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When you said it's a difficulty hack, you're not wrong. Got my butt handed the first tries. However, you'll get used to it once you know what you're doing. Love the custom sprites for the cast and weapons.

This is definitely a tall order but is it possible to make another version where the music is literally HoD arrangements? I love some of the arrangements you made. The weapons, you should add whips that are straight from Harmony, especially the charging whip.

That's all I can say. Hope the next update is awesome.

I'm not the biggest fan of Dawn Of Sorrow, but this hack left a bad taste in my mouth. Dawn Of Sorrow had some of my favorite music in the DS trilogy, and while I don't mind having tracks from both Portrait and Order in here, some of the arrangements of non-Castlevania music tossed in there like from Mega Man Zero, Persona, and Final Fantasy just straight up does not belong.

Some of the new arranged Harmony music isn't bad, but then the inclusion of things like the use of Albus' boss fight theme from Order as the standard boss music, it just doesn't fit well, but the biggest offender imo goes to the final boss music with Menace... I dunno what that is from, but all the intense excitement from that fight that syncs with Piercing Battle Fury is just gone and it made me sad.

Gameplay wise... it's not too different from your standard Dawn, Juste gets books from Portrait Of Ruin to boost his magic abuse, but like Soma, a speedy sword weapon (or even whips since he is a Belmont afterall) is generally ideal for dealing with just about everything. The name changes to many soul abilities can get very confusing during the playthrough, especially if you're trying to Synthesis new weapons because then it gets difficult remember which mob drops which spell since the soul abilities use a different name than the monster that drops it generally, also some mobs will give you a completely different ability than what they had originally. For example, in the Underwater Cavern, there is that long room with spikes submerged underwater, you needed the Soul from the pair of skeletons carrying around a skull pillar to reach the other side. However in this hack, they do not give you that soul ability, so I never bothered exploring that area completely during my first visit.

The story is pretty much just like Dawn but everybody gets replaced. Juste is our hero obviously, Lydie takes the place of Mina, your love interest, Maxim takes over Hammer's job as the merchant (and is probably one of the more interesting characters because he's so damn horny), Sophia is just a Yoko re-color and isn't too different overall, while Sonia Belmont from Castlevania Legends is reestablished as Juste's disciple, and current master of the Vampire Killer having succeeded him, as well as functioning as Julius did in Dawn. Then Alucard... he's Alucard.

The baddie trio of the game are just re-written recolors, with Dmitrii being re-colored into Graham from Aria Of Sorrow, on top of sharing his portrait (Which becomes very disturbing after his boss fight). Basic story is instead of trying to get a new Dark Lord Candidate through Dmitrii and Dario, Dmitrii is now the father of the cult leader Celia (Now re-named Cecilia, with green hair) and wants the power of Chaos for himself, while Dario (Now Darius) is basically the same stupid gorilla he was in Dawn, but made to be more co-operative to the others.

Where this game really goes to hell honestly is the amount of memeing with referencing other games, most notable Metroid, Zelda, and even Mario. In terms of difficulty, if you've beaten Dawn Of Sorrow before once or twice, this shouldn't be hard. The hardest part was fighting the Crow Man boss, they relocated him and in his room are spiked ceiling traps, which hurt alot, so you really gotta respect his space and dodge. After that though, fairly standard experience, although as mentioned before, there are some frustrating mob placements throughout the game and simple room layout changes such as platforms, addition of spikes and traps, etc, can prove to be quite a hindrance. The final stretch of the game especially starts to wear itself thin I eventually reached a point where I stopped caring about trying to avoid stuff and just push hard past everything.

Overall, I feel like this hack doesn't do enough interesting things, may as well stick to playing vanilla Dawn Of Sorrow (With the Definitive Edition hack of course!). Also should mention alot of the new bonus weapons are really insane... especially the Siryu Book lmao.

This hack does presentation pretty well. The new sprites look amazing, the dialogue and story are fantastic, and I love most of the tracks. But the level design and general balance completely turned me off to the hack.

