Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

7

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night delivers old skool fun but is it a little predictable?
Reviewed By: gp_MrSock

These are strange times for game collectors. A few years ago, I was trying to hunt down a copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which was first released on the Playstation back in the mid-90's. At that time, a gamer could have plunked down the standard sixty or seventy bucks for the game. Over the years, Symphony of the Night has been remembered so fondly, and copies have become so scarce, that when I finally tracked down a real live copy of the game, the shopowner was asking ninety-four dollars for it.

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Flash forward to now, and let me tell you: I'm awfully glad I didn't pay. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is now available in all its glory on Xbox Live Arcade for about fifteen dollars. Being a frugal gamer, this makes my inner Scrooge McDuck dance with delight.

Symphony of the Night was the first Castlevania game to borrow the Metroid format of methodical exploration and upgrade. You play Alucard (spell his name backwards! It's "Dracula!" Oh my goodness! How very dumb!), a pale, silken-haired dude who looks a lot prettier than most of my former girlfriends.

The goal of the game is to prance around Drac's magic castle, beating up baddies and upgrading your powers until your inevitable showdown with the king blood-sucker himself.

The castle itself is a standard adventure game system of locks and keys. You'll meet a series of dead-ends until you hit upon the one path that rewards you with item X or ability Y, which will open up a new path through the castle. Figuring out which area you've unlocked can be frustrating, because all you have to go on is a flat, square map with a bunch of gaps in it.

I found it really tough to remember that the long tunnel-shaped part of the map was where I fought the demon loaf of bread a few hours ago, and THAT section had the gap in the ceiling where I needed the magical pogo stick to fly through it.

Hey, Castlevania cartographers: did you ever consider using pencil crayons to colour-code this map? No wonder this place is full of monsters! Everyone's grouchy because they can't find their way around.

I have trouble gushing over this game like other reviewers have in the past, because I've played a number of Castlevania games in this format. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was essentially a remake of Symphony of the Night, to the point where it re-used a lot of Symphony's monsters.

To me, a gamer who played Circle of the Moon first, it felt like Symphony of the Night was old and boring because I had seen it all before. Circle of the Moon had a very fun soul-stealing mechanic, while Symphony of the Night did have anything quite as interesting.

Even so, players who like Castlevania and Metroid games like them a LOT, and Symphony of the Night delivers most of what you could hope for at a price that comes in well below ninety-four dollars. For a very long game with lots to do and a very big castle to explore (twice, if you're a complet-ist), Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is an excellent value, and is very easy to recommend over games like Time Pilot and Cloning Clyde on XBox Live Arcade.

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