Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
PlayStation
Nostalgia Factor:
Can you believe that I've shared the planet with this game for 27 years and I am only just now getting around to playing it? I grew up a fan of the original NES Castlevania, but its sequel, Simon's Quest, soured me to the series and I never returned to it. That was a mistake. There have been a ton of great Castlevania games released since then - most notably the highly acclaimed Symphony of the Night.
I have not been living under a rock all these years. I've read all the online reviews and I've read through all kinds of Reddit threads and message board conversations about this game. It has almost no haters. Everyone universally seems to agree that this game is awesome. Heck, my good friend (the late Almighty Wisk) did a guest review of this game for my blog back in 2016 - and he gave the game an A+. Click here if you are interested in that review.
This is one of those games that I've always told myself I'd get around to playing "someday." I even downloaded it from the PSN Store back in 2014. Which means I've had this game in my possession for ten years now, waiting for the right time to fire it up.
Well, the time has finally come. I've been playing through every Castlevania game, in order, so I could make it to this point: finally playing Symphony of the Night. Would I find that this game really is one of the greatest games ever made, or would I find it to be overrated as all hell? Let's find out.
Story:
This game acts as a sequel of sorts to Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. The action starts with a cutscene that shows Rondo's protagonist (Richter Belmont) facing off against Dracula. After this brief sequence, the game flashes forward to the future. Dracula is back (again) after 100 years, and his son Alucard, who works with humans on the side of good, enters the castle looking to end things once and for all.
The game has a surprisingly strong storyline when held up against other Castlevania games. Loyal readers should know I spoil everything in my reviews, so skip to the gameplay section if you haven't played this yet.
Alucard discovers that the person behind Dracula's resurrection is Richter - the protagonist of the last game. But how could this be? How could a Belmont turn bad? That's where things get a little tricky. If you are playing this game blind, like me, you will treat Richter as a boss character when you come across him. You'll find him, you'll kill him, and the credits will roll. But this is actually the "bad" ending of the game.
What you need to do it free Richter of his curse. He's being controlled by an evil entity. If you enter the battle with a special pair of glasses equipped, it makes the entity visible during the Richter boss fight. Ignore Richter and kill the entity. This will free Richter of his curse. It will also unlock the entire second half of the game - which you would have missed if you simply just killed Richter instead of freeing him. In this second half, you must travel through an inverse version of Dracula's castle. At the end, you battle Shaft (not Samuel L Jackson, but the entity responsible for Richter's possession). Beat him, and you go into battle against Dracula. Beat him, and this triggers the good ending.
Dracula is defeated, the castle falls apart, and Richter and his friend Maria (who appears off and on as an NPC) are able to escape in peace.
Gameplay:
You've undoubtedly heard this described as a "Metroidvania" game. Well, this is where the term originated from. Metroid/Castlevania. And that is a pretty good description. This is essentially a Metroid game but with Castelvania characters and gameplay.
Dracula's castle is pretty big. The map is empty when you first start playing, but it fills out whenever you enter a room. Just like a Metroid game. There are hidden power ups around the castle that increase your health, hearts, and magic limit - just like in a Metroid game. There are doors you will encounter that you cannot unlock, as well as platforms that you cannot reach. You have to come back later once you have learned new abilities with your character, such as a double jump. Just like a Metroid game.
The goal of the game is to explore the castle to your best ability. You'll gain new weapons, items, and abilities along the way. One fun thing about the game is how you level up as you kill enemies. Makes it feel a bit more like an RPG and separates itself from Metroid, where you do not have EXP or the ability to level up. You also have familiars, which allow you to change into the shape of an animal. I found most of these pretty useless (I still do not know what the purpose of the wolf is). The only one I used with regularity is the bat, which allows you to fly around and reach areas you could not reach previously. In fact, once you find the bat familiar you can immediately go to the Richter battle if you want to see the game's bad ending.
You can get lost pretty easily if you do not know where you are supposed to go next. This happened to me several times as I was playing. You can look at the map and see where you have not been yet, but this is not always foolproof. Be prepared for a lot of aimless wandering and backtracking through areas you have already seen dozens of times before.
The game is also very vague with its hints. Reminds me of Simon's Quest a bit in that regard. For example, in order to get the glasses you need in order to defeat the entity controlling Richter, you have to collect a gold and silver ring, which are hidden in the castle. Then you have to bring them to the "clock room" and equip both of them. How would anyone have known to do this in the pre-internet days? One of the rings you need is protected by spikes, which you can only get past if you collect the special spike breaker armor. But this is never once mentioned in the game. You just have to figure it out yourself. Or look online like I did. But again - how would anyone have known to do this without the internet back in the 1990s? I likely would have made it to Richter, seen the bad ending, and thought - "oh okay so that was a pretty short and easy game." And then I would have moved on with my life.
