The Vampire Metroidvania That Birthed The Genre
[Retro Review] Returning to Castlevania as Alucard
There was a time when Konami was one of the most universally respected names in gaming.
Far from the ill-fated pivot to mobile gaming in the 2010’s and its highly-publicised fallout with Hideo Kojima, Japanese publisher Konami in the 1980’s and 1990’s was instead known for one thing: quality. If you picked up a cartridge or CD and saw that name on the box, you knew what you were about to play was going to be excellent. On the shmup (shoot-em-up) front there was Gradius and its spin-off: Salamander, some of the best the genre has to offer and thankfully receiving some re-releases in 2025. Konami soared to dizzying heights on the first 2 PlayStations with Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill and Pro Evolution Soccer, the latter two being the only franchises preventing Resident Evil and FIFA’s monopolies on their respective genres. But there was one franchise that stood apart, one whose influence can be felt from Dark Souls and Blasphemous to Hollow Knight and Metroid Dread: Castlevania.
Castlevania started life as a platformer on the NES. The 1986 original was gothic, mature and difficult as opposed to the colourful whimsy of games like Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man. Modern reviewers like to compare everything to Dark Souls but in this case it’s warranted, Castlevania was unapologetic in its challenge while balancing that difficulty better than the competition and aiming for a demographic older and more seasoned than its contemporaries.
Castlevania, like Resident Evil, is a franchise that looks very different depending on when and where you played it and this experimentation was seen as early as the second entry: Simon’s Quest.
The Angry Video Game Nerd’s 2004 review of Simon’s Quest (uploaded to YouTube in 2006) is an iconic piece of YouTube history and esset the accepted opinion on Simon’s Quest for the internet generation.
To cut a long story short? This early experiment at a more open-ended adventure, wider in scope and in scale wasn’t without merit but deeply flawed, however, this didn’t stop Konami from experimenting further. Castlevania 3 added branching paths and additional playable characters, Super Castlevania IV refined the gameplay and control to its sharpest yet and Rondo of Blood gave the series a veneer of 90’s anime cool and added more than usual to the story and lore.
Symphony of the Night: Rondo of Blood’s sequel is the final culmination of all those experiments and refinements. Let’s finally get into it: this is my review of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
Buried Treasure
I can’t review Symphony Of The Night without talking about how inaccessible this classic is in the modern day.
Those who have been following me over the past 12 months will know I have a hard-nosed dedication to authenticity: original hardware, original copies and CRT display, I even have two of the things because 8-16bit games were overwhelmingly played on curved screens rather than flat ones. If you try and purchase Symphony Of The Night on its native PlayStation… you’ll be met with a nasty surprise.
Symphony Of The Night has the 3-punch price combo that no retro gamer ever wants to hear: uncommon, beloved and exclusive. Symphony Of The Night wasn’t a PS1 exclusive in Japan and launched on the Sega Saturn there as well but that version of the game has several obvious barriers for entry and runs poorly on the console.
There is a PSP version of Symphony Of The Night if you still have your old handheld knocking about but it’s included as an unlockable extra in that console’s Rondo Of Blood remake. This sounds good on paper but Rondo Of Blood is literally the hardest game I’ve ever played so I doubt most will ever see Symphony, the original, iconic PS1 dubbing is replaced too and to top it all off this version of the game (while nowhere near as bad) is still really expensive.
The rest of the Castlevania series has been well preserved by Konami and can be gotten with relative ease on virtually every platform. The Castlevania Dominus, Advance and Anniversary collections seem to be on sale every day across all platforms and the original versions (with some notable exceptions) aren’t eye-wateringly expensive either.
The method I used to play Symphony Of The Night and the only viable method in the modern day is the Requiem bundle for PS4 and PS5: a digital-only 2-pack of RoB and the PSP version of SotN. These are the 2 greatest games in the series: two of the best games ever made in fact and they are trapped behind extortionate prices and a bizarre dedication to console exclusivity when the rest of the franchise is free for all.
