Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

"Classic-made-classic"

Every few years, the combination of two great aspects of the gaming world come together to create a great game. In this case, the Xbox Live Arcade, with its re-awakening of old arcade classics, comes together with 1997's playstation one action side-scroller of the year: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. With Castlevania being released on Xbox Live, the game itself has been tweaked and sharpened to come up to par with a classy arcade game of today's standards, while still maintaining the great features and gameplay style that made it a classic in 1997. The Xbox Live Arcade scene has been popular, but lacking in terms of full-length titles that contain content that goes above a regular arcade game. Although the Castlevania download is larger than a regular arcade download, the content is by far, the best title currently available o Xbox Live.

“The game itself has been tweaked and sharpened to come up to par with a classy arcade game of today's standards, while still maintaining the great features and gameplay style that made it a classic in 1997.”

Castlevania, Symphony of the Night was crowned “best action side-scroller” of 97 because of its great look and playability, while still holding true to the classic Castlevania conventions. You play through the game as Alucard, a vampire who has been awoken from his slumber in order to put an end to the new rising of evil that the world is facing. You enter Castlevania in an attempt to stop Dracula himself, but upon making contact with “death” your weapons and items are stripped from you, and you are forced to recollect them and find new weapons along the way. This element of the game adds a unique feeling of diversity in terms of combat, and although Castlevania is a side-scroller, in-game action doesn't get much cooler than this. Although the conventional “haunted castle” surroundings may be a turn-off for some of the newer players being introduced to the series, fans will have exactly what they wanted from the old games, melded in with some key new features that makes “Symphony of the Night” shine. Another welcome feature is the use of magic: inputting certain directional and attack combos will cause Alucard to enter an almost “cinematic” scenario, followed by a blast of magic that consumes the players attack energy, which passively recharges. This encourages the player to try to implement the use of magic more frequently.

“Another welcome feature is the use of magic: inputting certain directional and attack combos will cause Alucard to enter an almost “cinematic” scenario, followed by a blast of magic.”

The mechanics of the game are exactly what you would expect of a Castlevania title. Although a 2-D side-scroller from 1997 won't have much in the way of sophisticated control schemes, the movement and attack methods hold true to an authentic “arcade feel” with directional combos and pretty basic attacks that vary depending on your weapon (both melee and thrown). The music score fits perfectly with Alucard's circumstances, playing eerie haunting music and adding in a scream here and there when enemies are defeated. On top of the refurbished gameplay, Symphony of the Night has a series of secret areas and unlockables, making this arcade title one of the easiest to recommend in terms of replayability. In short, Castlevania: Symphony f the Night holds true to the roots of its 1997 playstation one predecessor, while implementing a number of key new features that make this title a must-have for Xbox Live Arcade fans, and anyone else looking for a good bit of action in the good old Castlevania sense, and for just 15 bucks, you really cant go wrong. I really hope to see more Xbox Live Arcade games that can come to par with all the great things that this Castlevania title has to offer.

The Good: Great sense of action, adventure, and style. Good amount of extras, and is only 15 dollars. Castlevania still stands strong as the leader of action-based side-scrollers, even 10 years after the games initial release.

The Bad: Environments can get repetitive, and the difficulty can be daunting for new-comers to the series.

OVERALL: 8.5/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/12/07