My first experience with a Castlevania game was Portrait of Ruin. I enjoyed it fine enough, but it didn't really stick with me all that much. Next, I played a couple levels of Castlevania IV but never came back to it. The little I played was fun but never totally hooked me. Then, at the end of the summer of 2019, I played Bloodstained Ritual of the Night. I had a blast playing it, so much so I ended up Platinuming it. This got me excited to play Symphony of the Night (which I conveniently bought at a convention a month prior to playing Bloodstained). Fast forward to March 2020 apparently (I literally thought it was October 2020, guess that year really was a blur) and I decided to finally play SOTN. I had such a great time, but thought it was more comparable to Bloodstained. A really fun time but nothing amazing. Well I'm happy to say this replay has changed my mind on this game for the most part.

The first thing you'll notice about this game, and it's one of its best aspects, is the presentation. At least from what games I played, it's the best looking PS1 game or one of the best at least. That's the power of sprites, they consistently stay appealing unlike some early PS1 titles. Plus, the really cool part is the game mixes both spritework and 3d models and it gives it this really unique look that I love. When you see those book enemies in the library or the coffin after saving, they stand out so much amidst all the 2d spritework...and they look good too!

The other best aspect of this game is undoubtedly the soundtrack. I remembered Dracula's Castle and Lost painting quite fondly but the entire soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. It ranges from jazz to classical to metal, it has it all. The colosseum theme became another favorite of mine among the aforementioned two. God is it so catchy, I love it. A great soundtrack can really win a game over for me and this one does not disappoint.

As for the actual gameplay, it's fun! The movement is very fluid in this game which is nice. Alucard has this backwards dash thing that's very helpful in getting around. Instead of using one whip and upgrading it a couple times like in Classicvania, Alucard has a large assortment of weapons to choose from. He still has a whip, but now he can use all different types of swords, daggers, rods etc. They have different ranges and different stab rates which just makes the combat more varied and fun. You also have these spells that require you to put in a button combo to use them. I personally never got the hang of these too much but it's really cool how you can activate from the start of the game if you know the combos. There's also a familar system which let's you assign a little fella that goes alongside you, levels up and grows stronger. I thought that was pretty neat but was more of an afterthought when I was playing.

This game gives you a lot more options as you can see, and that's because unlike past Castlevania games...this game is nonlinear. Instead of playing through levels, you go through a large interconnected castle....collecting different abilities that let you progress through even more of the castle. Thus, the vania part of Metroidvania was born. For such a groundbreaking title, how is the item progression handled in this game? I Honestly thought it was much less of a focus than the combat. There's not many progression abilities in this game, just never felt like the focus was on the exploration while using new abilities...it was moreso let's explore this part of the castle and level up and shit. Maybe that's just me but for item based exploration, I much prefer Metroid. The backtracking was not as fun as it was in something like Metroid either, there's warps which is nice but I had to constantly trek back and forth between certain areas, some more secret shortcuts or something would've been nice. Either way, the castle is a lot of fun to explore...but I guess there's actually two of them huh.

So the inverted castle overall is actually kinda cool. The game get's really easy in the mid-game cuz you become so overpowered by that point and doesn't get hard again until the inverted castle. Hoo boy tho, some parts of the inverted castle can kick your ass. The harder difficulty and the new enemies/bosses I did really enjoy when going through the castle essentially a second time. Cuz yeah, it's pretty much padding...but like it's changed enough where I didn't mind really. The OST also gets changed to the same 4 or so songs which is kinda meh but at least Lost Painting is one of them.

I forgot to mention the bosses. Most of them are just alright. A lot of them are pretty easy but nothing bad. A couple of them kinda stink, especially Beezlebub. I think that boss is the only down right bad part of the game. He's either dummy easy with certain sub weapons, or annoying as shit. I remember him giving me trouble when I initially played the game and yeah, he was no different this time around.

Hmm what else...oh yeah I actually thought the story was pretty cool for what it was. I really enjoyed the whole dynamic with Alucard, Dracula and Lisa. Those scenes were super interesting. The voice acting is obviously pretty cheesy but I think it fits incredibly well with a game like this, idk I liked it a lot. I was also trying to get 200.6% but missed a couple tiles so I got 198 something %. Pretty sure I got the best ending tho so that's good.

A couple more miscellaneous things, I really like how many secrets/little details this game has. I feel like every playthrough you'd be discovering something new. Also, the official artwork for this game absolutely fucks man, it's amazing. Alucard is so hot.

Alright I should probably end this here, it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm just here writing what might be my longest review lol. Idk man, there was a lot to say, hope I didn't ramble on for too long. It's not perfect imo but this game overall is pretty fantastic. I still prefer Super Metroid tho personally. Next is Bloodborne my beloved and hopefully I can beat that before Mario Wonder on the 20th.

I’ve had this experience a few times now where I’d play Symphony with someone who’d already had their hands on it at least once, and they’d repeatedly go “oh shit I didn’t know you could do that.” It's one of those games that seem very "obviously" great: unmatched presentation, responsive controls, a big-ass non-linear world with tons of items and enemies; but if those qualities have you shrugging your shoulders, you might be led to assume there's nothing more substantive going on under the hood.

The way spells are implemented is still wild to me and a perfect example for what I mean: Alucard technically has access to all of them from the start via a series of fighting game commands, but the game doesn’t actually divulge the necessary inputs unless you purchase the respective scrolls from the shop or stumble upon them by accident. I don’t know how exactly to relate this sense of spitting-your-drink-out surprise that I got whenever I’d trigger some new crazy move, but it’s exemplary of that natural curiosity Symphony inspires that draws me to it so much. Do we even need to talk about the inverted castle? It’s hard to say whether it was some kind of last minute addition (Bat Form means the level design doesn’t actually have to “work” upside-down and a lot of the mob enemies here can fly around too,) but the fact the devs seized that possibility at all is so impressive to me. The pacing in this second half is completely different from the first, letting you experience familiar locations in a way that’s nothing short of alien.