If Konami delisted the Requiem bundle tomorrow, Rondo Of Blood and Symphony Of The Night would be inaccessible to all but a privileged few retro collectors willing and able to drop several hundred on acquiring beloved old games and hardware. This needs to be fixed, urgently.
Ahead Of Schedule
Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night kicks off right at the end of Rondo Of Blood. You temporarily take control of the blue-clad Richter Belmont for the prologue facing a (much reduced in difficulty) rendition of that game’s final fight against Dracula… but before we get into the rest of the game’s premise, there’s something I have to acknowledge.
The beginning of Symphony Of The Night is home to one of the most beloved, awful bits of dialogue and dubbing in gaming history. If you’ve never played Symphony then I can almost guarantee you’ve seen or heard a reference to this cutscene anyway.
Dracula achieves such profound levels of ham that he could be served with egg and chips while the voice of Richter sounds hilariously sleepy and more wooden than an oak table; the stark contrast, immortal lines and the wine glass shattering elevate the entire scene to legendary status. This is pure kino.
Being a port of the PSP version of the game, this scene has been heavily altered on the PS4/5 Symphony Of The Night, I have to dock points for that.
Once the ending to the previous game has been re-enacted, you’re treated to an atmospheric title crawl with the silhouette of Castlevania looming large in front of a full moon.
Like Rondo Of Blood before it, Symphony Of The Night has much more of a story to tell. The setup is this: Richter Belmont has gone missing inside Castlevania which has reappeared a measly 4 years after the slaying of Dracula, a full 96 years ahead of schedule. Maria Renard, one of the young girls you rescued in Rondo Of Blood, is now a fully grown vampire huntress and delves into the castle to search for Richter, meanwhile Alucard, the son of Dracula who helped the original Belmont: Trevor in Castlevania 3 has awoken from his long slumber and takes it upon himself to storm the castle and put an end to his father’s evil once and for all.
The decision to have Alucard be the protagonist of Symphony Of The Night was a stroke of genius.
Alucard is a complex character: a tragic hero, anti-hero and fish out of water all in one. If you’ve ever seen Netflix’s rather decent Castelvania anime (the first one, not that Nocturne crap) then most of that series’ plot was derived from the events of Castlevania 3 mixed with the lore of SotN, so there’s plenty here to sink your teeth into.
After centuries of slumber, Castlevania and Dracula’s minions are a much more plausible threat to Alucard than to Richter, who already conquered the supernatural fortress a few years prior. Symphony Of The Night was the first Metroidvania to start the player off fully upgraded before stripping them of their powers after the tutorial section, once again, it would have been hard to stomach this happening to Richter, as it’s Death who steals Alucard’s powers: a boss Richter despatched 4 years ago in single combat.
The whip is an iconic part of Castlevania and scant few video games even include one as an offensive option, let alone as the primary armament; in the lore it’s an ancestral weapon of the Belmont Clan passed down from generation to generation, so it would have made no sense for Alucard to have a whip. Not playing as a Belmont enables Symphony to offer a wide variety of weapons and equipment in a way that doesn’t contradict established canon.
Another way in which Symphony Of The Night departs from its progeny to tremendous success is in its art-style and atmosphere.
I’ll discuss the graphics and sprite-work in more detail later but what can be immediately noticed with Symphony Of The Night is its departure from the Schwarzneggerian muscle man, Hammer Horror and 90’s anime bravado-inspired aesthetics of the past entries. There was nothing wrong with these visions of Castlevania: Super Castlevania IV might have my favourite box art of any video game ever but the look of Symphony is much more distinct and came to dominate the franchise for the rest of time.
A lot of people talk about the silhouette test when discussing good character design and I have my own test: would I want to play as this character? I look at every artwork for SotN and it’s resounding yes, for every character.
Ayami Kojima’s classical painting inspired artworks for Symphony Of The Night permeate the entire art-style and give the game such a deliciously gothic look as opposed to the camp horror of before. It’s even more impressive when you learn that she was a self-taught artist and that Symphony was Ayami’s first foray into the industry.
In terms of atmosphere, I love how varied Castlevania is in Symphony Of The Night. Dracula’s moving castle feels like a whole city within.
