Reviewing Castlevania Symphony of the Night is an interesting one because there is just nothing new I could possibly say about it really as a game that other far better writers with more analytical tendency's haven't covered in greater depth. The thing is though this was my first Castlevania, my first Metroidvania, and it had quite an impact on me.
I was about 20 when I first played Symphony of the Night. I'd never actually played a Castlevania game before but found the limited edition copy of this with artbook and soundtrack in a second hand store. The first thing that grabbed my attention when walking by was the amazing cover artwork by Ayami Kojima. I've always enjoyed gothic architecture, historical buildings, clothing and legends (of which vampires certainly is one of interest). Seeing that cover of a vampiric figure holding his sword upright with the moon, Castle and massive collar mixed with the slightly muted colour palette was extremely striking compared with many other drab or blocky covers in the store. The gothic atmosphere imparted in that one image left such an impression on me I had to have the game.
The artwork in the book in the back of the double CD case complimented the cover and after flipping through I popped the game in and away I went. I'm not sure what I fully expected but the hybrid mix of exploration with action RPG mechanics was a delight. It's a fairly standard affair now days, not only for the Castlevanias that came afterwards but for the dozens of indie games that have taken influence from it. The fact is though that back then this game was so influential that the genre is often simply named 'Metroidvania' partially after it. I'd never played anything like it at the time, and going back to it again over 20 years later for this digital rerelease I'm extremely pleased it's held up remarkably well on almost all fronts.
"It's strange... this castle is different than I remember it."
For those unaware, Symphony of the Night brings back Alucard the son of Dracula, a character from Castelvania III as the main character. It's a direct sequel to Rondo of Blood and Dracula's Castle has once again risen only a few years after fading away when Richter Belmont defeated Dracula..... Having actually played Rondo of Blood now a few weeks ago it makes the start all the more impactful as well as Maria's presence in the game and is a really interesting start set up literally playing against the final boss from the game before just as a prologue.
The castle itself is easy to navigate with a good map and yet it's littered with secrets as are the spells and weapons. Alucard has a variety of equipment that he can find and equip from swords, shields, hammers, cloaks etc. Additionally he can find spells and abilities for turning into a bat, a wolf or mist which help him to unlock further areas of the castle and traverse in a more fluid way. The amount of items and little easter eggs and secrets to find is quite impressive. On this playthrough trophy hunting I learned there was a sword that summons skeletons to briefly fight for you. Literally every time I play this I find something new. Playing through again after beating the game as a second character of Richter isn't something I'd tried before either and his completely different move set and abilities as a more traditional Classicvania character just add that much more life to a game.
"What is a man?! A miserable little pile of secrets!"
Great art and gameplay mechanics aside would be nothing however without Symphony of the Night's stellar audio. This particular version is the remaster based on Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. This is the redubbed and rewritten version over the original 1997 release and to be honest I prefer it. The voice acting is just way better but I appreciate that is entirely subjective and you may prefer the more over the top iconic dialogue. Regardless of the version you play though, the soundtrack is an absolute striker. I could choose almost any song from the soundtrack and it would be not only a great piece but also a perfect accompaniment to build that atmosphere.
I went into this because Castlevania Nocturne is coming soon on Netflix and it's been in my backlog to replay for sometime but I'm really glad I did. It's been some years since I last played it and it's great to not only see that it still holds up to the test of time competing with almost any Metroidvania in the genre but also that it can still surprise me with content I never knew about. Replaying some games with memories through rose tinted glasses vcan sometimes be a let down and are better left in memories, but not Symphony of the Night. This is a game that influenced a lot but taken just at it's own merit it's still a fantastic experience.
I still hate the clocktower though.
+ Gorgeous 2D sprites mixed with 3D rendering.
+ Iconic soundtrack.
+ Insanely good artwork and atmosphere.
- Some small sound popping and map issues due to emulation over the original release.
On a side note, for anyone interested in retro games or Castlevania I recommend this video and channel The Making of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Dracula X by Strafefox.
I was about 20 when I first played Symphony of the Night. I'd never actually played a Castlevania game before but found the limited edition copy of this with artbook and soundtrack in a second hand store. The first thing that grabbed my attention when walking by was the amazing cover artwork by Ayami Kojima. I've always enjoyed gothic architecture, historical buildings, clothing and legends (of which vampires certainly is one of interest). Seeing that cover of a vampiric figure holding his sword upright with the moon, Castle and massive collar mixed with the slightly muted colour palette was extremely striking compared with many other drab or blocky covers in the store. The gothic atmosphere imparted in that one image left such an impression on me I had to have the game.