It’s honestly odd how Metroidvanias made in the wake of Symphony haven’t replicated this idea of giving you a dedicated endgame to actually flex with all your new abilities in (instead of just the token collectible item hunt with no new enemies or obstacles to make that process more interesting.) That’s on top of all the insane technical bullshit Symphony lets you overpower its challenges with, from Bat-Dashing over slopes to all the wild effects you get with the Shield Rod, another itch most modern genre takes don’t scratch. If you wrote this game off because you felt it didn’t have enough meat on its bones, I encourage you to give it another look and dig into its bottomless treasure chest of secrets and painstaking details.

A game covered from head to foot in rough edges. This isn't necessarily entirely a bad thing; playing Demon's Souls earlier this year did a lot for me in terms of demonstrating how rough edges sometimes simply act as enduring evidence of quite how daring and experimental a game actually was (the fact that I learnt this from Demon's Souls is amusing considering quite how much both it and Dark Souls seem to owe the Castlevania franchise just generally). Sure later metroidvania-style Castlevania entries would polish this formula substantially, but even over two decades after its initial release you can still feel the mad creative energy and wild ambition at play here and a big part of the reason that feeling endures is precisely because Symphony of the Night isn't polished by contrast with its descendants.

The game is awfully balanced such that whilst the first couple hours are minorly challenging, your stats quickly out-scale the enemies to the point that much of what follows becomes a cakewalk; there were even multiple late-game bosses that were only dealing one damage per hit to me. Some squares of your map stubbornly refuse being filled in until you've traversed every pixel of them thrice over. Between spells, fighting-game combo moves, weapon special abilities, weapon synergies, transformations, the game has a pile of systems much of which you'll likely hardly interact with, especially considering the aforementioned difficulty issues provide little reason to when everything just dies to you spamming your basic attack. Your weapons all feel broadly very similar to use, each just lashing out directly in front of you a short distance, whilst your side-weapons get horribly out-scaled such that by the second half of the game they (and all the heart pick-ups you'll keep receiving for them) might as well not exist. Meanwhile that second half of the game just feels like busywork, much of the excitement of discovery replaced with painstakingly re-combing every corner of the map.

Symphony of the Night is wildly imperfect, to an extent that might make even this four-star review seem overeager. The thing is, though, that it's also a deeply ambitious game; the scale of the castle, each area drenched in its own compelling vibe, and how the game then re-contextualises all of it in the bold mid-game twist, how the game tries to allow you a great sense of freedom in your traversal of the castle never leaving you with the sense of being railroaded down one particular path and always leaving you wondering whether you're actually even doing things in the intended order, the interweaving of countless different rpg mechanics into action-platformer gameplay, the sense of mystery to the whole thing, strange secrets hidden in increasingly bizarre, arcane ways that should really annoy me but instead just serve to make the game feel so much more sprawling and enigmatic. There's this feeling to the whole affair of constantly throwing new ideas at you whenever it possibly can, refusing to let itself be boxed in by audience expectations, and whilst the rough edges here can certainly be frustrating, confounding, or even just an outright drag, they also serve to keep Symphony of the Night's relentless creative energy feeling fresh even after all the imitation and iteration that has come in its wake.

É incrível o quão atual esse jogo é. Ele é maravilhoso em quase todos os quesitos, a trilha sonora é maravilhosa, a pixel art é, para mim, a mais bonita que já vi, as boss fights são muito divertidas, e o level design é simplesmente genial, funcionando até ao contrário.

Tudo funciona muito bem, dá uma sensação incrível jogar e tentar descobrir salas novas. Explorar o castelo é extremamente divertido, voltar para áreas que você já tinha passado mas agora com algo liberado a mais e obliterar todo mundo no caminho porque agora você está muito bem equipado, é simplesmente lindo.

A narrativa é simples, mas é incrível como ao mesmo tempo ela é extremamente cativante. A parte do flashback me pegou de surpresa, porque de forma alguma esperava aquilo. O jogo está longe de ser linear; você pode ignorar completamente alguns bosses, mas eles sempre te dão uns extras legais.

Os únicos defeitos, para mim, estão na parte da dublagem americana e na dificuldade em geral. Nem vou falar sobre a dublagem, todo mundo sabe o quão patético é o "what is a man". E sobre a dificuldade, o jogo tem bosses normalmente bem tranquilos. Dificilmente levei mais de 3 tentativas e a maioria matei de primeira, mas mesmo assim achei incrível o quão o moveset deles era único.

Outra coisa é sobre os bixinhos aliados; eles ganham skill quando aumentam de level, mas parece que é impossível aumentar o level deles o suficiente para você ter eles completamente upados. Terminei o jogo em 190% com a espada no level 35.

Mas mesmo assim, não estragou nem um pouco a experiência. É simplesmente maravilhoso.

“It’s is very funny to me that your castlevania journey stalled hard on Symphony of the Night, one of the most beloved and influential games of all time.” These words by a close friend of mine have haunted me for months bro.

Classic Ina Followers may recall that last year I spent the month of November playing every Castlevania game in release order, a project that started when I bought that collection of most of the classic games on a whim and sort of just went to town once I realized how entirely my shit every single thing about the series is. Castlevania’s been something of a blindspot for me – as a kid I played AND QUITE LOVED Castlevania 64 and later Order of Ecclesia, and then specifically Lords of Shadow 2, and maybe a couple years ago I had a really great time with Aria of Sorrow but other than futzing around with the first couple of NES games in a false start at this project that was the full extent of my scattered Castlevania experience.

How much I love Aria really set me up for a surprise then because the reason I haven’t posted about Castlevania in a year is that I actually got through like 60 or 70% of this game right after I finished Bloodlines and I was so entirely turned off that I put it down and just didn’t come back for eleven months. I think if I wasn’t so committed to making this a “play every game in the series” kind of thing I may never have.

BUT I DID THIS WEEK and I ZOOMED THROUGH THIS MOTHER FUCKER and I’m SO TORN BRO. Well, not really, I think actually I mostly just don’t like it, but I hope I can adequately explain why.

