettes

-Version 1.2:
-Added Devilart’s walking and jumping sprites (which I modified a bit) into the game
-Readjusted boss Maxim trails palette and some minor changes

-Version 1.2.1:
-Added optional localization fix originally made by Spiffy
-Retouched Devilart’s sprites

-Version 1.2.2
-Fixed some items description in Localization fix that was forgotten to be implemented
-Minor tweaks to Juste’s palettes and sprites

-Version 1.2.3
-Replaced original Juste’s walking animation with ncoZ’s (BIG improvement)
-Fixed Fairy’s wings color

There are 4 patches and another 4 with different translation. Choose whichever you like!
Patch only work on clean dump of the USA Version of the game, other versions may not work.
Patch is in .ips format use ips patching tool

Hashes: 
Filename: Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance.gba
CRC-32: 88c1b562
SHA-1: b90da0d9be0b3a0893cd9e2c399056bcf9579e21
Staff/Credits: 
sorrow, Piggy Chan!, ncoZ, Devilart and spiffy for their awesome work!
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On most files, you can also press “Patch It”, to apply the patch without downloading the file.

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Reviews:
Refined Purist’s Take On Improving HoD Graphics + Cute QoL Additions

Written by: Andrewskey - September 12, 2025

Most of the game's graphics now are much more toned down in brightness to a point where it should be less jarring and more easy for most people to appreciate nowadays. I'd noticed early on playing HoD how much more different yet remarkably unique and well done Vampir's original take on the coloring in this game was through their own hack, though I had always wondered if it was possible to retain the original colors while delivering on the same quality. Piggy Chan's visual improvement here now certainly provides in that aspect making the game much less straining to look at while still bringing to life the game's originally intended color scheme as if playing for the very first time. Alongside the removal of characters' jarringly colored outlines, there are even minor tweaks to other visual aspects such as light+explosion brightness appearing more potently and even a proper spiked tip for the chain once you acquire the proper upgrade. Best of all would have to be ncoZ's new walk cycle because it just looks so much more natural than the original's that it's a selling point alone. Even when you're dashing most times in this game, a bad walk cycle can still stick out like a sore thumb, but thankfully the walk cycle in this hack doesn't by a long shot.

Though I'd played this hack with the included localization fix, I could not strongly comment on any of the text changes besides noticing a change to the names of different Bone Dragons which are now White Dragon, Screw Dragon, and Bone Naga (neat). Other than that, I had noticed text errors when patching a regular visual improvement .ips onto the rom and then an .ips from the localization fix folder, but I had no such errors when just patching with the localization fix files which I think could've been better clarified for anyone else patching this game.

Overall, this is a great visual improvement hack that many people getting into HoD should consider using especially for their first playthrough. The only other hack I tried with this one was Mureisky's 'Less Backtracking' patch which seemed to work just fine, although I've also heard that this isn't compatible with 'Revenge Of The Findesiecle' at the moment. For now though, this hack marks the ground as a substantial improvement in making HoD at least a more graphically enjoyable game to play.

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