The artwork in the book in the back of the double CD case complimented the cover and after flipping through I popped the game in and away I went. I'm not sure what I fully expected but the hybrid mix of exploration with action RPG mechanics was a delight. It's a fairly standard affair now days, not only for the Castlevanias that came afterwards but for the dozens of indie games that have taken influence from it. The fact is though that back then this game was so influential that the genre is often simply named 'Metroidvania' partially after it. I'd never played anything like it at the time, and going back to it again over 20 years later for this digital rerelease I'm extremely pleased it's held up remarkably well on almost all fronts.
"It's strange... this castle is different than I remember it."
For those unaware, Symphony of the Night brings back Alucard the son of Dracula, a character from Castelvania III as the main character. It's a direct sequel to Rondo of Blood and Dracula's Castle has once again risen only a few years after fading away when Richter Belmont defeated Dracula..... Having actually played Rondo of Blood now a few weeks ago it makes the start all the more impactful as well as Maria's presence in the game and is a really interesting start set up literally playing against the final boss from the game before just as a prologue.
The castle itself is easy to navigate with a good map and yet it's littered with secrets as are the spells and weapons. Alucard has a variety of equipment that he can find and equip from swords, shields, hammers, cloaks etc. Additionally he can find spells and abilities for turning into a bat, a wolf or mist which help him to unlock further areas of the castle and traverse in a more fluid way. The amount of items and little easter eggs and secrets to find is quite impressive. On this playthrough trophy hunting I learned there was a sword that summons skeletons to briefly fight for you. Literally every time I play this I find something new. Playing through again after beating the game as a second character of Richter isn't something I'd tried before either and his completely different move set and abilities as a more traditional Classicvania character just add that much more life to a game.
"What is a man?! A miserable little pile of secrets!"
Great art and gameplay mechanics aside would be nothing however without Symphony of the Night's stellar audio. This particular version is the remaster based on Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. This is the redubbed and rewritten version over the original 1997 release and to be honest I prefer it. The voice acting is just way better but I appreciate that is entirely subjective and you may prefer the more over the top iconic dialogue. Regardless of the version you play though, the soundtrack is an absolute striker. I could choose almost any song from the soundtrack and it would be not only a great piece but also a perfect accompaniment to build that atmosphere.
I went into this because Castlevania Nocturne is coming soon on Netflix and it's been in my backlog to replay for sometime but I'm really glad I did. It's been some years since I last played it and it's great to not only see that it still holds up to the test of time competing with almost any Metroidvania in the genre but also that it can still surprise me with content I never knew about. Replaying some games with memories through rose tinted glasses vcan sometimes be a let down and are better left in memories, but not Symphony of the Night. This is a game that influenced a lot but taken just at it's own merit it's still a fantastic experience.
I still hate the clocktower though.
+ Gorgeous 2D sprites mixed with 3D rendering.
+ Iconic soundtrack.
+ Insanely good artwork and atmosphere.
- Some small sound popping and map issues due to emulation over the original release.
On a side note, for anyone interested in retro games or Castlevania I recommend this video and channel The Making of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Dracula X by Strafefox.
11 Comments
@Reddish - I still have it stored away with some other rare games I managed to collect back then, this is the only copy i ever saw of it even back then....
it's kind of crazy how rare it is. pretty sure it only sold like- 15,000 copies in PAL territories?
lucky brits, you get good box art and an art book? Very jelly
oh I guess you're version of the game would run slow though. Ok seriously this has bothered many for many many years so I need to ask about this now: before you had internet or whatever, did you, like, know about the speed differences in games in Europe? Like, did magazines ever talk about it or were you ever playing a game with a timer and thought "oh that looks too slow" or anything like that? It's just always seemed odd, growing up with youtube videos and stuff people would mention the pal versions of games but be like "oh it's gonna run slow" and something always bothered me about it. Like, seriously, almost every single game runs wrong for an entire region? I swear this isn't me trying to be an asshole or anything I could just never let go of this
@HylianBran - Sure we knew there was a 10hz (50/60hz) difference between regions but literally no one noticed or cared. Firstly it didn't seem like the games ran slow when we were playing them, secondly you don't miss what you don't have. At the time 20 - 25 years ago it was a complete non issue compared with now.
Wish I still had my physical copy, I just have the instruction booklet with the ad for Silent Hill on the back. Still one of my favorite games of all time, there are few games like this one that I could and still get the urge to play at least once a year. I would like to review it myself one of these days, but like you said its hard to make one stand out and say what hasn't been said. I plan to play the Saturn version sometime soon since I have played every other up to this point. Definitely will checkout that video!
@DrJeans - What happened to the rest of it? XD
Saturn version is a good idea! Some great English patches coming out now for that system and emulation is a lot more stable now days on Saturn if you're going that route 👍🏻
Saturn version is a good idea! Some great English patches coming out now for that system and emulation is a lot more stable now days on Saturn if you're going that route 👍🏻
@FallenGrace huh, I never thought that would be the case.
