Video Game Review: "Castlevania - Symphony of the Night"

1792.  Richter Belmont climbs the long, stone stairway up to Dracula's lair.  Once he reaches the top of the stairs and walks down the hallway, he sees the Count himself, sitting on his throne sipping wine from his glass.  After exchanging now-infamous words, Dracula and Richter fight to the death in a glorious battle.  Dracula unleashes everything in his power, even turning himself into a beast larger than any man.  But Richter Belmont manages to defeat Dracula and banish him from the world once and for all!


Or so it seems.



Four years later, Richter Belmont disappears without a trace.  Maria Renard goes out and searches for him, but her efforts have no luck.  But then, Castlevania emerges once again.  Maria, desperate for answers, heads towards the castle, in hopes of finding Richter.


Meanwhile, Alucard, the half-vampire son of Dracula, sleeps away in his coffin, having previously ended his father's reign of terror alongside Trevor Belmont and his other allies.  When he reawakens from his slumber, he is distraught after learning that his father's castle has reappeared.  And so, he sets out to the castle so that he may destroy it once and for all!


And thus is the plot for "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night."

Welcome to part two of my text review of "Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles."  In part one, I reviewed the 2.5D remake of "Rondo of Blood" as well as the original game.

In today's blog, I'll be reviewing the other game that is contained in "Dracula X Chronicles," the game that fans say is the greatest Castlevania game ever made.  This is "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night."

Title screen for the "Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles" port of
"Castlevania: Symphony of the Night"

Originally released for the PlayStation on March 20, 1997, "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" is a sequel to "Rondo of Blood."  It is highly praised for taking what fans are familiar with and putting a fresh new spin on it.

"What is a man?  A miserable little pile of secrets!"

When you start a new game, you first reenact the final battle between Richter Belmont and Dracula.  It's a really easy battle.  In fact, it's impossible to lose.

After that, you take control of Alucard.  Unlike the Belmonts, Alucard can equip a variety of different swords, weapons, shields, and items.  He can also change his cape and his armor, which can increase his stats or give him immunity to certain attacks or effects.  It's very much like a RPG.

In fact, this game contains a lot of RPG elements.  Other than customization of weapons and armor, "Symphony of the Night" also features a leveling system.  Every time you kill an enemy, you gain experience points.  And once you gain enough experience points, you level up, increasing your stats.

With all these variables, the game gives you some control over the difficulty.  Say, for example, you come across a really difficult boss.  No matter how hard you try, you always manage to have your ass handed to you.  Well then, try a different weapon or see if the boss has a weakness that you can exploit.  Try a different battle strategy or sub-weapon.  Or maybe you just have to earn more experience points.

But what if you find the game too easy (because there are some parts where the game is very easy)?  Well then, you think you're so good?  Try playing the entire game with the weakest sword.  Or hell...don't even use a sword!  Try beating the entire game with your fists!

"SotN" is the first Castlevania game to utilize the "Metroidvania" style of gameplay.  Instead of just going from point-A to point-B, there are now-endless forks in the road, save rooms, and a map system.  If you couldn't guess from the term, the gameplay is very much like "Metroid," hence the term "Metroidvania" or the less-catchier term "Castleoid."

Once you know how to do the Shield Rod combo,
NO boss can stop you!  Muhahahahaha!

There are times when you cannot access a certain area of the castle until later, after you find relics and other items which will grant you extra powers.

This non-linear style of gameplay allows for even greater exploration than previous Castlevania games featured.  It's fun going to the castle discovering new areas to explore or finding cool new items to use.  It's that sort of fun is that reason why the handheld Castlevania games use "SotN."

But it's no fun exploring the castle if you don't have awesome tunes to listen to!  After all, this is a Castlevania game.  Every Castlevania game have fantastic music.  But none of those games can top "Symphony of the Night" and it's phenomenal soundtrack!  I personally believe that "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" has the greatest soundtrack out of every Castlevania game.  Being that the game was originally on PlayStation, it utilizes the CD technology to its potential, allowing high-quality music to play during the game.

Not only do the songs in the game fit the mood, setting, and atmosphere of the game, but the game uses a wide variety of different music genres, from a choir singing to classical music to heavy metal rock to synthesizer to jazz and more!  And musical scores like "Prologue", "Dracula's Castle", and "Dance of Illusions" will remain burned into your brains for years to come.

So...yeah, this game is awesome!  Fantastic music!  Great gameplay!  A wonderful story!

But are there any flaws with this game?  Well, there is one that bothers me, and it has something to do with how the game plays on the PSP.  To do special attacks or use magic spells, many times you have to do something like press up, down, down-forward, left, right, then O.  It's hard to do diagonal on the D-Pad.  So you say, "okay well, just use the analog stick."  Well unfortunately, in this case, you can only use either the D-Pad or the analog stick, but not both.  I usually just stick with the D-Pad (because who plays side-scrollers with an analog stick), but that means that using magic spells is incredibly difficult to pull off.  I don't understand why the game only allows you to use one or the other, but not both.

But other than that, "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" is a must-have game for any fan of Castlevania or RPG's or side-scrollers in general.  Thankfully, the port contained in the "Dracula X Chronicles" is faithful to the original game, in fact, hardly anything is changed.  It retains the revolutionary  gameplay that makes this game great as well as the music, graphics, and sound effects.

Screenshot of character select from the Sega Saturn port of SotN

However, this port not only has a "Richter mode," but also a "Maria mode," where you can play and explore the castle as Maria Renard in the style of "Rondo of Blood" (this mode was only previously seen in the Japan-exclusive not-so-great Sega Saturn port of SotN).  Playing in both the Richter mode and Maria mode are a lot of fun, and provides an interesting challenge.

The only change that people seem to have a problem with is that they changed the voice acting and dialogue.  I personally think the voice acting is better in this than in the PSOne.  I mean, come on!  You have Yuri Lowenthal doing the voice of Alucard.

I think the reason why some people have a problem with the new voice acting is that now the opening scene between Dracula and Richter isn't as epic as it was in the original PSOne game, with the cheesy voice acting and dialogue.  But other than, the voice acting doesn't bother me all that much.
Overall, "Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles" is a great game from the PSP Library.  I will admit to buying it solely for the handheld port of "Symphony of the Night," but I thought that both versions of "Castlevania: Rondo of Blood" were fun as well.  Three-games-in-one and you can find it for under $20.  How can you go wrong?

I'm SpaceScreaminJohn.  Thanks for reading!