Because obviously there is so much to love in Symphony, and so much stuff that’s specific to my personal taste too. Aesthetically, the game is a dream, holy SHIT. Everybody knows how good looking it is, experienced sprite artists taking advantage of the fancy new hardware to push what they’re capable of. You see it everywhere, from obvious stuff like Alucard’s butter-smooth animations to the absolutely METICULOUS details in nearly every background in the game, used to dial up a sense of place and atmosphere in as maximal a way as possible but with a slightly different flavor than we got even from powerhouse games like Bloodlines and Super IV. But I don’t just like how GOOD the game looks, I also like how a lot of the time the game looks kind of messy and bad? There are a TON of reused sprites from Bloodlines in this game and listen man I LOVE Bloodlines but it is a stiffer and more early 90s arcadey looking game. It’s that in a way that suits it but compared to the way original sprites look and move in Symphony things just kind of stand out when they’re contrasted. It’s not just that either – the most realistic visual fidelity the series has seen yet along with a much less strong sense of theming than any of its three mainline predecessors (necessitated, I’m sure, by how much exponentially bigger and more open Symphony is) means they really mash ALLLLL the inspirational shit for this series together in a big soup in a way that feels a lot more overt than ever before. You have grotesque horror imagery, fairy tale mystique, hollywood horror guys, and overt cartoon monsters all chilling in this same castle, and often on the same screens as each other, with no sense of visual cohesion tying them together in a way that just didn't come through as hard on, say the NES.

And I think that fucking rips ass dude. I’m sure I’ve spoken about this in these Castlevania writeups before but I think the fact that Symphony of the Night exists so permanently in the cultural memory as this titanic Important Game that people are still playing, especially with its legendary status in the ever-more-popular speedrun world, that it’s easy to forget that it was at one point a game that like, came out, in 1997, in a moment in history. One where 2D games were spoken of by pretty much everyone as if they were relics on their way out the door. That was surely on the minds of the Symphony of the Night team too, who had this game’s obnoxious 3D cutscenes foisted on them by their corporate managers, who were making a game for the Playstation, a console that’s so powerful but also famously kind of bad at running 2D games, who were surely working on this with the understanding that they may not get many more chances to make a game like this, if they got to make any more Castlevanias like this at all.

You can FEEL this energy vibrating through all of Symphony of the Night; it feels like a swan song, a chance to pay homage to everything everyone loved about every single previous iteration of the series and ALSO to cram in every idea they thought might have been cool in this format before the boss came in and started making people learn how to model skeletons riding motorcycles in 3D. SO there’s just all kinds of weird bullshit in here – yeah sure there’s an input based spell system, uhh puzzles will be tied to the game clock, hide a third of the game behind some really oblique bullshit I promise it will be worth it when they figure it out, oh hey what if the game was an RPG and it had the worst menus of all time. Feels like my man Hagihara simply did not say no to anything anyone asked him if they could put in the game and honestly god bless him.

The addition of Ayami Kojima as the key character artist coupled with a returning Michiru Yamane using the strengths of the Playstation's sound doohickeys (idk shit about that stuff man) to deliver something altogether moodier and synthier than we got from previous Castlevanias create the outrageously intense arch-goth style that people identify with this series for the first REAL time I think. There have always been shades of this, it’s a bit hard to avoid when you’re dealing with the subject matter Castlevania does, and the soundtracks have dipped into this vibe from time to time when they’re not fully rocking out but this is a very distinct artistic shift away from both the original 80s hollywood vibes and the more modern anime stylings the series had leaned on up til this point, and I think these aesthetics suit it really well. It looks and sounds like you made a Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream get drunk at the kind of nightclub where people still do ecstasy.

It’s so fucking boring though. This is the hardest part for me because ON PAPER Symphony is still theoretically doing the kinds of things that I like to see in exploration based games. The castle is huge but the game leads you directly through very little of it, and there are massive chunks of it that have nothing to do or see in them. So often you’ll work your way through some challenging puzzle room or gauntlet of enemies, maybe even fight a boss, and be rewarded with a swords that’s like fifty times shittier than the knife you’ve been rocking for two hours. That’s fine by me, I do like to get a little treat if it’s gonna be something cool or interesting, but I hate feeling like the only reason to explore in a game is to get to the treasure chest or Lore Nugget or whatever at the end of whatever I’m doing. I rarely feel like Symphony of the Night is doing that though, both because the rewards are genuinely terrible almost every single time (including the important ones! There are SO many upgrades and abilities in this game that are just like complete garbage lmao we are truly filling a list we made the castle so big oh piss oh fuck) but also because almost all of the areas in the game are so distinctly designed and full of personality; I WANT to poke around in them, even if I’m always only doing it to soak up the atmosphere and maybe see what kind of big freak I get to stab at the end.

The big problem for me then is that I think the actual act of moving around the castle feels like complete shit almost all of the time. Not the act of moving Alucard – that feels incredible – but the act of moving inside of the space of the castle. I think something was fumbled pretty badly in the transition from tightly designed levels to a big open world that’s intended to be crossed back and forth over many times. There are certainly a lot of cool rooms that offer neat layouts and challenges to overcome, but SO much of this castle is just big hallways with a few guys copy-pasted in them. It’s not like this didn’t ever happen in Castlevania before, but it was way less common, generally speaking, to see enemies just plopped somewhere without a feeling of intent to where and how they were placed, and I think that almost feels like the MAJORITY of enemies in Symphony of the Night. Space fillers. Overwhelming the player with numbers and leaving it up to me to figure out how to deal with it using his robust arsenal and moveset rather than filling the game with more considered encounters. And I understand how that sounds, for sure; by the sounds of things the game had a rushed development as it is, and I think the piece that we got is pretty astounding considering that, but it doesn’t change tedious it is to just get around. And when there IS a challenge that’s satisfying and tough or even just like difficult and a relief to clear, damn I am usually a lot less enamored with them the third or fourth time I have to truck through that area. The Clock Tower is my arch enemy in this game (I was bad at the switch puzzle).