I'm not an absolute PRO at Dawn of Sorrow or any of the other Castlevania games, but I'm not terrible either, and yet this hack's difficulty feels wonky and taxing. While Dawn of Sorrow feels like it has a natural flow to its level design, with amazing architecture like its predecessors and the games that followed it, this hack's flow is sometimes unfair and often bewildering. There are several areas that feel super claustrophobic and/or insulting to the player. There's a line between difficulty and excessive pressure, and somehow this hack flies across that line at light speed onto the latter's side. For instance *** SPOILERS *** the Graham Bartley fight feels bugged, as there are several moments where his default copied soul ability can damage you a TON without any sort of invincibility buffer, which makes the fight so much more frustrating, especially considering that the other souls he can copy don't make anything any better. The power of the equipment you get also doesn't end up matching what you're going to end up battling, making you quite, QUITE weaker than your opponents. Everything feels crafted to be almost like a kaizo hack, and the general excitement I had going into this immediately fell flat.

If you see this, creator, don't take all of this as insulting, everything else is absolutely fantastic! But the balancing is, I'm sorry to say, incredibly disappointing, and also the references to other series are a little too often.

I don't recommend this because if you aren't an absolute pro at Dawn of Sorrow, you're going to tear your hair out. :(

There are three main parts for this hack:

First is the story and the accompanying sprite changes. The story is fanfic, how it feels to people is subjective. They've done what they could with the tools available at the moment, as in, they've had to write it entirely within the dialog and event system of Dawn of Sorrow. Personally there's just no way to do something that'll please me in this department under the current toolset.

Second is the level edit to the game. This one made me not want to play again after finishing it, the main castle's overall layout is basically unchanged, a lot of paths closed making navigation a chore, a few new paths made which only seem to be there to drag on the content. Quite a lot of traps strung about the map, nothing particularly too tricky. The Abyss map has received the most change, but it feels a lot worse to navigate. Not a fan of the idea of making the bosses harder by adding traps to the boss room. Save room angel statue has been replaced with a praise the sun statue.

Third is the combat changes. This is where the hack shines in variety, there's basically none of the original weapons left, they've all been changed and you have more weapon types. Most notably is how you got swing patterns added from the other ds-vanias. Souls were almost all replaced, pet summon souls had their mp cost basically nullified. Makes keeping a pet on somewhat desirable. Enemies are changed, new resistance sets, new stats, their positioning on the map is on the same vein as the map edits themselves. Unfortunately there are no new enemies in this, they're all the same as far as their moveset goes. The sprite changes and stat changes may make them feel somewhat new, but that wears out fast. Plenty of meme weapons and sprite changes piled on here, honestly I feel like having Metroid and legend of Zelda items end up detracting from it.

So how did I go through this? It wasn't that bad, the "difficult" tag on this hack is true, I had a few deaths due to not paying attention, but they stopped 1 hour in. Took a total of 7 hours to basically 100% the hack. The beginning was somewhat difficult, mostly because I barely had weapons to choose from and the enemies being resistant to the more easy to use beginner weapons. At the garden I relied on an old crutch for Dawn of Sorrow, skelerang soul and thrown weapons. It's a pretty strong combo that can carry till near the end of the game. Helped by the first thrown weapon I found "hero's boomerang", a boomerang that hits both fire and water elements, it made a decent work out of nearly everything. Took me a while to figure out where to go on the chapel, the platforms I could jump through were so thick I though the path was actually blocked off (the hack has done plenty of rooms with middle barriers to force a specific path). Somewhat unremarkable until it got to the point where I fought Aguni, that's when I pressed a switch that opened the clock tower for me. I decided to climb the tower first, to my surprise Death and Zephyr were swapped. Upon defeating Death it leads to a gate that sends me to the abyss, upon trying to return it sends me to the gate at the mines, effectively letting me backdoor the boss there. After that was done, I searched the area to find the teleporter and then headed to the proper mine entrance. Doing that bit of the story gave me the vampire killer, very strong weapon, somewhat hamstrung by the resistance change on enemies now making holy damage less of a "beats nearly everything" element. The mines were really annoying to navigate, the visual effect there is bound to make someone sick. After that was done, I headed to the abyss proper. There was an initial hint that this area would be a similar shape to Dawn of Sorrow, which quickly disappeared as the area's shape has been completely mangled. I make it all the way to bottom and right before Abaddon there's the save room and another gate. I save and thinking the gate is somehow a shortcut out of there I go in it, with the intent of resetting to go back. To my surprise it's a re-skinned Dracula/Soma fight, it plays the same, all it costs me is one super potion to top up my health, had 9 of those at that point. After beating that I et a red soul that says congratulations then credits roll. "Boss rush unlocked (Warning: rewards not balanced!)" I go see what that is about, boss rush is mostly the same, there are some traps added to most boss rooms, 7 minutes later I'm at the reward room. Moonlight Sword... I equip it and notice the stats are much higher than the vampire killer, nothing too weird there. It one shots some enemies and then I get into the Abbadon fight with it, it's an overhead swing that can hit up to three times, with slash, holy and petrification elements. I steamrolled both Abaddon and Menace with it.

