Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
PlayStation
We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to present to you a special guest video game review! You may remember Almightywisk from his other guest review of Parasite Eve. His additions to this blog are always great and I highly encourage guest entries. I would make this a co-review, but I shamefully admit that I have yet to play Symphony of the Night. It is on my to do list since I hear from everyone how amazing it is. What does Wisk think of the game? Read on and see....
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Greetings bloggers, I, Almightywisk, come from the depths of my hobbit hole. Dan has once again summoned me because his laziness knows no bounds in regards to reviewing games. It's time to delve into the heart of darkness, because today is the review of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
I did not get my hands on this game until a year after it was released because there was no major marketing for it, no commercials, just a gem waiting to be found in a library of already good games. I stumbled onto this game when I went to a friends house in 8th grade, his mom let me in and as I was walking upstairs the first thing I heard was the music, and it was amazing. I walked into his room and I saw a character on screen that had an after image as he was running, I thought it was a spell at first, turns out that's just how the character model was created. I was instantly mesmerized.
I asked him what game he was playing, he told me Symphony of the Night. I had no idea it was Castlevania. He went to save his game and reset it. A new game was started just for little old me and he hands me the controller and I'm introduced to some text and BOOM! I am playing as Richter Belmont. I realize that I'm playing Castlevania, and I start at a red staircase with no option to go back. I naturally follow and not but a good 10 seconds of walking, I am in Dracula's throne room.
The dialogue and voice acting are so corny that it's good, it's memorable. The lines spoken by Dracula in this scene are now internet famous. "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" and "Enough talk, HAVE AT YOU!". I am scared, naturally, I'm fighting Dracula with no knowledge of the game and it's the same patterns as the original Castlevania - beat the first form, and then here comes the monster second form. Naturally I was not prepared for this and I die, but to my surprise I'm not dead. An animation comes from the side of the screen, it's a girl who screams "Richter show them your strength" and I get revived, not only revived but unkillable. I finish the fight with Dracula and then the game shows a cutscene.
After Dracula's defeat the Castle is still there, so enter a cutscene of some guy running through the woods and he jumps the drawbridge and you gain control of him. This was the character my friend was playing as. I hit the start button and a menu pops up, The characters name is Alucard, and I'm laughing a bit and my friend asks what's so funny, I tell him I'm a bit of a Castlevania nerd and most people didn't know that in Castlevania 3, he's a playable character after you beat him. Plus Alucard is just Dracula backwards. My first experience with this game was a memorable one. With that info, lets move onto the review shall we?
The story is pretty creative, you start off looking to just kill Dracula, but as the game progresses you learn there is more to the story than originally suspected. You run into a character named Maria, who is looking for Richter Belmont, the very same Richter who fought Dracula at the beginning of the game. It turns out that fight was 5 years ago and since then he has gone missing. Alucard, not really concerned says he will keep an eye out, as he progresses through the castle he has numerous run ins with Maria and it's the same story, she has had no luck finding him and neither has Alucard.
A portion of the game consists of you going to a Colisseum under the castle, There you see Richter Belmont in the background watching from the stands, claiming he is the lord of this castle. A boss fight ensues with a monster he summons and when it's over he is gone. Exploration becomes pivotal to the plot and affects the ending. There's an area where you find Maria claiming she is about to lose hope when Alucard tells her that he found him in the castle and that it seems he has fallen to darkness. The final meeting with her is in a secret room where she gives you a special item to save Richter. You eventually make your way to where Richter fought Dracula and there he is in his throne room claiming that the fight between vampires and vampire hunters will go on forever as long as he controls the castle. The final battle begins and it's against the Belmont lineage, or is it? You have a choice here, if you didn't get the special item Maria gave you, you are forced to kill Richter Belmont and get the bad ending of the game, and the game itself will end. However, If you equip the special item she gave you, you learn that Richter is being controlled by a minion of Dracula and must slay that.
If you chose to slay the demon controlling Richter, a new portion of the game opens up to you and it's an inverted version of the castle you just explored, and the difficulty ramps up. This is where you play the game, it's a whole new version of this castle that needs to be explored, new items to be found, new relics to use, and no major story besides a brief run in with death complimenting you on making it that far. This is where you gear up for the final battle against Dracula.