My other big sticking point is that Castlevania is an RPG now but I think this sucks? I think this sucks dude. I so rarely feel like a proper balance is struck in how this plays out. There’s equipment everywhere and it’s all useless. I like finding the secret abilities, that’s cool, but I am not as crazy about filling my inventory up with fifty shirts that all suck ass. The main issue for me though is the way this affects interacting with enemies, where encounters often boil down to getting turbo stomped and dealing scratch damage based on my level or being able to kill guys by stepping on them – rarely does it feel like I’m properly tuned to stretch my resources from one save point to another.

All of this coalesced on my first playthrough when I got to the upside down castle and found that every enemy suddenly killed me in just a few hits and the nature of the designs of every room meant that while things were somewhat cleverly crafted insofar as the upside down layout accounts for all of your abilities, what that actually means is you have to spend a LOT of time as that awful bat or doing your super jump thing and I really just don’t like how any of the extra traversal stuff in this game feels at all! And that was enough for me to take a break that became a couple weeks that became a couple months that became me restarting the game almost exactly one year later. I did finish it this time, but I find that my feelings haven’t changed very much. I just don’t get along with the part of the game where you’re playing it. Which is, unfortunately, basically all of it.

And yet.

And yet there’s that room with the confessional where you can get the good nice guy who gives you the grape juice or the shitty twisted guy who stabs you, but also you can sit in his chair and a lady will show up and SHE might try to stab you and that is also really cool. You can sit in basically every chair in the game except the one you kill at the end and none of them even do anything, except make you look fucking cool. You can look in that telescope and see the guy in his little boat! If you get some peanuts you throw them into the air and you have to catch them in your mouth to get the health boost because I guess Alucard will only interact with peanuts via fun party tricks. If you have your bat buddy equipped and you turn into your bat form he gets really psyched and then when you turn back into a vampire he’s like damn that sucks. There are seemingly infinite little hidden details and skills and secrets tied to equipment and combinations of equipment and certain inputs and shit. Is that the fucking guy from Kid Dracula? I think it is the fucking guy from Kid Dracula. There are so many greebly little details stuffed into this game for seemingly no reason at all other than that it would be cool to have them in there, and it’s truly impossible not to be charmed by them.

I’m similarly charmed by the story, as scant as it is. I think the character sketches here are strong, and while Maria is pretty swagless here these are the coolest takes on Death and Dracula so far easily. I even think the localization is good, like sincerely I think this is a very fun script with a strong sense of character that matches the tone of the rest of the game. Some of the voice actors are certainly weak links but you’re not gonna catch me saying SHIT about the guy doing Dracula here he is fucking EATING. I think the only time I actually laughed because the game caught me on something silly was when Alucard hit us with that fake Edmund Burke quote in the ending; I guess whatever else he was up to in his exile, Alucard was making sure to keep up with 1700s British politics.

I hope that when I get some more distance from Symphony of the Night that’s the stuff that stands out to me. The verve and playfulness on display here; the expansive lineup of Guys, the beautiful background art. I worry that it will be the bad vibes, which I tried my best to resist. I wanted to like this game more than I did but at some point I had to give up the goat and admit to myself that this was the first time I had ever just really wished I wasn’t playing the game while I was in the middle of it. I know a lot of the big players on this team will go on the be involved in like fifty more games iterating on the foundation laid here, and I know for a fact that I really love at least one of them, so I do hope this one’s a fluke. But even if Symphony is a personal low point for me, that’s like, that’s pretty good right? I guess if this is how I’m feeling about one of the most beloved and influential games of all time then we’re in a pretty good spot, right? Only up from here I’m sure.

NEXT TIME: CASTLEVANIA LEGENDS

LAST TIME: BLOODLINES

Castlevania intentionally inverts the Belmont's rigid and challenging action design for a graceful, shameless power fantasy. Alucard's boundless strength is portrayed both in his progressive control tweaks and the overindulgent arsenal of trinkets and touchpoints he gorges upon. 80% of his toolkit is all but useless or overly-situational; a god beyond peer, he doesn't even need to use his trump cards.

Never felt bothered by how easy the game tends to get: Threats have huge variability on a peak around 'moderately easy', keeping the adventure tense and foreboding while rarely punishing your actual progress. It's all to maintain a gorgeous tour through the unalive corridors of Dracula's castle, adorned with breathtaking architecture and a troupe of delightfully-devilish monsters. Konami weaponizes the PS1's 3D tools to garnish already-pristine sprite art with lucid psychedelia; a peerless case study for pixels as strokes of paint to a breathing canvas.

But uh, fuck the reverse castle and fuck konami for chickening out of the 'richter loses his shit' plot. Insane backpedaling to play it safe. Stretches out an otherwise perfectly-scaled game to 4-6 extra hours of meandering and it can't even end on good bossfights. Genuinely would say it's better to go in and just play the main castle & bad/default ending, unless you really want to play Richter/Maria.

This game is a damn mess, maybe the finest example of a “mixed” experience. It’s complex and beautiful and plays like a dream, but paradoxically loses its best traits the more invested you become. The open nature of the castle is rarely a benefit, with the shift in the mid-game pushing that flaw to its absolute limits. It’s also the easiest Castlevania that I’ve played by far, with only a few bosses providing friction in the experience. Worst of all, though? It ends so much lower than it begins, with a fatiguing slog through the castle climaxing with an overpowered weapon shredding the final boss into mince. Dracula didn’t stand a chance.

Scrutiny doesn’t do its airy complexion any favors. It’s a game best experienced almost offhandedly. If you’re like me, you’ve heard about this game for years through hushed tones that helped build its legacy far past what a ‘97 platformer should reasonably be expected to perform at. My advice to those people? Let it stay that way. It’s more interesting to wonder.

"What is this game? A delightful little pile of secrets."

There are seriously so many secrets in this game, I would have driven myself mad trying to 100% this in a pre-internet world. Thankfully, I played this for the first time in 2018, so I got that sweet, sweet 200.6% after first beating the game unassisted.

