Before diving into this 2D action-adventure RPG platformer beat 'em up racing game (without reading any manuals or control schemes, naturally), I checked out a couple of reviews from notable YouTubers and they began with words to the effect of "I haven't actually played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night until now".
It's quite common that someone will have missed out on a classic title when it was first released and only manages to play it years, perhaps even decades later. It's not so common for the game in question to be regarded as one of the greatest titles on a console over the course of its history to be missed by players.
Symphony of the Night has its reasons for being glossed over. It's flat and sprite-based despite charging ahead on the PlayStation, which was wowing the world with depth and an extra dimension. Its title harkens back to games of old, but new and unheard of heroes were front and centre in gamers minds instead.
It is a title that a lot of people know of and few appear to have played. Let's see what I, for one, have been missing out on.
Fun Times
Symphony of the Night opens with a call back to the Castlevania games that came before it as we see the valiant Richter confront the diabolical Dracula in his castle. It's appeared out of nowhere again, and someone needs to defeat him, so why not the player, eh?
After a token boss battle to set up that story, the game begins proper, only we're not going to be playing as Richter, but as Alucard, Dracula's son, who has for whatever reason decided that enough is enough and that Dracula really shouldn't be doing all this nonsense.
Moving so fast he leaves a ghostly trail of his visage in his wake, Alucard storms the castle, one hits the monsters, confronts Death himself, loses all of his weapons and has to start playing the game like a mere mortal.
Those of you who know what 'Metroidvania' is will have cottoned on to the fact that the 'vania' refers to Castlevania, specifically this Castlevania. Inspired by Super Metroid, Symphony of the Night has you explore Dracula's castle from bottom to top in whatever fashion you like, with the route forward being blocked off by boss fights or locked doors until you've found equipment and items that can deal with them.
Armed with a map that fills in where you've been, you slowly but surely canvas the castle looking for clues that'll point you towards your goal, all the while smashing skeletons and candles in the face until they drop money and equipment.
New to the series is a progression system that screams RPG, to the point of there being stats and slots and level ups. Weapons and items can be equipped to either hand, armour can be donned and each and every item will tinker with a number here or a stat there, all in order to give you some customizability on your quest.
The greater your power, the easier your time will become, and if you aren't bettering yourself with weaponry, then levelling up by killing lots of things will work just as nicely. I read you can cast spells and transform into a few creatures to traverse the environment in different ways, which sounds like there's quite a bit on offer here...
Frustrations
But I can't shake the feeling that this is rather dull. The graphics are not dull. The graphics are lovely. the animation, the colouring, the theme of the castle and the sub-themes of each set of connected rooms... they are look top notch. But the levels - gah!
Exploring a place conjures up ideas of actually seeing where this path leads or what's behind that hill. Symphony of the Night has you wander bland corridors and climb stairless towers. Eventually, I found a monumentally large hall and thought "I can't possibly be that far into the castle already", and then got utterly stomped by the two bosses I found there.
Castlevania is stunning in more than one way. The visuals are the obvious one, and they're the positive kind. The negative kind of stunning is when you get damaged by something - anything - and get knocked back a few feet.
While it may be a visual representation of the damage you took - more visual than the floating numbers that told me how much health I'd lost in the attack - it's an absolute pain in the arse when you finally get control, only to have no option but to take another hit, get stunned and knocked back, recover and maybe, just maybe, move out of the way of the threat.
A string of fireballs? Multiple hits. Thrown bones? Yup, a couple of those hit in succession too. Flailing zombie arms? Even if they do just a single point of damage, it's a literal step backwards that you don't want to see.
In one instance, I was knocked back off a ledge, which dropped me into a previous room, which triggers all the enemies to respawn, one of them able to get another cheap hit in on me as soon as I had landed.
After a couple of attempts of the boss fight, I gave up. I was in no mood for featureless corridors and difficult enemies, no matter how featureful or easy they actually were.
Final Word
I retreated to YouTube once more, where I could see the full range of Alucard's talents, in motion, without having to worry about pulling off the feats myself. Symphony of the Night looks awesome. It sounds awesome too, musically and in theory.
The game has been developed with new players in mind and those systems that it introduces to do so apparently end up making the difficulty curve drop because you're levelling up and finding better equipment at a faster rate than the inhabitants of the castle can keep up with.
This all sounds wonderful, and I can see why it's so highly regarded. But I can also see why it wasn't picked up by the masses at launch, and required critical acclaim and word of mouth to get there over the decades since.
I wish I could get into Symphony of the Night a little more in order to give it the good word it deserves, but it has one too many problems for me to overcome and I lack the motivation to do so.
I want to play it at the point where I'm a suped-up demon hunter with rainbow spells firing off in every which way, but knowing that at that point of the game their effect is almost trivial and the reward isn't what it should be, I'm put off ever trying to get there.
With a fresh perspective and a willingness to try, I might be kinder to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. For now, unfortunately, I'm going to live with the knowledge that it is a must play, and that someday it will be played, but for now, I just want to play other things.
It's not you, Castlevania, it's me.
Fun Facts
Owing to the fact that after the game has seemingly finished, the castle flips upside down and the entire thing is still fully playable, a completionist run will see you complete 200.6% of Castlevania. I don't know either...
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, developed by Konami, first released in 1997.
Version played: PlayStation, 1997, via emulation.
Version watched: PlayStation, 1997 (SpeedDemosArchiveSDA, Retropolis Zone, Super Bunnyhop, Escapist/Yahtzee, DigitalFoundry)