There’s a lot of love for Hollow Knight’s Hallownest in the modern gaming sphere and while it’s probably a better game than Symphony Of The Night in an objective sense I’ve always found its world to be very uninteresting to explore; whether you’re at the top or the bottom of the map, every area is a dank cave with a different colour or type of vegetation, there are few exceptions. For a game about insects, everything looks and feels human, it does absolutely nothing with the concept of a society built by bugs.
On the other hand, Symphony Of The Night fully explores its gothic aesthetic with a range of different feeling atmospheres. The upper reaches of the castle feel designed only for demons and otherworldly beings, forcing you to walk atop moving machinery and face a constant barrage from flying Harpies until you gain the ability to fly. The ground level and other human-facing areas of the castle are the most regal, projecting occult power with sprawling labs, armouries and libraries stacked with bookshelves reaching to the ceiling and lined with tomes of arcane knowledge for the servants of Dracula to further their dark aims. Uncover the path to the depths of the castle and the environment begins to resemble the original NES trilogy of Castlevania games, set centuries before Symphony. Damp caverns haunted by the alluring spirits of pretty young women who froze to death give way to Medieval crypts and mounds of discarded dead. I love exploring Castlevania.
I don’t even like anime, in fact, I sort of detest it but Rondo and Symphony’s move to an anime style elevated the franchise’s entire presentation.
Between Dimensions
Symphony Of The Night was released in 1997 when the switch to 3D gaming was in full swing and on the most successful 3D console of its day: the PlayStation… yet, it is ostensibly a 2D game. Sony’s original games console was arguably the weakest of the generation and 2D games were seen as old hat by the second half of the 1990’s, so Nintendo outright weren’t interested in a 2D Castlevania, instead eventually getting the incredibly rushed, poorly regarded Castlevania Legacy Of Darkness for the N64. This aversion gave Konami free-reign not only to put their Rondo Of Blood sequel on the PlayStation (which they had clearly favoured over the others) but also to make it a 2.5D game.
Konami knew the PlayStation couldn’t have handled a fully-realised 3D castle and for stylistic reasons a 2D perspective made more sense, despite this, they were able to leverage the PlayStation’s 3D strengths to make Symphony Of The Night the best looking 2.5D game ever made in 1997. Across every area from top to bottom of the castle there are intricate 3D backgrounds and 3D assets that make Symphony a visual treat.
Symphony Of The Night’s save rooms contain a 3D rotating orb that beats like a human heart.
Symphony Of The Night risked looking outdated compared to games on the Nintendo 64 coming out in 1997 and other PlayStation offerings in full-3D but its clever use of the new technology while leveraging the PS1’s power for richly detailed sprite-work created an art-style that has aged like fine red wine. This game is absolutely gorgeous. Playing on original hardware or a CRT you’d avoid the horrible blocky look too.
Something else I want to pay attention to as well is the sheer variety of enemies in Symphony Of The Night.
Most other titans of the Metroidvania genre like Metroid, Hollow Knight or Ori have a small roster of enemies that get repeatedly reskinned, not Symphony, you get everything from vengeful spirits to floating skulls to spheres of the undead here.
The sprite-work is absolutely phenomenal in Symphony Of The Night and when stacked up against the Sega Saturn port with its transparency issues that ruin the ghost enemies, dreadful framerates and worse 3D assets it truly cemented that the PlayStation was victorious, even if the writing had already been on the wall.
We’re not done yet! I’ve spent my holidays getting to grips with video embedding so I’m going to use it damn-it. Look how fluid the animations for Alucard are in Symphony, they’re unbelievable.
Alucard isn’t weightless, he doesn’t snap left and right like so many characters do in a 2D space, he takes time to turn, his hair and cape rise and fall with each step, slide and jump, the blurs and silhouettes make the player feel agile and superhuman. I cannot gush enough about how much I adore every screen of this game’s graphical style and art. I’m hard pressed to name another 2D title that looks this good.
