Castlevania: Symphony of The Night

It's a monday, I'm swamped with work and haven't caught up with my gaming. Persona 5 is less than 2 weeks away from releasing and I haven't played enough Mass Effect: Andromeda to write up a review on it. However, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is celebrating its 20th anniversary and I figured its a convenient time to be doing a retro review.

Growing up playing on my Sega Genesis, I was used to a lot of action platformers but I was not introduced to Castlevania in general until I saw Symphony of the Night on the playstation. SOTN starts off with the ending of the previous game, Rondo of Blood where you play its intro as Richter Belmont, sworn to defeat Dracula who will eventually rise from the dead and another vampire killer will rise only to destroy him again. Symphony of The Night broke all traditions to every previous castlevania and I only realized that a little too late since SOTN was my first castlevania. Not only does it abandon the sole dependence of it being an action platformer but it changed its protagonist from a Belmont to a vampire. No matter how many years pass by, it's hard to think that SOTN will lose its quality and color and it will forever remain a true masterpiece in my book. It was badass in every way, and I will be glad to explain why.

The previous castlevanias only allowed the player to progress from left to right and progress through stages, this one overwhelmed new and old players with a gigantic labyrinth of a castle that has its own secret areas within it. Not only does it take a long time to go through every nook and cranny and locked door and areas within it, but you get to revisit the whole castle again in an inverted fashion. I only realized that when I beat it the fourth time and knew something was off about me fighting richter in Dracula's hallway, only to realize that if I used a certain key item, I can see that a character was possessing Richter's mind and I can kill him to face dracula after going through the castle again. When it comes to Exploration, Castlevania does it best and it is where the term "Metroidvania" was coined where its an action game and you don't progress through it in a linear fashion, eventually Alucard will get the abilities to go through locked areas and high ledges by unlocking skills from certain areas or defeating bosses. Whether its the ability to turn into a bat to reach high areas, or to turn into mist to go through metal doors, there is always a hidden area with a sword, cape or an accessory waiting to be found or even a completely new area waiting to be explored and that is exactly what excites me about Symphony of The Night. You buy a map of a quarter of the castle thinking: "Hey, I've got it all figured out" and while hitting an annoying red skeleton that won't seem to accept death, you accidentally slash through the wall behind it only to realize you've opened a secret hallway that has an item inside of it.

Combat is simply great and boss fights add more to the intensity of said combat. So many variations are there to facing off enemies, whether you are using a dagger, swords or two handed swords. There are familiars that Alucard can summon that help you along the way either through combat or through finding hidden areas in your map. Let's not forget the infamous sub items used in every Castlevania like Holy water or the cross.

Then we get to the next part that excites me after the exploration in SOTN, the RPG elements and my oh my did I love this addition. It felt weird initially but after gaining exp from a boss and leveling up, finding all those bonus HP and MP bottles lying about, I immediately got excited and felt the RPG elements are not only a great bonus to a Castlevania, but it almost feels like its essential to each one and it went on for a while through other DS games like Dawn of Sorrow. Even though its not a short game, I learned new things about it every time I revisited it such as the hidden spells that need a combo to be executed. 

Aesthetically speaking, Castlevania SOTN is simply gorgeous and beautiful in every way. It is one of the few games I would push on people to play it whether they are modern gamers or old ones that missed out on it simply because effort has been put on every pillar that shapes it up to be grand. Every area is memorable from how unique the colors complement the environment and the setting, every monster and boss is detailed to every bone. For 2D sprites, they have done a great job in 1997 and it still amazes me to this day. Some parts of the 2D environment have 3D graphics in them like the Royal Chapel's cloudy sky or the Clock Tower's background with the stormy sky, simply beautiful. The soundtrack is a godsend to me, ranging from beautiful and melodic themes to hardcore and heavy tracks during a boss fight. I would not miss out on telling anyone about this game for the sheer beauty in its aesthetics.

For me, its really hard to talk about Symphony of the Night without spoiling something about it so tread at your own risk if after 20 years has passed and you haven't played it yet. Usually every area you discover has something unique in it and not just a boss at the end of the tunnel. Either its a key item that will give you an ability to access newer areas or it can have something essential like this librarian Alucard meets and has items to sell. There is a lot to do and a lot happens in Castlevania and that surprised me when I looked back at the old NES games that took a few hours to beat, progressing through one stage after another. The other thing that caught me off guard was the difficulty scaled really high after the castle was inverted. I didn't see the game over screen once, knowing how to calculate my fights and counting the EXP gained from the monsters before a boss fight but when you get to the inverted castle, every area is difficult to tread through even on high levels and having high level equipment.

As you can see, the map for the castle is simply grand

Like any other masterpiece I swear by, Castlevania Symphony of The Night is a game to behold, creating its own genre and no matter how much I talk about it, it wont be enough to prove how amazing it is. Being ported left and right, sold digitally and physically on every console, it is really hard to miss it nowadays but for an easy access, you can buy it on the PSN store. I've been Ahmed Jadaa and see you soon on my next review.