Review #158: Castlevania - Symphony of the Night

 What a wonderful night to have a curse.

 I said I was saving my Symphony of the Night review for later, and what better month than October? Join me(As if anyone read this!) as I take yet another stroll into Drac's castle... er, castles.

 Symphony of the Night is a rather divisive game in the Castlevania fandom, some people love what it did for the series, while others hate the direction it spun the series into. Said direction meant taking away the stage-based platforming the series was known for, and thrusting it into a Metroid-like approach, a much more forgiving and open experience which would later be known as "Metroidvania" or "Castleroid". What is a Metroidvania? Basically, they are very open games that have you exploring different areas, usually giving you almost complete freedom in where you wanna go and when. "Almost", because you'll come across obstacles, from locked doors to platforms that sit at unreachable heights, needing you to find a keycard or item that will allow you to go on. Expect to do a lot of backtracking.

 You play as Alucard, Dracula's dhampir son, as he enters Dracula's castle in order to stop the resurrection of his father. Along the way he'll come across a handful of NPCs, most important of them all, Maria Renard, who has come to find out why Richter disappeared. The story is fairly simple and forgettable, you do not play this game for the story. As previously stated, you are given free reign over where to go, and Dracula's Castle is fairly large. As you go through the Castle, you will eventually gain the ability to double jump, resist water damage, turn into mist, a bat or a wolf, allowing you full access to the full extent of the castle. Play your cards right, and you'll unlock the Inverted Castle.

 While it seems lazy, seeing how the Inverted Castle is the same old Castle, only turned on its head, it has a very different feel to the first Castle. While the first Castle feels much more structured and limiting on how you approach it, when you reach the second Castle you should've most of the secondary abilities that limited where you could go on the first one, thus offering you much more freedom on how you explore it! And while the enemies are stronger(And the item drops are better!), it goes by much faster than the first Castle, not that it makes it any less fun. Basically, while they are technically the same, they feel much different, which is really neat. Speaking of different, finishing the game unlocks Richter as a playable character, who plays very differently from Alucard, and while he can't equip items, among other handicaps, he has better mobility and exclusive skills to make up for his shortcomings. It also makes the game harder, which is somewhat refreshing seeing how the main game is rather easy, and a bit short(6-7 hours if you are not trying to speed run it), which really sucks because the game is so damn good!

 While Alucard can use to the classic sub weapons(Axe, Dagger, Holy Water, Cross, StopWatch and a couple of new ones), he can also equip a whole slew of different weapons. And I do mean weapons, unlike the Belmonts who had been restricted to the Vampire Killer, Alucard can use Swords, Maces, Nunchakus, Boomerangs(Limited Quantities), Bombs and other explosives(Limited quantities as well) and gloves, among others. To be fair, weapons of the same families tend to feel very samey, and the Crissaegrim on the second Castle is easily the game's best weapon, but the options are nice. You can also spend money found from fallen enemies or destructible objects in the Library, which is run by the librarian who'll happily trade you good for it. There's also Magic Spells to be bought from him, which are used by inputting fighting game-style commands, but they are a bit hard to input. Oh, and Alucard levels up by slaying enemies, which means you are getting stronger all the time, even when farming for items(Those damned Schmoos hate dropping the Crissaegrim it seems!).

 Not gonna lie, the game looks a bit dated, however, the animation is pretty smooth. Heck, the fact that latter games(Up to the PS3/X360 online Monster-Hunter-like game) borrowed sprites from this game should tell you how good the spritework on this game is.... or how lazy Konami got. Music is excellent, when it came to Castlevania, Konami never disappointed when it came to music... the voice acting on the other hand is rather lame, due in no small part to the hammy lines they had the Voice actors read. However, you do not play this game for the story.

 Symphony of the Night is a timeless classic, the gameplay hasn't aged at all, and I consider it one of Metroidvania's finest. However, if you have a PSP, there's absolutely no reason to get this version. While this one has tighter controls, the PSP version has a better translation, better voice acting, which are improvements on areas that don't really matter in this game... but it also has a bunch of  extra content, including a playable Maria Renard. Plus, you get the remake of Rondo of Blood AND the original Rondo of Blood, one of the best Classicvanias ever.
 10 out of 10.