As a big fan of Metroidvanias, it was really cool to come back and finally play this. I can only imagine how incredible this game felt in 1997. It seems like the perfect game for a kid to have for summer break, to get completely lost in, and to try to discover all of its mysteries.

Symphony of The Night is often considered a pioneer of the "Metroidvania" style of games, hence the term that's coined from this very series. Despite this, Symphony of The Night is often overshadowed by the new kids on the block like Hollow Knight, and even Super Metroid is often brought up more than this game from what I've noticed. Is the game really just that forgettable? Well, let's dive in and see what's what.

Castlevania: Symphony of the night is actually the first game in the series to take this sort of open-ended approach that would become the norm for future games in the series. The game starts pretty on rails and begins to open up more until eventually you have complete reign of where you want to go, and what you want to do.

There's a strong mix of combat, adventuring, and a lot of RPG mechanics that blend very well together here. They all go hand-in-hand very naturally, exploring nets you upgrades, which makes you more diverse in combat, which also expands what you're capable of finding. The combat is very simple, but the game is amazing at keeping the variety of what you're capable of very high at all times.

You level up as you fight monsters, just like an RPG. As you level up, you become stronger, however your level only increases certain stats and doesn't actually lock you behind anything. Even at level 1, you're capable of doing almost anything you can do at the end of the game, which was a smart decision. Also like an RPG, you have equipment to manage. You get a weapon, shield, helmet, armor, and 2 accessory slots to work with. Unlike a typical RPG, there's not a lot of complicated numbers and effects here for your equipment, it's mostly only a manner of "this armor is better than this one" which I found relieving as you have a lot to keep up with as it is.

You also have spells and even familiars. Familiars are as easy as just equipping them and they'll aid you in unique ways. There's a good variety of them and their effects aren't amazing, but they can be useful, especially early on.

Spells are interesting, they cost MP to use and are very strong. The drawback of spells however is they require inputs on par with fighting games. Half-circles and holding inputs is the worst it gets, and while I myself only had trouble with a few of these spells, you might find it difficult or inconvenient to use them when you're in trouble or want to experiment more with your combat. On the plus side, your MP naturally regenerates overtime, and you can purchase magic scrolls that tell you the input of the spell that you can view in the menu, which helps a lot. However, you don't actually need to buy the magic scrolls to use the spells, you can use them right away if you know the inputs, which is an awesome detail to keep in mind for a second playthrough.

Alucard, son of Dracula and who you play as in this game, controls smooth as butter. All of his animations are superb and have a lot of detail and flair. The sprite work is also particularly brilliant, and not just for Alucard. Every enemy you come across are animated very well, and the designs for them are incredibly diverse. From classic monster types, to machines, to even possessed furniture, the variety is awesome, and fighting each one of these monsters is fun.

Combat does have, one large issue that needs to be addressed, knockback. Now Castlevania is very well known for this sort of thing, but it needs to be said. The knockback is going to annoy you, and it might even get you killed at times. As soon as Alucard gets punted, he's going flying. At which point you're gonna run back up, get hit again, rinse and repeat. But there are times you'll get knocked into by one enemy, and then a few more get the jump on you and have to sit there and watch your health deplete. It's a very helpless feeling, and it's really the only complaint I have with this game at all. Now thankfully, you do get some invincibility frames after getting hit so you can swing your way out of a bad spot, but it can certainly prove difficult sometimes.

Symphony of the night by all means, is definitely a Metroidvania, however it is much lighter in comparison to Metroid. Since unlike Metroid, you can explore most of the game without many additional power-ups, but there's certainly areas that are locked behind finding something else for sure. But it's not on the same level, Symphony of the Night, while the main idea is to explore, it also has a stronger focus on combat, with progression through new powers being less prevalent, but again, it definitely has that to a degree.

Despite taking place in Dracula's Castle, the environments are great. You definitely have your typical hallways and staircases to traverse, but the castle has a bit of everything, and while I won't give them away, don't expect your run of the mill ancient castle here, there's a lot to be seen that you won't expect, and every environment surprisingly, fits perfectly with the atmosphere they were going for. It has such a strong, classic old horror vibe to it all that pulls you in and is very charming.

Music is phenomenal. It captures that classic count Dracula sound all throughout the castle. But there's even more to it besides that, it has some great ambient tracks to make the areas feel a bit more spooky or peaceful. It even has some rock music in there to really get your blood pumping while taking down monsters and dashing through the area to find some items.

If you're looking for story... it has some. Probably not going to be able to take it super seriously with the voice acting especially, but it has its moments. The story at least gives you some semblance of the end goal, so it does its job at least on that end, and I think that's fine. The gameplay more than makes up for the story not being amazing, and that should also be the reason you play it in the first place if you ask me.

In conclusion, Symphony of the Night is a remarkable game. Being the first in the series to be more Metroidvania than ever before. Remarkable progression, a great blend of RPG mechanics, solid controls, and a deep variety of combat abilities that keeps things fresh up until the very end. If you're looking to get into traditional Castlevania though, I wouldn't recommend this game necessarily as it's very different. But if you're a Metroid fan, or a Hollow Knight fan, I would highly recommend this game to you. It is available for Playstation 1, Sega Saturn, and Xbox 360. You can get the PSP version of the game, which comes with some changes, and new voice acting, for the PSP, Playstation 4 (as a bundle including Rondo of Blood), and finally IOS, and Android systems.

What is a Metroidvania? A badass little pile of secrets!

Games with a mountain of hype behind them scare me. Heaps of 10/10s and 5 star ratings form a vast shadow of adoration, and it can be difficult to tell how much of it is genuine evaluation, and how much of it is baseless nostalgic ramblings. But I'm playing every Castlevania, so I couldn't exactly skip Symphony of the Night, now could I?

....yeah, damn, I guess y'all were right.