As beautiful as Symphony Of The Night is and as buttery smooth as this port runs I do have a complaint: the same raw, pixelated full motion video shots of Castlevania from the outside have been reused without any attempt at upscaling and they look absolutely dreadful. Capcom’s REmake and RE0 HD versions in the mid-2010’s caught a little bit of flak for the AI upscaling mangling a few backgrounds but in general? The results were solid and more importantly: they actually made an effort, whereas Konami have done nothing to make these videos look any better than they did on the PSP.
Far from just being easy on the eyes, Symphony Of The Night is a pleasure for the ears as well; this is my favourite video game soundtrack of all time. Better than Ocarina Of Time, better than the Mega Man games, all of it… so I have to link more than just 3 songs, sorry everyone, there’s too much quality here to pick only a trio of greatest hits.
Symphony Of The Night opens with an FMV of Castlevania, the camera pans to the stairs outside of Dracula’s Throne Room then you take control of Richter as that sweet electric guitar begins to make love to your ear drums. Every game should open like this.
The first few minutes of the main game where you play as Alucard synchronise to this song perfectly, he jumps across the closing draw bridge and as the song picks up, all the candles in Castlevania’s entryway come to life, casting light on the undead hordes and giant wolves bearing down upon you. One of the first moments that comes to mind when I think of this game.
The Clock Tower is by far the most dangerous and dramatic area of the castle, thankfully, as you’re dodging Harpies, flying Medusa Heads and floating skulls you’ll be treated to one of the best pieces of music in the whole game.
Far from just a bunch of guitar shreds and rock riffs, Symphony Of The Night’s soundtrack gets seriously funky too. Wandering Ghosts is the theme for the Colosseum area and it’s a place I linger around just so I can keep listening.
After the frantic, noisy opening hours Alucard finds himself in the icy caverns beneath Castlevania, it’s less thick with enemies and soothes the player with one of the most relaxing songs in the game. We can’t let people who use TikTok and record 3 hour video essays on YouTube discover this one.
Symphony Of The Night is filled with non-essential rooms and secrets to discover. If you equip the Fairy familiar and have Alucard rest on a comfy chair in a certain spot, she’ll soothe him to sleep with a melancholy lullaby.
Like I said, Symphony Of The Night is my pick for the greatest video game soundtrack, it’s not the most iconic and it doesn’t have the adoration of the TikTok generation like Ocarina Of Time or Wii-era Nintendo but I can’t think of another game whose soundtrack I’ve listened to for so long after playing it. My initial playthrough of Symphony was in 2020 and its tunes have stayed on rotation until now, where I’ve finally been able to replay it.
I’ve mentioned quite often on this Substack that I think a good game should please all the senses: it should look great, sound great, the controls should be as natural as to go completely unnoticed and if possible there should be no ‘stink’ around the game: no sign of abused staff or malpractice. Symphony Of The Night is an amazing game… but I can’t call it a masterpiece for reasons we’re going to get into next.
Mixed Pedigree
Symphony Of The Night is the -vania half of the Metroidvania genre; this is a category of games made up of titles that mimic the design and exploration of Super Metroid and Symphony… but it’s a much less pure expression of the genre than Super is.
Even back in the day when your average video game was significantly harder than now, Castlevania games were considered to be brutally difficult; I’ve beaten the original NES Castlevania, Rondo Of Blood and most of Castlevania 3 without save states… they’re right. Knowing this, the team behind Symphony had several key design goals in mind: to make Castlevania’s difficulty palatable for your average gamer, to extend the game’s length and shift to player-led pacing (because once you master a Castlevania, it’s only 8-10, 5 minute stages long) and to insert RPG mechanics and some variety into the combat beyond the usual whips and sub-weapons. Despite common discourse, it was actually A Link To The Past that most inspired Symphony and not Super Metroid.
Judging Symphony Of The Night on its own goals and setting aside my fondness for the game, I have to say that almost all of these aims were botched or not fully met.