And that was the extent of my experience with the hack. The castle changes are my reason for a no here. The memes were tolerable.

Man, Harmony of Dissonance gets a lot of flak, doesn't it? "The map is exactly the same as Symphony's!", "Juste is just an Alucard Belmont cause he looks exactly like him!", "Blah blah blah hate blah!". And the fact that the game had a slightly mangled BGM due to the GBA's chiptunes and the focus being more on presentation....yeah, HoD doesn't get much love, a shame since it's one of my faves. So here we have a game to give Juste another chance to shine.

STORY: Story's everything, isn't it? Obviously this is a fanmade game and thus isn't canon in any conceivable way...but it's presented in such a way that it's difficult to think it isn't. Juste, having succeeded in his quest years prior, is now Lord Belmont and a respected man among his family, the church, and such, and is now married to Lydie. An attack to rid the world of the Belmonts sees him investigating a mysterious castle alongside numerous allies in order to learn their intentions. Honestly, the story here is an interesting case in that while it obviously is an occasional copy of Dawn of Sorrow's in certain areas, there's plenty of changes that give this story its own identity. It could easily be written off as "Meh, it's just DoS with Juste", but....well okay, it IS basically DoS with Juste, but plenty of love went into this creation, and it shows. The story isn't the most original or groundbreaking, but it's got plenty of heart that makes it work.

GAMEPLAY: Now this is interesting. The game isn't really changed much from Dawn of Sorrow, but this is more than a basic palette swap for characters. The game is played exactly the same as DoS, but the story has been rewritten to explain how that game's mechanics work here, which isn't a bad touch. However, palette swaps are generally just that and that alone. In this case, the castle has changed quite a bit from its DoS incarnation, sometimes in very obvious ways, other times in subtle ways, so progression isn't quite the same as you'd expect. Some rooms have had their layouts changed drastically and it can greatly change up how you have to progress, while others haven't changed much aside from enemy placement, but still can affect how you move on. Overall, this hack can be about as difficult as DoS was, in some cases even more so, so don't go into this thinking it'll be a breeze.

FUN: Totally fun ^^ Again, palette swaps by themselves aren't all that interesting, but this changed up our heroes, some of the enemies we face, the souls they drop, castle layout, castle progression, even threw in a bonus boss to kick your tail if you think you can take him on. Part of the fun of ROM hacks is taking games we've played a hundred times and presenting it in a new way, bonus points for it feeling like an entirely new game all its own, and this one did that justice. In addition, there's also new weapon types, as well as various paths for your weapon upgrades to go down instead of merging into a single final weapon per type, so that too is fun to explore. Now so far, there's only one review that says "NO" in recommendation, and it's due to the fact that this game makes MANY references to other games in terms of enemies (Metroid in particular), items, and the like. Personally, I didn't find this too distracting myself, but your thoughts may differ as I can see how that sorta thing may agitate people looking for full immersion here.

MY RATING: 9/10

Dawn of Sorrow was one of my favorites of the Metroidvania games since it built greatly off of Aria. Creating a sequel for Juste is a much deserved move in the right direction, I feel. I love Juste's animations within the game, I love the story showing us how he's now a respected man among the local community and the church, I GREATLY enjoyed exploring a "new" castle that wasn't the same as I remembered from DoS, and experimenting with the new kinds of weapons thrilled me to pieces (C'mon, the Vampire Killer is awesome, but a Belmont wielding swords and spears!? Badass!). I went for all the endings, as I usually do, and the overall experience is great. Granted, the story is a little silly sometimes since it was written for DoS and doesn't ALWAYS translate so easily into Juste's story. The use of enemies from other games is entirely up to the player on how they feel about it. I saw no major issue, but you may. And there's items and equipment that refers to other games as well, particularly Zelda, Mario, Dark Souls, etc. so again, if that breaks immersion for you, be careful with this one. Otherwise, this is a TERRIFIC endeavor, and one I was greatly impressed by.