Symphony of the Night was apparently inspired by titles such as Zelda, with absolutely no inspiration from Metroid whatsoever. I can't help but call bullshit, because the gameplay format is borderline identical. Fully explorable map, differing biomes, hidden upgrades, save rooms, blue-grid map screen, all adapted into a gothic horror setting. Simply trade Samus' trusty arm cannon for a myriad of magic and melee weapons, and that's SotN. And while I do enjoy a good Classicvania, this was such a breath of fresh air that remained somewhat familiar, yet far more lively.

There's a lot more story than normal to go around, though not enough that anything drags. Opening on an incredible, playable recreation of the final part of Rondo of Blood, the main game follows on some time afterwards. Seems as if Dracula is being resurrected a little earlier than usual, and his son Alucard isn't too big on that. As such, he seeks to storm the castle and slay whoever he needs to, even his own father if need be. It's a decent follow-up to Rondo, and while not to get into deep spoilers; the bad ending to this game presents a rather interesting narrative idea that would've been nice to see in more detail.

As with other Castlevanias, the gameplay and platforming is slow, but deliberate. Alucard struts forward at a fairly slow pace, but has a lot more freedom of movement than past protagonists. Between this and the horde of enemies to fight between each room, moving around takes quite a while to become exhausting. Discovering shortcuts, secrets and curious little secrets always keeps things exciting, and you're never far away from adding to Alucard's limitless pockets. That being said, while exploring, I found myself somehow missing the all-important save rooms almost every single time. Technically my bad, but I kind of wish they were telegraphed just a little more.

In spite of breaking with many Castlevania traditions, sub-weapons return. As always, they're powered by hearts, which still drop from candles and certain enemies. Even better, like Rondo, picking up a new sub-weapon drops the old one on the ground, just in case you want it back. Even if you mess up on that front, sub-weapons always spawn in the same place, so if you remember where to check, getting it back isn't too hard. Unlike most of the classic games, I felt comfortable to use up hearts on enemies here, rather than saving for the bosses every time.

Speaking of bosses, god damn, they feel like they're everywhere. You'll be walking down a corridor, then bam - a tell-tale stutter for a second or two that indicates that a boss room is loading in. Usually, if you recognise that, you can just turn around and leave to get in a better state, but yeah - so many bosses. I'm a little bit mixed on the bosses overall - there are good ones and bad ones. Mostly they feel like a DPS check for the area, but some do at least move and attack like a traditional 'vania boss, rewarding you for weaving between their attacks.

Graphics are absolutely gorgeous. Spritework, taken to incredible heights with minimal use of 3D to enhance the world around the characters. I enjoy early 3D polygons a lot more than I used to, but this still stands above it in my mind. Everything looks fantastic, enemies are distinctly designed and are easily recognised. Some even exist just for fun, like poor Yorick, a skeleton who kicks his head around like an idiot. If anything, perhaps the castle could've used a little more variety in appearances, but what it has is perfectly adequate. And that music? Sublime. While it's worlds apart from the sort of tracks that made the older 'vania soundtracks so memorable, what's here takes it in a direction that's just as enjoyable, if slightly less memorable.

As far as flaws go, I do have several criticisms to raise. Chief among them is the inventory; you pick up so much stuff over the course of the game. Tons of weapons, single-use spells, and every damn type of food ever served. Seriously, forget wall meat (which is still in this game!), there's so many different types of food that there's an entire item dedicated to giving you a random one. Annoyingly, though, to use food, you have to equip it in either hand, like you would a weapon. Then, you throw the food down, then walk over it to eat it. I assume this was done so as to make health restoring riskier during a battle, but scrolling through all your items to find the food you want to eat is tedious and awkward. And by the time you're in the endgame, you have so much shit in your inventory, and most of it is probably useless by then. Despite the presence of a shop, as far as I can tell you can only sell rare gems, not outdated gear. I might be missing something, but it wasn't a pleasant experience.

Difficulty is also a bit of a weird one. Arguably, it's fairly easy, especially coming off the back of the other Castlevanias. It's pretty hard at first, and there's also a sharp difficulty spike when you start the second half of the game. But between those points, you'll just walk through a lot of enemies - literally so if you get the Medusa Shield to drop. Half the joy of a Metroidvania is the power trip feeling in the endgame, being a nigh-invincible killing machine, but you'll be one-shotting things well before that point. Bosses are usually harder, but like I said before, a lot of them are DPS checks anyway. The RPG mechanics also mean that you can always grind to get through easier, though I doubt you'll ever have to.

Getting the good ending is also kinda cryptic. You're probably not going to get it without reading a guide, or going out of your way to explore every nook and cranny possible. I explored everything I could the first time around, but still managed to miss both key items. Annoying, but ultimately understandable - definitely not even close to the level of cryptic in older games like Simon's Quest and Ys.

Altogether, this is absolutely one of the greatest PS1 games, and is worth a try by all means. If anything, though, I feel almost disappointed that almost the entire rest of the series was nothing but attempts to recapture this game's magic. If only there had remained a consistent balance of linear and exploration-based games, rather than just SotN clones. Still, I hope that I can find them somewhat enjoyable. Or, if all else fails, I could just replay this - I don't normally replay games, but perhaps this could be an exception.

"You must always remember that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing."

I really appreciate how simple, yet in-depth the exploration is, comparing it to other metroidvania like games and its map it feels much more simple to navigate and never too tedious as well. The atmosphere, music and animations are smooth as hell too, I can see myself playing this again in the future honestly.

Damn good game definitely worthy of being a classic.

"What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk! Have at you!"

In my eyes very few games are on par in quality or can even be in the same ballpark as Super Metroid. So when a game is on par with Super Metroid not only in its own genre but as a perfect video game in general, you know you have a game that's an undisputed masterpiece. That's exactly what Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is.

It makes sense that after many action platformers, Konami would try to create a Castlevania game in the same style as Metroid with its own interesting ideas integrated to make it something completely unique. Somehow the world of Castlevania effortlessly translates into this genre. Everything is perfect, the progression, the castle map, the music of course, the replayability, the fun and simple story, it's all here. The many bosses and enemies are incredible, there's so much detail and creativity in this world. The fact that once you beat the castle, you still have so much to do left, because of the inverted castle, where you will finally find Dracula.