Luckily, I came into this well aware of the "inverted castle" and the second half of the game. So when the credits started to roll, I immediately knew something was not right. I reloaded my old save and did things the "right way." Up until this point, things had been relatively easy. I was not dying often and running into that vaunted difficulty level of past Castlevania games.
And then the inverted castle happened. Right off the bat, I noticed the difficulty spike. I was in the clock tower area and there were these flying enemies that were just beating the piss out of me. I managed to make my way through them after some trial and error, but then ran into another tough area. And another. And another. Nothing ever gets too hard to the point of frustration, but it almost does. Almost.
The inverted castle was nothing like I thought it would be. I expected it would be the same thing as the normal castle, except upside down. But that is not right. The normal castle looks like a castle, with tables and chairs and torches and a library area, etc. But the inverted castle is very demonic-feeling, filled with lots of weird creatures and some very abnormal room designs. Kind of like the Upside-Down in Stranger Things. Or Silent Hill when it transforms after you hear the air raid sirens. Or like in Soul Reaver when you switch between the real and spectral world. The same locations mirroring each other, but in a very dark and haunting way.
The inverted castle feels less like "Metroidvania" and more like classic platforming Castlevania. You already have all your powers and upgrades. There is not a whole lot of backtracking. You are mainly just going in a big loop around the castle, fighting bosses and leveling up your character. Your ultimate goal is to defeat five special bosses. When you beat them, they drop a "Vlad piece" like a heart, rib, eye, etc. If you have played Simon's Quest, you should know where I am going with this. You have to collect all five Vlad pieces, equip them, and then head to the inverse clock room. This takes you to the final confrontation against Dracula and Shaft. Beat them, and you beat the game - which is what I did. Apparently if you explore both castles to 100% completion before fighting the bosses, you unlock a special ending. But I had already sunk enough time into this game and it was starting to overstay its welcome, so I opted for the normal ending. That's good enough for me.
So yeah. That's this game in a nutshell. Metroid style exploration set in the world of Castlevania, complete with the ability to level up and equip items. I understand the love people have for this game. I can imagine it must have been quite amazing to play back in the 90s, especially when you find out, after you beat the game, that there is another whole castle out there to explore. Undoubtedly, I would have sunk A LOT of time into this game if I had played it as a kid.
Graphics:
The graphics for this game have aged pretty darned well. The entire thing is 2D and sprite based. It has held up so much better than anything 3D from this era. Bright, sharp, colorful, and detailed 2D graphics, just oozing with personality. The characters are varied and diverse. The backgrounds are all fun to look at. Each section of the castle seems to have its own unique look and feel. It's very atmospheric, like a hodgepodge of many ideas introduced in previous Castlevania games.
Special shout out to the enemy design. This game has such fun and creative enemies to fight. Some of the bosses are so big, they take up almost an entire screen. My favorite is the big ball of bodies. Such fun to hack away at. I also liked how previous areas from Castlevania games are reimagined, like Dracula's throne room, the entrance hall with the zombies, and the staircase that goes down to where the fish creatures are jumping out of the water. It was a real treat to see these area brought to life with 32 bit graphics.
I would have absolutely loved this as a kid. I think one of the reasons I never checked it out is because I was big into 3D at the time. To me, 2D graphics were a thing of the past - the Genesis and NES era. Man, what the heck was I thinking?
Sound:
The music from this game gets a lot of critical acclaim - and for good reason. It's awesome! I have had different songs from this game's soundtrack stuck in my head for days now. It's rattling around in my head right now as I write this review. Definitely one of the better game soundtracks I've heard lately. A lot of this music is going directly onto all my video game related music playlists. It is so good.
That said, it is not quite as iconic as the music from the NES games. Those tunes will live in my head forever. As much as I like to bash on Simon's Quest because I did not like it as a kid, I have to admit it has some great music. I don't think Symphony of the Night is quite there. In 20 years will I still be humming the music to this game? Probably not. It's still damn good though.
Sound effects are fine. Voice acting is laughably bad, but in a charming way. Think of Resident Evil or other games from this era. So bad, it's good. That said, I do really enjoy Alucard's voice. He actually sounds like a real badass.
Overall:
I liked this game. How could I not? I like Castlevania. I like Metroid. And there's no way that sooo many people could have been wrong about this. It's a great PS1 title.
That said, I am not sure I like it more than previous Castlevania games. The NES games still hold a special place in my heart. I enjoyed this game and appreciate the heck out of it, but it just isn't quite there at the top of the Castlevania hill for me. But I see why so many people like it. It is a great game.
I'm going to replay this someday. I'm going to wait two or three years, just long enough for me to have forgotten everything about it except for the minor details. Then I am going to play a different version of the game, like the Saturn one. And I am going to see where it stands. I have a feeling this is a game that will grow on me over the years. I am going to like it better when I replay it as opposed to how I feel about it now. And I really like it now. So while I am not going to give this game an A+, or even an A, I feel like that may change in the future.
Should you play this game? Absolutely. Don't let it take 27 years like it did with me.
THE GRADE:
A-
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