Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

"This game has been one of my favourites since 1997, it's still as fun to play today."

I know this is one of the worst ways to begin a review, but what is there to say about Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that hasn't already been said 1000 times already? Castlevania is one of Konami's most important series and also one of the series who have been around since the Nes days but never seems to run out of steam. Even if the series had a couple horrible ones, most of the Castlevania games are considered to be some of the best on the systems they are on, and among all these games Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is by many considered to be the best of them all.

There I said it, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of the best games ever made. You can now stop reading this review and instead go and play it if you never have tried it. You can found this game both on the Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, and the game also got a remake on the Psp so there's a good chance that you can play it even if you don't want to try to find a copy of the Sony Playstation version and spend a lot of money. Oh wait you actually want to know more about the actual game? Well then you have clicked on the correct link.

Castlevania: Symphony is a direct sequel of the Pc-Engine classic Rondo of Blood, and the game even begins with that you play as Richter Belmont who is on his way to Dracula to slay the vampire just like his ancestors. When he faces Dracula, the game gives you not only two really bad voice actors, but also delivers a really cheesy speak which makes the whole thing hilarius to watch. "Die Monster, you don't belong in this world" and "What is a man?" are two wellknown quotes from this game. After the speech you fight Dracula, and since it's the beginning in the game it's impossible to lose. When Dracula is defeated, the game gives you a scene which tells you the story before the it really begins.

The game takes place 4 years after that Richter Belmont defeated Count Dracula, and as always when Dracula is defeated his castle also disappears, rumored to appear once again every 100 years. But now not only have Richter Belmont disappeared but the mysterious castle have also appeared. This time Dracula's son named Alucard, the very same Alucard who helped Trevor Belmont to defeat Dracula 400 years ago (in the Nes game Castlevania III) has woke up from his eternal sleep to once again visit his father's castle.

The previous Casltevania games in the series were platformers where you had to rely on your whip known as the Vampire Killer and the sub weapons that you could pick up on each stage. You also went from one stage to another, and the only way to regain your health was either to beat the stage or find some hidden meat that could be find behind some walls. In pretty much every Castlevania game you thought undead monsters, and each stage ended with a tough boss fight. Almost everything has changed in this game.

First of all since you are NOT playing as a Belmont, you are not using a whip in order to kill the enemies but instead you have to use swords. Alucard can also use shields in order to protect himself from enemy attacks. You can also find and equip different equipment that increases Alucard's different stats. In this game Konami added a RPG feature where you gain experience and when you got enough you will gain a level which makes Alucard stronger. It really doesn't matter much on which level you are in this game, but it's still a pretty cool feature right?

When Alucard enters Dracula's castle, he starts with some of the best equipment in the game. However it doesn't take a long time until Alucard meets another popular villain in the series, the guy know as Death. Death simply asks Alucard to go back to his eternal sleep, and when Alucard refuses Death steals all his equipment and teleports away. Now all Alucard got to defend himself against the enemies is his bare hands so he must quickly find new equipment if he wants to make it out alive from this castle of evil.

As I said that in the previous Castlevania games you went from one stage to another, but in this game you are allowed to explore Dracula's entire castle in almost any order you want as long as you can reach the different places. If you just want to quickly beat the game, then you miss a lot of the game because the castle got a lot of optional areas that gives you even better equipment, more abilities to use and a lot of bosses to fight.

Since the castle is really huge in this version, Konami have been so kind that they added two other features in this game. First of all you now have a chance to save your game. To do that you have to find a save room which can be found pretty much everywhere, and when you touch the crystal in the middle of that room you not only get a chance to save, but you also regain all your lost health. The other feature is something as simple as map. If you press the select button you get to see where you are right now, but you can of course only see the places you've been before.

As I said before there are many places you can reach directly from the start, and that's because in this game there are many relics which gives Alucard a new ability. Most the relics are found directly after a boss fight. They can give you anything from allowing Alucard to make an extra jump to allow him to breath under water. There are five relics which gives Alucard a little monster which can be his partner and do some extra damage to the enemy, and three of the relics allows Alucard to turn into a wolf, a mist or a bat.

Alucard can also use sub weapons that costs hearts to use just like in any other Castlevania game. Finally since Alucard is a vampire, you can cast a different spells to attack the enemies if you don't think your weapons are enough. In order to cast a spell you have to preform a certain move, just like in fighting games. Most of the spells takes a little practice to do, and you can beat the game without use them.

So what do Castlevania: Symphony of the Night got that makes it better than all the previous Castlevania games and also the ones that have been released after? First of all it's all the things that you can do, you can transform into animals, you can learn a lot of things, you can use many different weapons, fight a lot of fun bosses, the music is great, you can play through the game over and over again.

Some don't like that this game pretty much copied the Metroid game play, and while it's true that the game gets a little to easy when you know where everything is, but I know that the first time you play this game there are a couple of tough places. And if that's all the flaws I can think of a game, then maybe it deserves the 10 I just gave it.

I admit that one reason why I love this game is because I got it 1 month after it was released, but this game didn't sale to well because it was a 2D game released when 2D was the past and 3D was the future, but now everyone have realised how close to perfection this game is and it usually appears on lists of the best games ever, and of course I agree. This game is really really good.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/09

Game Release: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (EU, November 1997)