I also love that the further you get in this game the more and more overpowered Alucard becomes. Oh and I might as well mention that Alucard is one of the coolest characters ever. There is truly nothing wrong with SOTN, it's by all means a flawless game.

The more I replay this the more I keep refalling in love. The atmosphere, the gameplay, the music, I just can’t get enough and no other game in the series compares. The melodramatic overtones mixed with the contextualized and detailed areas just resonates with me so well. The inherently fun exploration that gets even grander as you unlock more and more abilities, the addicting platforming mixed with tight action controls; it’s all here in full force to make you want to keep playing and playing. I can’t help but explore every area every time I play.They’re begging to have their every detail examined and every enemy obliterated into a bloody explosion. The inverted castle is a bit of a bother to explore but it’s still mechanically fun because of how well Alucard controls and feels to handle. Beautifully orchestrated tracks fit every scenario perfectly and bring out their ideas into a melody of which expands their ideology. I know I may be exaggerating here, but that’s just how I feel. I love this game to death in all its glory.

Before 2021 I quite actively ignored the "Metroidvania" genre. The idea of constantly backtracking sounded like the complete opposite of what I liked about video games. I guess I really didn't like all that backtracking in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door! In retrospect, I was a complete fool and I realized this after playing Metroid Dread. Going back to previously explored areas but now with a newly acquired power up and filling out your map activates all the neurons in my simple ape brain. Playing Symphony of the Night further cemented that I've been a total idiot for sleeping on this genre for so long. When I got Soul of Bat (ability to fly), I just had a big dumb smile on my face. Everyone knows about the second half of the game where you have to go through the castle again, but this time upside down, right? I thought this would make the game feel stale, but it being upside down really did make it feel fresh again and I was eager to explore it yet again. This game rocks and that's really all I have to say.

did you know that "alucard" backwards is "this game kind of rocks?? i used to believe that this kind of killed what rondo of blood constructed when i was younger but now i just really appreciate how bold they were in doing something totally different and changing -- together with super metroid -- the industry forever. i don't like how slow it feels sometimes, like flying with the bat or backtracking with alucard (i know that there's the wolf but when you have to jump all the times the wolf can be a little tricky!) and i'm not a big fan of useless weapons and not being able to sell them. still! amazing bosses, killing soundtrack and i love this kind of spooky atmosphere. the original dub gives it such an OVA vibe. the reverse castle genuinly impressed me. like. how someone did a level design so perfect that it worked on both ways? truly masterclass."

crazy name, huh?

I think everyone has that one game you've been meaning to get to, and you want to do so, but you just somehow never would for so long. Symphony of the Night is probably the best example from my personal experience. I had always heard about how highly regarded and praised this title was, but I just never would sit down and finish it. However, once I finally got a PSP, I caved in and just started playing.
Less then a week later with several 1-2 hour long sessions, I finally completed the game. Symphony of the Night is incredibly addictive, I could just NOT put it down. The varied locales, the fantastic soundtrack, and the satisfaction of filling out the map kept me coming back for more. Alucard feels so great to control, and he gets so insanely overpowered depending on how smart your setup is. It's fun to just experiment with what is the most effective strategy for your play style.
Now, to address the difficulty. Symphony of the Night has a very obvious domino effect in terms of difficulty, for better or for worse. Castlevania has always been a series notorious for it's ball crushing difficulty, but SOTN is insanely easy once you start getting buffed up, even I was barely struggling, and I SUCK at video games. If anything, it is pretty satisfying seeing this sexy half vampire kill nearly everything with ease. Really the game only ramps up in difficult towards the notorious second half, which I'll address later.
Symphony of the Night is a beautiful looking game, and even that's an understatement. the mix of 2D and 3D elements looks natural, and not forced. The 2D sprites are nothing short of amazing, especially Alucard's smooth, luscious walk cycle. There are some reused sprite assets here or there, notably some enemies and Richter's tweaked sprites from Rondo of Blood. However, they don't look bad, I thought I'd just mention that.
The soundtrack is great, I don't think I need to elaborate much further. Some of my favorites include Prologue, Dracula's Castle, Crystal Teardrops, and The Tragic Prince.
Now, for the major point of contention that is brought up when discussing this game. The Inverted Castle. It's..... it's ok. Certainly not awful, but not that great either. Alot of the enemy placement can just feel very ctrl+v all over a single room rather then well thought out. The level geometry has not been changed to accommodate this new predicament, and as a side effect you're gonna be transforming alot just to get around. One positive I will bring up is that the Inverted Castle is fairly open. As soon as you've entered it, you have all the tools you need to go wherever you'd like. Not every area is mandatory, you only need to kill the 5 Castlevania (1986) bosses to face Shaft and the resurrected Dracula. So if anything, you can skim over alot of it, and the Inverted Castle is sorta optional to begin with, you can just end the game at the original castle and get the bad ending. The prerequisites to unlock the castle to begin with are a bit jank, but in this age of internet guides you should be fine. I imagine back in 1997, finding an entire hidden second castle to explore must've been mind blowing, especially when the internet wasn't much of a thing.
In summary, I really, really like Symphony of the Night. It's a fantastic game to play and look at, and the gameplay loop is immensely satisfying. I cannot get enough of this game. There are two other character modes in the PSP version that I might check out too, but I'm not that interested, Alucard's game is just fantastic enough as is. Symphony of the Night is undeniably a masterpiece, but like all masterpieces, it is a flawed one. I cannot recommend this game enough. Play it!
props to Josh_The_Fourth for recommending this game to me, you're a real one.
EDIT: Richter Mode Review - HAA HAU HAU HRRG HAUU HYDRO STORM HAA HAU HAA HMMPH HYDRO STORM (roll credits)