This hack is so good. I finish it several times, collected every item and souls - just did not find some special location items like Konami man (I know they are called something different but anyways). Great hack, congrats to the hackers and also some advice: if you want to play on hard there is a soul that doesn't drop. I tried several times but maybe the author's forgot to hack that soul and enemy on hard mode. Also there are no extra items on hard, nevertheless it was an awesome experience. Thanks for giving Juste Belmont a great adventure and a well deserved finale to his story.

Positives: Probably the best Castlevania Hack I've ever played. The map revamp makes you feel like you're playing a fresher Castlevania game. And the new script makes you feel like you're playing a whole new game.

Negatives: Some BGMs just don't fit some levels, particularly the Demon Guest House new BGM, the old version BGM of Dawn of dissonance in V. 1.0.2 sounded much better.

I play this game since the last version simply put this is a work of love, the animations the history around was just sublime little short but sublime fill with great details, and let me say that the final touches like the picture of dracula with his wife and Alucard was sublime just thanks, other thing the musical was so cool that I just let it run nice arrangements, i recommend that every fan of Castlevania needs to play this Hack.

a little question how do you pass the thorns in the water world since normally you just use the soul of the skeleton of the bone ark I'm stock there

It's totally good to see a "real" expansional hack to Dawn of Sorrow, the ever-rising enthusiasm to Castlevania franchise driven me to apply and check the content of this hack, but sadly I find the considerable amount of Metroid references disrupting and annoying enough to keep me away from really enjoying this hack; I don't know if it's just me, but their art style did not fit that of Dawn of Sorrow graphics, thus made the total art style disorienting, well, at least in my view. But beside of that, this hack is a no doubt a high quality, creatively done top tier work which author deserves more praise and love from Castlevania fans.

EDIT: So the version is updated to 1.0.4 but no mention about a separate patch that drops the Metroid references. Review stays.

This hack is absolutely stunning, it does a lot of things so well, from most of the music choices, references, map changes, dialogue, difficulty adjustments, etc., and it shows that a lot of effort went into these things, and it's honestly honorable. There's some things that could be tweaked like less enemy spam in some areas, better music selection in some areas, and a bit less hazards around the castle like fire pillars and spikes.

Juste's increased movement speed and back dash distance make him feel like a more modernized version of how he is in Harmony of Dissonance, along with the spells (souls) he can get that are very similar to some of his Spell Fusion combinations.

Sonia Mode is also kind of enjoyable, it's much harder than Juste Mode, but the characters have gained buffs from their equipment and spells that helps remedy the increased difficulty of the mode, and Alucard's slide is very useful for dodging certain attacks and obstacles, like fire pillars that aren't below you or and enemy that may come to swoop down on you.

In the end, this is a major undertaking in DS Castlevania ROM hacking, I'm glad I could contribute something to this project, and I honestly hope to see more of amazing hacks like these from Serbagz's team in the future.

This rom hack is such a breath of fresh life into Dawn of Sorrow. I've only played through Juste mode in Belnades Blood edition but what was there I enjoyed. The *spoiler* slight route altercation, the whip system, enemies, items, armor, weapons etc. from other Castlevania games and even other series as well really add to the experience. If that wasn't enough, the whole color palette is shifted to match and it looks great. Combined with the great song choices from other series and this rom hack is (Aguni/other stuff ignored) on par with the official DS Metroidvanias. With the much appreciated difficulty increase that keep you on your toes, bringing back the classicvania platforming, and learning the new weapons, Dawn of Dissonance transforms Dawn of Sorrow into something more.

This rom hack sets itself apart from any other mod or hack of the Castlevania series thus far. The sheer amount of beautiful detail and ingenuity that went into making this hack are enough to easily outweigh any other hack I have ever had the pleasure of playing through. There is SOOO MUCH CONTENT! New weapons, armors, enemies, dialogue, music, level editing tweaks, characters, and much more.

