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~~Basic Information~~
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Title of the Game: Castlevania Symphony of the Night
Platform of Game: Sega Saturn / Playstation
Genre of Game: Defining Adventure-RPG
Developer: Konami
Released 1997.
[Opening note]
Symphony of the Night. This is one of those games that I still find enjoyable even after many playthroughs. Sure, that's my opinion, but it's a fact that even now, it is still regarded as one of the top Castlevania games of all time.
[Story]
Upon starting the game, you find yourself controling a whip-weilding man, who's name is revealed to be Richter. He goes to the top of the tower to battle the vampire Count Dracula, who falls easily.
Usually in most Castlevania games, Dracula is the final boss in the game! But wait! After Richter slays Dracula, the screen turns into a photograph, which burns up. Then you get to read the prolouge, and after that, the game switches to the Real beggining, where you control a completely different character, Alucard.
Alucard awakens when Richter mysteriously vanished 4 years after he slayed Dracula, and travels to his homegrounds, in order to face his immortal father again in battle. No man shall say who will emerge victorious...
[Graphics]
Although not as impressive now, the graphics back then were extraordinary for the time. Every character, monster and skill all had very smooth animations, and the backgrounds had animations, which was quite uncommon back then. With graphics this smooth, it sometimes causes lag while playing, but the lag can be ignored.
Alucard's animation was one of the best in all the castlevania series so far. Well detailed, and it was just right. As for the User Interface, The only thing visible was the amount of Health present, the Magic Points bar, the current Sub-weapon that Alucard possesses, and the number of Hearts left.
Everytime Alucard takes damage,the amount of damage he takes is reflected on the screen for a short time, then turns into a shiny red star which flies up to just below the Health indicator, to draw attention to the amount of health the player currently has. The Health text colour changes to yellow when the player's health has fallen to a danger level.
The MP bar is colored blue, and when MP has fully regenerated, a blue arua will surround Alucard temporary, and the bar glows bright blue, to show that mp has been fully regenerated.
Also, the number on the hearts will not glow green if the player has a subweapon that uses more hearts than he currently has. (E.g. the Cross uses 100 hearts, and Alucard has 99 hears only)
Overall, the graphics are simply fantastic, and the only critisim that I can give it is that on some ocassions there is so much animation on the screen that it can get pretty messy and laggy.
Graphics score: 8/10
[Gameplay]
You take control of Alucard throughout the entire game, except for the pre-beggining. Unlike previous Castlevania game, where the protagonists are stuck with a whip for a main weapon, Alucard can weild any weapon that he picks up.
The equipment menu is extreamly diverse, and allows the player to equip a whole assortment of items to power-up himself.
As you can see, the player may equip up to 7 different items! Equipping different items causes minor changes to Alucard's sprite, although only weapons, sheilds and capes are reflected.
Not only do you get a whole assortment of weapons to weild, some of them even has extra abilities! For example, the Alucard Sword has a cool teleporting slash move, which causes Alucard to warp foward, turns around and slash twice, and return back. During the entire animation, Alucard is invincible to anything.
Basically, you're trying to get to the top of the castle to face the final boss, but there are plot twists here and there which eventually leads you to fight againts Richter in the same tower which Richter fought Dracula in the beggining! I'll just spoil this part and go on to say that if you save Richter from possession, you will unlock a new place to explore, which is the same castle, but inverted!
This Inverted castle is where you face Dracula, and essentially, it doubles the size of the game, in a rather cheap way.
Overall, the gameplay is NOT totally linear, but it does get a bit repetitious when you enter the Inverted castle.
Gameplay score: 7/10
[Music and Sound]
When I first turned on this game, the intro music sounded creepy and I felt that the whole soundtrack might be horrible. How wrong I was.
I was expecting some kind of MIDI file or something similar. What I DID NOT expect was that the music was fully ochestrated! Out of all the Castlevania in-game music I've heard before, this one was the BEST. It sounded wonderful, and each area had its own distinct score which blew my mind. I've never heard such a wonderful soundtrack inside a game like this back in 1997!
Not only the sound, there was also something I was not expecting.
The usual dialoge in a Castlevania game was just text, and you had to press buttons to get it to continue. But in Castlevania, instead of that, the dialoge will just scroll through, and the characters actually voice act them out! Voice acting was really rare, at least in most of the games I've played back then.
But there was one slightly dissapointing thing about the music. In the inverted castle, most of the areas played only one song, which kinda got boring after a while. Even so, it was a pretty nice song.
Overall, the music was simply awesome. No complaints from me about that.
Music and Sound score: 9/10
[Conclusion]
Another Must Play game that I've reviewed. Still, no game is perfect, as it seems really easy. There's not much of a challenge for most of the bosses, final boss included, with the only exception being Galamoth.
That aside, I give this game 8/10 as a playability score.