You all have read the a summary of the game, let's get down to brass tacks, the main protagonist is Alucard Tepes, the son of Count Dracula, half human half Vampire. The game plays like the other Castlevanias, side scroller/platformer and a little bit of RPG element. Hit the pause button you are shown a menu with stats/relics/equipment/familiars/spells. Naturally you want to see what you're equipped with, and you know it's high level gear, all the gear you have is named after you. It gives you these ridiculous stats, and naturally everything is empty, you just started the game. You progress through the first few screens and it's very Castlevania; ghouls, zombies, wolves, mermen bats. The first thing you notice is the awesome animation of Alucard, when he runs there is an after image of him that is just appealing, you feel faster, and secondly you have a sword. There is no whip. The game entices you to play, especially as it's set up to level you up in the first 2 minutes you are hacking and slashing enemies, the game freezes for half a second, your character glows and a little chime plays and it just makes you feel lik
e a badass knowing you are getting stronger.
While you progress from the courtyard and into the castle, the background scenery is just hauntingly terrifying and amazing, windows, lightning, the works, just as you are getting used to everything you move into the next screen and are treated to a cutscene of Death and Alucard exchanging words; Death telling Alucard to stop his journey to stop his father, Alucard declining. And then the game just pulls a dick move, Death takes your gear, just ups and takes your high level weapons and armor and flies off. You are now punching. It's alright though the game quickly drops a short sword from a skeleton for you to arm yourself with, but from here on out, the choices you make are on you.
Armed with only a short sword and no clue where to go, I set out to explore and the first place to go was up, might as well, A red door in front of me and I enter the Alchemy Labratory, the game gets hard to explain here since it's nowhere near linear but as I traverse the labratory I stumble on a relic (which are special items in the game to collect that give you special abilities and skills) and the first you find in the wide open is the cube of zoe which allows you to collect hearts and items from the candles. While traveling and fumbling through this area I ended up with some armor as well and finally found a save room, which restores your HP and magic. Luckily the game is kind enough to leave a save room within earshot of a boss room, because I had no idea that i was about to stumble on my first boss.
The first boss is a pair of enemies, Gaibon and Slorga. Gaibon is a Gargoyle type enemy that shoots flame balls and flies around, Slorga is an undead bird with a spear that if you end up knocking up with a special weapon, is caught by Gaibon and drops Slorga on your head with the spear. It's a really creative fight. When you do enough damage to Gaibon he turns red and the little flame balls become giant and more frequent, so focus on Slorga first so you don't have to deal with a pissed off gargoyle. With the fight over, naturally you get a level up and an item appears, which is usually a HP max or Heart Max. This game sets you up for success as long as you pay attention, After a boss fight, somewhere in the next few screens there is a special item waiting for you somewhere, whether it be armor or relic, always pay attention.
After the alchemy lab, from here on out it all depends on you, you are free to explore this vast castle, a few blockades are put up for your protection so you don't stumble into the wrong area at too low a level. Each section of the castle minus the "Outside Wall" has a boss and an item for you to collect alone with numerous items hidden in walls, even full rooms in walls. You have a gist of how the game is played lets discuss a tad more of the RPG element.
Like any RPG you gain levels through destroying enemies, enemies drop equipment some rare and some not so rare. In my playthrough I happened to get a few extremely rare items including "Axelord Armor" and a "Medusa Shield". These items are extremely rare drops. The Medusa Shield turns enemies into stone when it's out and being used, and the sprite for it is literally a medusa head. The Axelord armor is extremely defensive. A nice little addition used are familiars. Hidden through the second half of the game are cards that allow you to summon special creatures to follow you and help you: A Faerie, Demon, Ghost, Sword, and a Bat. The familiars level up as well, which actually makes them more intelligent and more capable to use in battle. I used the sword most of the way through and I ended my run at Level 60, and my familiar at level 37.
All in all, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night still holds up. The game has everything a gamer needs, between the open world exploration, the challenge of each individual area, the unique bosses and enemies, the amazing soundtrack and the fact you had to WORK for the story... you had to explore to make sure you got all the pieces of the puzzle. This game stood the test of time and I was glad to pick it up again. What kept me involved was the story, I wanted to find out what happened to the Belmont lineage, why Richter was doing this. My score?
Overall:
A+
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