Firstly, the difficulty: it’s all over the place. I’ve heard Symphony Of The Night described both as a tough game and as a very easy game which illustrates my point perfectly. The game begins quite tough with Alucard stripped of all armour and weapons forcing you to tackle your first few encounters bare-handed before acquiring one of the awful starting swords, not long after that, you’re treated to a mimic boss which is absolutely brutal to defeat unless you know how to cheese it by abusing the AI’s jumping pattern. From this point on, Symphony Of The Night is a walk in the park until roughly 60% in where you unlock a huge new area to explore and suffer a colossal difficulty spike. None of this is helped by equally chaotic weapon and item balance. Not a single sub-weapon in Symphony Of The Night is of any use and the shields are also practically useless, meanwhile, certain weapons and item combinations break the entire game. If you’re familiar with Symphony Of The Night, you know exactly what weapon I’m thinking of when I say that a bit of farming in one late-game room can grant you the power to melt any enemy.
Many of the enemies in Symphony are just plain annoying and that classic Castlevania issue of excessive knockback gets absolutely maddening in the later sections of the game. Just look at how many enemies get stuffed into this one corridor and how long I’m bounced around like a basketball, completely unable to control Alucard.
Secondly, the game’s length and pacing have been extended and altered respectively… but I wouldn’t exactly call it an improvement. I’m going to leave the manner in which the game’s length is extended to the spoilers section but in the pacing department? Symphony Of The Night ends up feeling like too little story stretched too thin across a 10-12 hour runtime. I’ll be discussing it in the spoilers section but a lot of Symphony is spent getting you up to speed with Alucard’s past with the plot comprising a single, predictable reveal and a bigger twist before the final act.
Lastly, let’s talk about the combat and RPG mechanics, which are the things Symphony Of The Night gets the most right out of its new direction for Castlevania. The pause menu where you equip Alucard’s armour, weapons, relics and familiars (little companions that follow you and perform certain tasks like giving you potions) is a bit spartan but the information is clear and it’s simple to navigate. Alucard controls well and the enemy variety is broad but… Symphony’s combat does get quite boring. There’s nothing wrong with it: it commits no major sins (apart from healing items needing to be put into a weapon slot before use) but at the end of the day, you essentially mash the square button on every enemy until it dies, no weak points, no parry, no need to change up your approach. The RPG mechanics do enhance the game if you delve deep into the stats but it’s easy enough that I never felt the need to do so.
If you’re expecting a Metroidvania in the modern sense out of Symphony Of The Night then you’re going to be disappointed; Super Metroid is the origin of 80% of this style of game design, Symphony’s contributions are the early-game powering down, NPC’s and the greater focus on combat and equipment. There are only a small number of traversal-based power-ups in this game and all but 2 are unnecessary for progression. Even on the layout of the map, you can see long corridors and towers that are filled with enemies so the player can enjoy plenty of combat.
I’ve had an opinion for a long time that I’d like to share and see if people agree with it.
Rather than Metroidvania being one big genre, I think of it in two-halves: Super Metroid-likes and Symphony-likes, the former being exploration and platforming focused and the latter being combat and boss-focused. I’d consider the likes of Hollow Knight and Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown to be Symphony-likes while games like Ori and the Metroid Prime games are closer to Super Metroid.
A Shambling Advance
WARNING: This section contains full story spoilers.
As I mentioned towards the beginning of this article, Alucard was a character introduced in Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse way back on the NES. 8-Bit era storytelling being what it was, Symphony Of The Night had to flesh out this character alone; it was already known that Alucard is Dracula’s son (write the word Alucard on a piece of paper then look in a mirror) but past that we had no motivations, nothing.
If you’ve watched the anime then you’ll be familiar already but in Symphony Of The Night it’s established that Alucard’s mother and the human bride of Dracula: Lisa, is burned at the stake by a mob. Alucard is there to hear her dying wish: for him and his father to let go of their hate, to take sympathy on the humans and let them live. Dracula on the other hand is not present and is recontextualised as a tragic villain, vowing eternal revenge against mankind.
You learn this bit of lore when a Succubus tries to tempt Alucard over to his father’s side which brings about so many interesting questions: was Dracula convinced of Lisa’s dying wish for vengeance by the Succubus like she attempts to convince Alucard? How does Alucard feel about mankind? Would Dracula truly appoint Alucard as his heir or reduce him to a thrall? This is all left up to interpretation and to be honest? I like that, we don’t need to know every last detail.
