This review contains spoilers
So influential and discussed to death broadly over the years, there isn't much I could add regarding Symphony of the Night that already hasn't been plundered from its tomb. The metroidvania genre is one of my top favorites and this entry and series going forward, alongside the Metroid series, has innovated and inspired much in crafting the genre and what makes it so addicting to many and especially myself. Symphony isn't my first experience with this style of Castlevania (played through Aria for a few hours on switch last year but put it down), but it did cross my mind at times because of its status in the industry and I finally gave it a try since I've been diving into the Castlevania series this past month and onwards.
Not even 30 minutes in does Sotn rip open the enriching loop of exploration, platforming and combat around Dracula's castle. Even with the removal of all of Alucard's powers at the start, it never felt too daunting to search areas with various enemies wandering about as Alucard holds his own even with weaker weapons; picking up health and heart upgrades and leveling up via experience from killing enemies safeguards this while also offering an incentive to stomp all over enemies. Exploring also opens up the huge amount of customozation to gain all sorts of interesting, but occasionally useless, weapons, trinkets, gear and other items to build Alucard's power back and face off against threatening, but piss easy, bosses and learn more about what's happening in the castle. It's a power fantasy, especially coming off the much tougher Castlevania games that required more precision in mastering levels, but it's so satisfying traversing around the sprawling space of the castle that seems never-ending in new pathways, gears and other environmental detail. While I do get the complaints regarding how uneven and broken the game can get by just grinding and getting the most powerful weapon to mow down everyone, it never grew tiring to fill out more of the map and discover what lies in the open or hidden spaces of each room.
Also adding to symphony's hook is the quality amount of level design that kept a sense of tension while exploring through precise platforming and enemy placement, and in some spaces teasing new areas to discover at some point later down the road with the right tools. The amount of openings on the ceilings of some rooms dared me to go through them but my attempts through endlessly double jumping and hitting walls for switches were complete failures until I got the bat upgrade and my traversal changed going forward. While I wish the theming was more consistent and strong in some parts, I really enjoyed certain areas of the castle having a distinguishing feel, aesthetically or mechanically, that kept exploring from becoming too monotonous outside of the huge amount of backtracking which could have been addressed through adding random shortcuts here and there alongside the handful of warp points already in the castle. All of this tied together with a phenomenal soundtrack and sense of atmosphere/presentation and beautiful sprite art that still holds up today, you get a masterpiece with so much to offer in replaying it, except if you try to go for the 'good' ending and go on to the inverted version of the castle.
The inverted castle sucks. It conflicts so much with the great platforming and other aspects that spurred exploration of the regular castle and becomes a huge jump in difficulty that feels overkill right off the bat. Take the annoying clock tower puzzle where you have to hit four gears until they make a certain clink sound (already hard to hear because the music is going wild) while avoiding harpies and endless spawning medusa heads, and the reward for it was pretty unsatisfying; the inverted version not only is completely upside down with slightly more challenging platforming, but the rooms spawn cloaked knights and endless gold medusa heads that can petrify and send you careening to the bottom over and over again if hit and especially stunlocked by both, and I gave up after looking at what was even behind the gates this time. I've read some people's problem with this castle is its lack of narrative weight compared to the original castle, but I feel it's an even bigger problem with the reverse castle severely lacking in strong execution playing through it and an even glaring red flag and reminder on the game's overall issue of balancing that really reared its head when the regular enemies started kicking my shit in unprovoked. The reverse castle doesn't even feel fundamentally different, it just makes exploration so damn tedious going through areas seen already and stops the flow of it constantly. The new ending isn't even all that once it's all said and done and this section overall stalls the already great pace of the default castle, even if it does end on a downer note via the 'bad' ending.
Even with this disappointing section, I still really enjoyed Symphony of the Night and can see myself returning to it, though I do prefer how Metroid does it over Castlevania with this game at least so far. Maybe this will change depending on how I feel about the GBA and DS entries and what they have to offer.
Not even 30 minutes in does Sotn rip open the enriching loop of exploration, platforming and combat around Dracula's castle. Even with the removal of all of Alucard's powers at the start, it never felt too daunting to search areas with various enemies wandering about as Alucard holds his own even with weaker weapons; picking up health and heart upgrades and leveling up via experience from killing enemies safeguards this while also offering an incentive to stomp all over enemies. Exploring also opens up the huge amount of customozation to gain all sorts of interesting, but occasionally useless, weapons, trinkets, gear and other items to build Alucard's power back and face off against threatening, but piss easy, bosses and learn more about what's happening in the castle. It's a power fantasy, especially coming off the much tougher Castlevania games that required more precision in mastering levels, but it's so satisfying traversing around the sprawling space of the castle that seems never-ending in new pathways, gears and other environmental detail. While I do get the complaints regarding how uneven and broken the game can get by just grinding and getting the most powerful weapon to mow down everyone, it never grew tiring to fill out more of the map and discover what lies in the open or hidden spaces of each room.
Also adding to symphony's hook is the quality amount of level design that kept a sense of tension while exploring through precise platforming and enemy placement, and in some spaces teasing new areas to discover at some point later down the road with the right tools. The amount of openings on the ceilings of some rooms dared me to go through them but my attempts through endlessly double jumping and hitting walls for switches were complete failures until I got the bat upgrade and my traversal changed going forward. While I wish the theming was more consistent and strong in some parts, I really enjoyed certain areas of the castle having a distinguishing feel, aesthetically or mechanically, that kept exploring from becoming too monotonous outside of the huge amount of backtracking which could have been addressed through adding random shortcuts here and there alongside the handful of warp points already in the castle. All of this tied together with a phenomenal soundtrack and sense of atmosphere/presentation and beautiful sprite art that still holds up today, you get a masterpiece with so much to offer in replaying it, except if you try to go for the 'good' ending and go on to the inverted version of the castle.
The inverted castle sucks. It conflicts so much with the great platforming and other aspects that spurred exploration of the regular castle and becomes a huge jump in difficulty that feels overkill right off the bat. Take the annoying clock tower puzzle where you have to hit four gears until they make a certain clink sound (already hard to hear because the music is going wild) while avoiding harpies and endless spawning medusa heads, and the reward for it was pretty unsatisfying; the inverted version not only is completely upside down with slightly more challenging platforming, but the rooms spawn cloaked knights and endless gold medusa heads that can petrify and send you careening to the bottom over and over again if hit and especially stunlocked by both, and I gave up after looking at what was even behind the gates this time. I've read some people's problem with this castle is its lack of narrative weight compared to the original castle, but I feel it's an even bigger problem with the reverse castle severely lacking in strong execution playing through it and an even glaring red flag and reminder on the game's overall issue of balancing that really reared its head when the regular enemies started kicking my shit in unprovoked. The reverse castle doesn't even feel fundamentally different, it just makes exploration so damn tedious going through areas seen already and stops the flow of it constantly. The new ending isn't even all that once it's all said and done and this section overall stalls the already great pace of the default castle, even if it does end on a downer note via the 'bad' ending.
Even with this disappointing section, I still really enjoyed Symphony of the Night and can see myself returning to it, though I do prefer how Metroid does it over Castlevania with this game at least so far. Maybe this will change depending on how I feel about the GBA and DS entries and what they have to offer.