Castlevania: Symphony
of the Night is an action,
role-playing, Platform-adventure, sidescroller developed and
published by Konami, released
for the Sony PlayStation in 1997. Since then it has been ported to
the Sega Saturn, Tiger Handheld (Tiger Handheld? Who the hell would
play this on Tiger Handheld?), PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live
Arcade. Despite little commercial advertising, the game became a
critical success and is considered by many fans to be the best in
the series. So, let's start Halloween Month off right with
Castlevania!
I
love how bored he looks sitting in his chair.
The
game opens up with Richter
Belmont during
the ending of the previous game, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, where
you go one on one with Count Dracula. You have the trademark whip
and items like Holy Water to use in battle. As soon as you take
control of Richter and Prologue plays
in the background it immediately gets you pumped up for the action. The
opening dialog between Richter and Dracula is – there's nothing I
can do or say that could do it justice. You just have to watch it for yourself.
There's
no way to die during this stage, but if you're able to defeat Dracula
without any sub weapons or taking damage you'll start out with
better stats for Alucard. A game that rewards you for skill? What is
this madness?! Additionally, you can find a bunch of different items
by destroying candles, rocks, walls, and uncovering hidden passages
throughout the castle, so the game rewards you for exploration and
basically hitting random things.
Death:
Stealing all your stuff since 1997.
Once
you take control of Alucard the game becomes an RPG. You have your
usual hit and magic points, strength, constitution,
intelligence, and luck. You can equip different weapons and items to
increase your stats accordingly and grind to increase your level.
Alucard is able to hold a weapon in both hands unless it requires
two hands, allowing you to equip a sword and a shield to attack and
defend. The stats page also takes inspiration from another popular
Japanese RPG.
In
the beginning you start off with a bunch of cool equipment and
killing monsters left and right like they're nothing but fodder,
then Death takes everything away from you and you have to start from
scratch. Like Metroid, the game provides a feeling of isolation as
you're cut off from the outside world and just have Dracula's castle
filled with all kinds of monsters to contend with. The occasional
person you do meet just leaves on their own because nobody ever
thinks to team up in these kinds of games. Another thing it has in
common with Metroid is that the castle is just one big area with
several rooms that connects with each other and save rooms you can
find throughout. That empty, quiet room with the crystal hanging
above is a save point, by the way. Don't just walk out of it like I
did going “what the fuck?” I ended up having to start over from
the beginning again.
Different enemies have
different strategies needed to take them down. Some can be taken out
in a couple of hits or just one. Enemies like the Cthulhu in this
picture needs to be killed quickly before it has the chance of
finishing you off. Some times it's in your best interest just to
dodge and make a break for it, because if you ever need to revisit
that room the enemies are just going to respawn anyway.
Something else that may
catch you off guard (especially if this is your first Castlevania) is
the hearts not being used to restore health. They're used to restore
your Magic Power instead. In order to restore health you need to
find a pork chop or potions, which when you think about it actually
makes sense to use in place of traditional hearts. But then the
hearts for magic makes no sense.
There are also Relics
like “Cube of Zoe,” and “Spirit Orb” which allows you to do
different things like get items from candles, and see how much
damage you're inflicting on an enemy. Spells can be cast from
pushing the right buttons like a combo and later in the game you can
summon familiars to aid you in battle.
Sub weapons come in the
form of knives, axes, holy water, clocks, crosses, and several more
things you'll find if you keep an eye out. They're especially handy
in dealing with bosses early on in the game and that damn Cthulhu.
The thing to remember is that you can only have one sub weapon at a
time, so if you pick up another one the previous sub weapon will
drop and vanish before too long. You'll want to think long and hard
about which sub weapon you want to have equipped.
That's an
interesting place to put a chair.
Back on the
RPG side of thing, there's money you can collect throughout the
castle that can be put into buying and selling items and equipment
at the shop. Here you can also buy a map of the area to use to help
you navigate the castle. The map also works just like the one in
Metroid, letting you know where you have been and where you haven't.
Alucard is
a poor, tortured soul who allied with humans to eliminate his own
kin. Something that was kind of a trend back in the nineties and
hasn't really gone away. A man of few words who has a serious and
somewhat elegant tone about him whenever he does speak. To top it all
off, he's the son of Dracula. Talk about the apple falling far from
the tree. He's even willing to go to such extremes as entering an
eternal sleep just so his bloodline doesn't continue. That's about
as self-sacrificial as it gets.
Conclusion:
Castlevania: Symphony of the
Night is a fun, challenging that's sure
to give you plenty to do. If you like vampires, monsters, good music,
and being isolated, then it may be just what the doctor subscribed.
Get
it.
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