You have this wonderful push and pull dynamic between Maria Renard and Alucard as they meet time and time again in the castle. Maria only seems to care about finding and saving Richter whereas Alucard regards her as a foolish little girl and sees the true threat behind it all: Dracula and would rather she got out of his way. Eventually, Alucard discovers that Shaft (yes, that’s really his name, no, there is no character called Balls) the dark priest who resurrected Dracula and survived the events of Rondo Of Blood is controlling Richter Belmont’s mind and made him the master of Castlevania until Dracula can be returned.
By fully exploring the map Alucard will discover a gold and a silver ring which unlock a path to the centre of the castle when worn together in the clock room, once inside, Maria Renard will challenge you to a duel to determine who will be the one to face Richter and break the spell on him, of course, Alucard wins and you are given the Holy Glasses: an enchanted set of spectacles that can see through magical illusions. Reach Richter in the throne room and shatter the invisible, mind-controlling orb above his head using the Glasses and you’ll unlock one of the coolest twists in video game history.
Just when you think the game is going to end, Symphony Of The Night throws an entire second castle at you, which is the same as the first only upside down, twice as difficult and 10 times more tedious.
I mentioned pacing and game length issues earlier and this is where they come in. The Inverted Castle has virtually zero story to offer beyond the final boss when Alucard defeats his father and tells him Lisa’s final words; Richter and Maria do not follow Alucard into the Inverted Castle. The result is that this giant castle contains nothing but boss fights in, the equipment Alucard starts the game with should you choose to reclaim it and the final battle against Shaft and Dracula; there are no more secrets, no more character interactions or traversal abilities, just endless corridors of difficult combat encounters and aimless wandering because you’re supposed to collect pieces of Dracula’s body and are given next to no indication as to where to look or why.
I was really disappointed by the Inverted Castle when I revisited Symphony Of The Night. In my memory it was the ‘real’ game: a more serious challenge after an easy first castle, a treacherous keep filled with bosses and powerful equipment but upon revisiting it? I just wanted it to be over, I ended up using a guide to beeline it to the essential bosses (all of which are laughably easy compared to everything else) and then finishing up the game.
This pathetic Frankenstein’s Monster is one of the final bosses in the game. This was my entire fight. I’m not a min-maxer or a Symphony Of The Night expert and I didn’t farm for Crissaegrim in the Library, this is just me revisiting the game casually after 6 years away.
Symphony Of The Night has a couple of different endings. The ‘bad’ endings come about if you go and straight up kill Richter without discovering his mind control or using the Holy Glasses to see through it and then there are 2 good endings: one where Alucard returns to his slumber after saving the day and the best one, achieved by exploring almost every inch of both castles, where Maria Renard convinces him to stay and they go together into hiding. The ‘best’ ending is sweet and is the canon one as far as I know but I personally like the idea of Alucard vanishing from history into his coffin again more.
You can actually play the game again as Richter or Maria which is fun, either way, Dracula is defeated once again and Shaft is killed for good.
The Wheel Keeps Turning
Symphony of the Night is a game that means a lot to me.
Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood and Symphony Of The Night in particular along with the Yakuza series were what got me through lockdown; at a time of crushingly low self-worth and with an invisible evil holding the world by its throat, putting in a few hours each day to face the brutal challenge of Castlevania made me feel a sense of achievement and that I was actually capable of doing things, even if it was only moving a sprite across a screen. I couldn’t go outside and visit town but I could walk around Kamurocho, I’d messed up everything else in life but at least I could get serious nerd credit by beating Castlevania games and feel good about my gaming skill.
Here’s something I’ve never admitted before, I’m on the spectrum and I ain’t talking about the ZX, I’m talking about the ‘tism… this feels like the least-surprising confession from a retro gamer who writes 25 minute reviews about games older than himself you’ll ever read but it’s a big deal to me, this isn’t something I tell people, I wouldn’t be writing this if you knew my face.
But where am I going with this? Well, I always related to Alucard, or at least saw something of myself in his character.
