Ah yes. The 'Castle' in Castleroid. In my opinion, this is the best of this style of Castlevania. While it is true that games like Aria of Sorrow are more streamlined, I think Symphony of the Night has more mystique in terms of its systems and exploration. The fighter-esque spell combinations that are available from the beginning but are learned later in the game, the freedom in how you can equip items, and some surprisingly advanced movement really elevate the skill ceiling for the game.

Combine this with excellent visuals and what is quite possibly the best soundtrack in gaming and you have something that's automatically special despite some flaws. Yeah, I agree with many of the criticisms. The inverted castle is an interesting way to extend the game, but it's not as tightly designed as the early game. The RPG style level up system is a great way to reward exploration and battling, but combining that with every other form of progressions results in an easy endgame assuming you explore the castle thoroughly. You also can't sell duplicate pickups of items, so they're just kind of useless. These are all things later games improved on, and as a result the belief that they're better is understandable. However, this is still a must play in my opinion.