Playing this really drove home that I was right about Dark Souls being the almost note-perfect translation of the search action template into 3D that people wanted from the 3D Castlevanias, only it refuses to compromise or accommodate in certain areas (save and warp point placement most obviously, but also enemy mob rooms that are never as lacking in any actual strategic options for dealing with them nor as frustrating by just knocking the player around, albeit with negligible damage) where SOTN practically bends over backward to such an extent that it terminally borks the game's difficulty curve after the first few hours and renders the entire inverted castle as effectively just busywork, especially with its weapon damage scaling (e.g. some of SOTN's game-breakingly OP special weapon abilities such as Shield Rod + Alucard Shield). From an aesthetic and production design standpoint it absolutely deserves its reputation as a masterpiece, and Alucard feels luxuriously satisfying to play (ridiculous knockback when damaged aside) but as a game it feels - whilst highly enjoyable - surprisingly three quarters baked and at once a bit too eager to avoid alienating anyone for its own good while simultaneously demanding a level of bullshit pixel-hunting obssessiveness to actually fully complete the map that I cannot conceive how people did it without guides. I'm glad I finally gave this a fair shake but I can see how the slavish devotion to the formula established here would go on to frustrate people down the line. Still, looking forward to jamming Aria of Sorrow next to see how they refined it further.

LOL. Anyways, https://twitch.uservoice.com/forums/929953-igdb/suggestions/44070717-allow-users-to-pick-their-preferred-cover-art

Edit: oh nice, the good cover art is back.

Edit: Fuck goddammit

Como persona que tiene mucho sexo a toda hora, puedo decir que este juego es 100% parecido a tener sexo con una mujer, como yo siempre hago. Obviamente este juego no me puso caliente, no soy gay, yo tengo mucho sexo con mujeres reales como para gastar más de 15 minutos en este juego. Por otro lado me gustaria recomendar este juego a la gente que no tiene sexo (no como yo porque yo tengo mucho sexo con mujeres, mucho) como si ahí hubiese una mujer desnuda y está desnuda. Ella también se ve como una de mis varias novias con la que tuve mucho sexo. He tenido mucho sexo. También soy muy guapo y las mujeres SIEMPRE quieren tener sexo conmigo porque soy muy musculoso y guapo y muy bueno en los videojuegos. Todas mis novias dicen que soy muy bueno en el sexo y jugando videojuegos y siendo guapo. Una de mis enamoradas me pidió tener sexo con ella pero le dije que estaba jugando un juego de sexo y empezó a llorar y se hizo lesbiana y se suicidó porque no tuve sexo con ella. Tengo sexo con mujeres, no con hombres, no soy gay. Soy muy cool y guapo así que las chichas siempre quieren tener sexo conmigo porque soy muy cool y sexy. Mi pene es muy grande. A todas mis novias les gusta mi pene porque es muy grande y soy muy bueno en el sexo y lo soy, tengo mucho sexo. También soy muy guapo y sexy y tengo mucho sexo.

One of the most influential games of all time. The quintessential metroidvania.

Many have tried to surpass it and none have even to this day (but Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night comes the closest we'll ever get, only IGA can top himself).

Peak level design, insane variety in weapons and powers, one of greatest video game OSTs ever composed (Bless you Michiru Yamane), incredible Victorian Gothic styled art done by Ayami Kojima and one of the most quotable and iconic scripts ever.

'What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!'

I went into this one fully expecting it to be another title I would try for a few hours only to drop and never touch again, especially the nonlinear type like this where I put it down shortly after not knowing where to go next. Boy was I wrong.

There's something about Symphony of the Night that manages to draw you in to the point where even someone like me who has a hard time being motivated to beat games was able to finish this blind in less than a week. It's a plethora of contributing factors that I can fail to properly explain, whether it be the incredibly fitting soundtrack, the fluidly detailed sprites with their animations, or the design of the castle properly catering to Alucard's abilities (the normal castle at least) and the fact he controls beautifully in contrast to the past Belmonts. The game doesn't take very long to finish, but with how packed the castle is with locales and pathways of all kinds, it makes Symphony of the Night very difficult to just put down and it makes one motivated to complete the entire map despite how tedious the task sounds on paper, it's just that fun to play.

Now no game is without its caveats, some in the funny way and others in the disappointing way. While the RPG elements award you for exploration by making you stronger through finding better weapons, armor and relics, you can also become more powerful through experience points earned by simply killing enemies. This combined with a few ridiculously overpowered items can eventually make Alucard an unstoppable beast with not much effort needed. Therefore, this means the game can suffer from balance issues in your favor at a certain point with bosses dropping like flies due to your wide arsenal. Personally I have no issue with this as I got several Game Overs in the normal castle and found the stat boosts to be a remedy (I'm reckless as hell), though I can see later Castlevania games fixing this.

Something I would have more issues with on the other hand is the final section of the game, the inverted castle. Enemies are a lot stronger which is to be expected though their frequent appearances and placements got on my nerves. Exploring the upside down castle for the first time was admittedly surreal and I'd almost compare it to how master quests flip the map with harder enemies, though on repeat playthroughs I understand those who'd rather cut to the chase and kill the bosses needed to reach Shaft. That reminds me, clearing the inverted castle as Richter was an absolute nightmare for me and it's clear including him as a completion bonus was a complete afterthought despite his acrobatics as the castle was clearly built for Alucard.

All that aside, Symphony of the Night is an absolutely joyous blast to play and I recommend anyone to at least give it a shot even if they were never a Castlevania fan or Metroidvania player to begin with, this game convinced me that much. Huge thanks to Reddish and JoshTheFourth for helping me out on this one!

What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets.

pretty goddamn fantastic. here's a simple list of things I really liked because idk how else to put it
- Alucard controls like a dream.
- The power trip I was able to go on from how overpowered you get.
- Exploration never got boring! not once! every area in the castle was damn awesome.
- The Inclusion of a second castle to just Be Swag in
- RPG elements were a pretty dang new thing for me in a metroidvania, and they added quite a bit to the game
- Visuals are amazing, loved this game's style to bits

Theres only like one thing that felt weird to me which was how insanely cryptic some rooms were. but the couple of times I needed to look up a guide have nothing on the rest of the game's amazingness.


also fuck medusa heads