For reasons I don’t want to get into here, the whole cursed bloodline/sins of the father plot you find in games like Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania always connected with me and so does Alucard and his vampire-dom with my own particular flavour of autism. I hate the term neuro-divergent because it implies that something that has caused me a lifetime of insomnia and pain is just another way of being normal. On the flip side, a lot of people expect you to be a savant with some kind of hidden talent but I’m afraid it’s just not there for me, I can’t name anything I have a natural talent for; you might see a Substack with 300 subscribers after a year but I see the tail end of a conscious effort to write in my free time since the age of 12.
I write with sass and with wit here on my Substack but in the real world I’m almost something of a vampire myself: I’ve had insomnia my entire life meaning I’ve always had an affinity for the night, I really don’t talk very much and I can’t confidently tell you that I know anyone I could call a friend; this night-dwelling, cursed, antisocial warrior Alucard has become one of those characters that connects with me on a deeper level. He doesn’t overcome internal trauma like Joel or defend others like the Master Chief, Alucard inhabits a world he doesn’t belong in, carries a burden others can’t understand and fights a war against his own destiny and that’s what I like so much about this character.
Well, that all got a bit personal, let’s finish this review. Symphony Of The Night hasn’t aged nearly as well as Super Metroid. It’s a game that goes on for too long, can’t balance to save its life and spreads a slither of story across a whole loaf of game; the Sega Saturn version included a few extra areas that I wish made their way into this version of the game. However, Symphony is oozing with style and charm, is incredibly replayable and absolutely deserves its place in the history books. Temper your expectations and don’t pigeonhole Symphony Of The Night into the Metroidvania box and you’ll have a fantastic time with it. This is one of the best games in its franchise and a top 50 video game for me over all.
TL;DR: Symphony Of The Night hasn’t aged as well as Super Metroid and isn’t a particularly good Metroidvania but it’s a game that means a lot to me and when taken on its own merits it’s a fantastic experience and deserves to be played by all who consider themselves gamers.
Consider Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night if you don’t own a PlayStation, it is a spiritual successor to Symphony Of The Night developed by many of the same people. I’ve played it, it’s great, it gets my seal of approval.
Poll For Next Month’s Review
I know this has been a mammoth read but please bear with me a few minutes longer.
I can’t decide what retro game to review next month so I’m bringing back the poll, I haven’t run one of these since the early days of my Substack.
Rondo Of Blood always gets overlooked in favour of Symphony Of The Night when it’s arguably the better game, it also happens to be the hardest game I’ve ever played and I haven’t revisited it since lockdown.
February is the month of my birthday so I always replay Ocarina Of Time for nostalgia reasons. I know the OoT retrospective has been done to death online but I want to build up a catalogue of reviews for some of the most important games in history.
I’ve barely touched the NES on my Substack so far, partially because my NES library is only a handful of games strong but mainly because I feel the console has been done to death already. That being said, on Substack, YouTube and beyond I see the original Metroid taking constant flak, this happens to be a game I really love and have strong words in defence of.
So, which would you like to see me review? I’ll be leaving this poll up for 7 days.
Thank you very much for reading to the end, I hope you enjoyed today’s post, as always I’ll be happy to chat in the comments below and please like and subscribe to the Journal for more.
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Very much agree that Symphony has the best soundtrack 💪 it feels so atmospheric, yet melodic at the same
Excellent post, as always! What really caught my attention was your food for thought regarding the genre this game launched. Your take on how 80% of this game's design is direct inspired by Super Metroid and that there's games that are more Metroid while others are more SotN is spot on. Now that I think of it, having the "Metroidvania" moniker can be a detractor for many games that lean on one side or the other and confuses the audience that expects more RPG elements from those who wants an upgrade system. In the end, Metroidvania can mean a whole universe of things.
As for the games analysis itself, not only I second your take, I also echo your opinion about the soundtrack. This is one of the best of all time, no question about it.
Side note: I don't know about Apple platforms, but there's an Android version of SotN available for download at Play Store. It's the same PSP's Dracula X Chronicles version you played for this review, but with atrocious revamped menus that detracts from the whole experience, but at least is another way to access this game.