The only regret I have here is that I did not get the chance to help make it happen myself. Absolutely amazing job to all of those involved with making this happen. Thank you all so much for the work you put into this. It is so wonderful being able to play something new and refreshing from this series. I hope you all feel just as strongly as I do, that it is more than worth the effort.

Overall, the hack was very enjoyable and any Metroidvania should give this a go, especially if you've already played the original DoS.

Here are some of my pros and cons, do note that none of the cons take away from the overall experience, just minor nitpicks.

Pros:

• Excellent sprite work for Juste, beautifully animated and colored.

• The sped up movement speed for Juste feels really nice coupled with how fluent the whip feels to use in game.

• The map was resigned subtly but enough to feel different entirely.

Cons:

• Some of the music choices didn't really fit, but that's just my taste.

• Weapon Synthesis could have been better also. Some of the weapons could be found in game. In my opinion, there should have ONLY been exclusive weapons only available via Weapon Synthesis.

• Succubus Glitch still exists, not really a con but it can really take away from a part in the game which I will not spoil.

Honestly, i always thought as aria as superior from the 3 installments in the GBA and always looked forward to dawn since its the sequel. But all that changed when this hack happened. The author of the hack made dawn stripped it down, and reworked it as if dawn was meant for dissonance. It really is addictive and before i knew it it was finished. Definetly recommeds this since it does not feel like its a second playthrough of the original game. And the easter eggs and other suprises actully made the over all experience a much more enjoyable one!!

Give this hack a shot and youll never regret it.

I'm having such a great time playing this hack, you can just tell it's a labor of love by a fan who has a deep understanding Castlevania. The story is fresh and well written and it's comfy-nostalgic when characters from other CV's show up. There's also new characters, map areas, items and weapons too which sometimes makes me feel like i'm playing an entirely new game. It still has plenty of vanilla aspects so it just feels really balanced. I'm loving the the soundtrack as well, it's kinda like a Castlevania juke box and catch myself humming the tunes all day. I'm getting near the end game and have not experienced any bugs or problems whatsoever and the saves carry over for every update. Besides a typo where it says "there" when it should have been "their",the game is pretty much flawless. If you like Castlevania at all you owe it to yourself to play this hack.

Thank you very much for this masterpiece! This hack is great. The amount of effort invested in this hack such as story, graphics, items, map, etc. - astounding. I recommend it to all fans of CVanias.

This hack is pure art, I love how I feel like playing Aria of sorrow (for me the best castlevania). The pace of this game it's so good that I got addicted to this game like thought I will never feel that again. So good to play this game that made me feel like a gamer again and now I want to play everyday this game and I don't want to this game ever ends. Thanks man for this.

I'm always pleased to see a new Castlevania mod, and this one definitely has potential. The character sprites, including Juste and Maxim, are definitely well done! The story is definitely well done, as well as the castle itself. My one gripe, would have to be the music. There are a few returning tracks from previous Castlevania titles, but a majority are from Final Fantasy or Mega Man. While those tracks are good, they don't really fit the Castlevania tone. I would recommend adding more Castlevania tunes, possibly remastered tracks from Harmony of Dissonance, like they did with Successor of Fate. But if there is one track I would love see return, it's the Dawn of Sorrow version of Vampire Killer. I mean having the 8 bit one in there just doesn't fit. So if the creator reads this, please add that song back. It would definitely be epic to hear that version while using Juste. But in all this hack is off to a great start!

An absolutely incredibly hack, all DS Castlevania hackers should strive for such works of art. This hack was made with immense passion and effort, with little to nothing bad that stands out. As one who helped the development of this from Beginning to End (I taught the creator how to use many of the tools needed for this!), I can confidently say that this is in the Top Tier of DS Hacks. All the new weapons, spells, and enemy colors really just shine, especially with the map edits. It's only a shame that others don't strive for such amazing things.

Oh, and you start the game with J.B.'s Bracelet no matter what, as a little tip from me, as I know Serbagz activated that. Atleast I hope he did. Yeah. Epic Hack, 9/5 - Needs More Water