Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku

"The experience no american experienced"

The history of castlevania is quite a long one in fact, with over 20 games released, and one sadly unreleased one, there were a few that fell down under. Namely, one for the X68000, one for the pc-engine, and ''Nocturne in the Moonlight'' for the ill-fated saturn. Its about time someone recognized this game, and i'll just tell you what is better and worse about the playstation counterpart, ''symphony of the night''.

First off, what most people dont seem to know, the games name isnt symphony of the night, its nocturn in the moonlight. But that isnt important, its the gameplay, and this game beats SOTN out in it. Outside of there being a handful of mostly not so great items, theres 2 more familiars, and 2 new dungeons. The first is the haunted prison, this dungeon is truly a sight to see with a beatiful backdrop and cool new tree enemies. The second dungeon is a very small ''Haunted'' area. The boss of the prison isnt lame while there is no boss to the ''haunted'' area at all. The music pieces in both areas are on par with the rest of the games music, at times you'll like it, at other times, you'll be annoyed. The 2 familiars compse of a bad japanese pun demon and a fairy who will play music with a certain item. Out of the new items, the only mentionable one is an item that was depertaly needed in symphony of the night, a running rune or whatever its called(sorry, i cant read japanese and i havent played PSX version in awhile).

Now the the worse factory between the two, the saturn for some strange reason, has worse visuals for this game, only slightly though with some choppiness. For most people, they'll either say they think saturn sucks any type of way you make a game in graphics or they'll say nothing at all. For most, it doesnt matter, but the saturn is the supreme 2D machine even today, so i dont get that. The second complaint is there is slowdown quiete often. But niether of these factors down the gameplay in my opinion.

Well, i hope i sorted out any questions you might have had about the saturn version of symphony of the night, and well, if you wanna fork out the money for this game(50$ on ebay) it is well worth it if you dont have symphony of the night. Have fun with Nocturne in the Moonlight and I hope you enjoyed my review.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/16/02, Updated 07/16/02