@DrJeans try the Symphony of the Night Extended hack. It uses the Saturn 4mb ram cartridge which helps with a lot of the technical issues, plus the hack also changes a lot of effects to more closely match the playstation version. Unfortunately it hasn't been combined with the fan translation of the Saturn version but if you're familiar with the game or have Google Lens on your phone to translate it shouldn't be a big deal. You can also swap to the translated version and back again if you want to see some parts translated. On the console, anyway, I'm not sure how the emulator assigns saves so it might not be possible there.
There's actually two 4mb hacks: the Extended version I mentioned before and an earlier one that only uses it for better performance. The earlier one is not useful. It doesn't run or look as good as the Extended version, and (if you don't know Japanese) it also isn't in English, so there's no real advantage to using it.
The Saturn version is worse than the PlayStation one but it's fun for a bit of a twist on the original game. There's some stuff I actually appreciate. The bat can fly infinitely so long as you have enough MP which makes filling in the map a bit more efficient. It doesn't fix my biggest problem with the original game though which is that there's like one spot in the cave area that I can not fill in for the life of me. It DOES fix my second biggest problem though which is that you can finally select Stereo audio from the title screen without needing to wait until you can play as Alucard. This means that the opening can finally be experienced with a jaw-dropping TWO SPEAKERS. That is a really big deal for me.
Hey so here's an unrelated story. So I was playing the Saturn version one time and got to the stupid dumb stupid clock tower that everyone else really really hates. I was trying to solve the puzzle with the gears where you have to listen closely to the noise it makes to open the door. The music was kicking too much ass so I was having a hard time hearing it so I disconnected the right ear since the gear was to my left. Weirdly I couldn't hear it at all so I did the opposite and I could hear it now. Then I looked it up and apparently the Saturn's left and right audio channels are reversed when using 3rd party composite cables that don't account for it. I figured mine were OEM since they came with the console but I guess not. This is easy to fix, just plug the red cable into the white jack and vice versa. Nothing else that's the whole story I just thought it was amusing
@DrJeans try the Symphony of the Night Extended hack. It uses the Saturn 4mb ram cartridge which helps with a lot of the technical issues, plus the hack also changes a lot of effects to more closely match the playstation version. Unfortunately it hasn't been combined with the fan translation of the Saturn version but if you're familiar with the game or have Google Lens on your phone to translate it shouldn't be a big deal. You can also swap to the translated version and back again if you want to see some parts translated. On the console, anyway, I'm not sure how the emulator assigns saves so it might not be possible there.
There's actually two 4mb hacks: the Extended version I mentioned before and an earlier one that only uses it for better performance. The earlier one is not useful. It doesn't run or look as good as the Extended version, and (if you don't know Japanese) it also isn't in English, so there's no real advantage to using it.
The Saturn version is worse than the PlayStation one but it's fun for a bit of a twist on the original game. There's some stuff I actually appreciate. The bat can fly infinitely so long as you have enough MP which makes filling in the map a bit more efficient. It doesn't fix my biggest problem with the original game though which is that there's like one spot in the cave area that I can not fill in for the life of me. It DOES fix my second biggest problem though which is that you can finally select Stereo audio from the title screen without needing to wait until you can play as Alucard. This means that the opening can finally be experienced with a jaw-dropping TWO SPEAKERS. That is a really big deal for me.
Hey so here's an unrelated story. So I was playing the Saturn version one time and got to the stupid dumb stupid clock tower that everyone else really really hates. I was trying to solve the puzzle with the gears where you have to listen closely to the noise it makes to open the door. The music was kicking too much ass so I was having a hard time hearing it so I disconnected the right ear since the gear was to my left. Weirdly I couldn't hear it at all so I did the opposite and I could hear it now. Then I looked it up and apparently the Saturn's left and right audio channels are reversed when using 3rd party composite cables that don't account for it. I figured mine were OEM since they came with the console but I guess not. This is easy to fix, just plug the red cable into the white jack and vice versa. Nothing else that's the whole story I just thought it was amusing
@FallenGrace I'm not sure dude I wish I knew! I remember my uncle having the strategy guide for it as well!
@HylianBran I definitely will check out that romhack when I get the chance! I got a steamdeck so I definitely will be able to get it working I'm sure.
@HylianBran I definitely will check out that romhack when I get the chance! I got a steamdeck so I definitely will be able to get it working I'm sure.
Cool that this was your first Castlevania game and also 'metroidvania'. What you say about this game always having something new to show you in every playthrough is something I can relate to a lot. Amazing review.
Reddish
7 months ago