An honest person has to admit that people will have their own opinions about things, no matter what. Being a healthy member of any good society means being able to not only state and be proud of your own opinion, but also to respect those of others. So, let’s start off with a couple of opinions: 1. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is the best two-dimensional game ever made and 2. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is the best game on the Playstation. Now, these are indeed only opinions. There are those, however, who will swear by the truth of these statements for the reasons given in the following review.
Dracula Vlad Tepes, a monster considered by many to be the villain of villains, fell in love with a woman named Lisa. Unlike other victims completely under his control, he never chose to bring Lisa over to the side of vampires. Instead, he united with her to create a son named Alucard Farenheigts Tepes. Alucard, however, adopted the good soul of his mother, who was eventually killed by villagers who mistook her as a witch. Awakening from his slumber with the sole purpose of stopping the resurrection of his father, Alucard boldly enters Castlevania, a dark castle steeped in terror and black magic.
Upon taking control of Alucard, the first noticeable positive aspect of the game is the tightness of the controls. They are amazingly tight. When he is commanded to jump, he jumps with the tap of the button. When he is commanded to attack with his flash-fast sword, he does so. Jumping and swinging are the two most important actions that Alucard can ever do in the platform-based world of Castlevania, and he does them oh, so well.
It isn’t as if one has to jump or attack in the same way every time, either. The controls and game mechanics are such that a tap of the jump button will make him do a small spring, while holding the button down and directing him forward will make him leap and glide at varying degrees. Even attacking seems to be a matter of personal customization, as Alucard can attack in all directions. There are also easy-to-learn tricks so that the more skilled gamer can strike faster than normal.
Alucard in Symphony is like Dante in Devil May Cry, in that his movements and attacks look so cool that one can enjoy spending time just moving him around in clear spaces. Such control and grace will be needed against Castlevania’s amazing bestiary, composed of some of the best designed creatures you’ll ever see in a videogame. The designers of Alucard’s enemies seem to have an obsession with female-beast amalgamations, and ghost knights with flashing armor are there to meet Dracula’s son at every turn. Like Maximo: Ghosts to Glory, there are various skeletons of all types, given birth by only the keenest of creative minds. Scores of mythological creatures will appear only to fall to Alucard’s sword and, like their brethren, they have the most gratifying death woes. This isn’t like Final Fantasy 7, where your greatest enemies just vanished into thin air.
Dracula’s white-haired son first made his appearance fighting alongside Trevor Belmont in Castlevania III. In those days, 90% of Trevor’s offense revolved around the whip. Well, Alucard takes whatever Belmont considered to be offense and brings it to a much higher level.
Let’s begin with the fact that Alucard’s expert use of the sword is only a start. An amazing start, granted, but there is so much more to come. There are numerous types of swords that one can find and buy in Castlevania. Furthermore, he can use rods, staffs, fisticuffs, ball-and-chains and even equip himself for defense by carrying one of the many shields found in the game. He can opt to use one weapon in either hand, providing the ability to quickly and effectively lash out at any foe with the tap of a button. Every single weapon in the game works and acts differently from the others, and sometimes combinations of two weapons in either hand can have special bonus effects.
Utilizing the innate advantages of being the son of the most powerful vampire known to mankind, Alucard also has access to a long list of nasty spells. As powerful as they are (one allows Alucard to drain the energy out of every single enemy on the screen at once, resulting in a bit of slowdown but a lot of regained health), they are also more difficult to pull off than a sword attack. So hard, in fact, that most gamers will probably ignore them. However, just the fact that they are included in Alucard’s repertoire from the outset, that they are actually quite effective in battle, and that they can be pulled off with enough practice definitely deepens the gameplay.
The “special” sub-weapons are a Castlevania tradition, and they’re no small-punchers in Symphony. From electric darts to knives, from exploding potions to clocks that freeze time, from swirling holy books to whirling crosses, there is plenty of variety. All of them work well throughout the game, but of course there are some that are just perfect for certain situations.
Through the use of “relics”, Alucard can access parts of his power that he never had before stepping into Dracula’s cursed castle. Some allow Alucard to jump higher, discover detailed data about an enemy, call upon familiar assistance (very cool) or access one of the many secret paths of Castlevania. However, the very best relics allow Alucard to shape-shift into a screeching bat, a swift wolf, or an abstract mist. Even though these transformations are predictably necessary to finish the game, they are all deepened in their own way. Each of these transformations can in turn gather their own relics, which give them offensive capabilities that can be effectively used in combat.
If the reader of this review hasn’t noticed by now, a feeling of deepness is manifest in Symphony. This feeling is emphasized by the fact that the game contains some serious RPG elements. Alucard has his own statistics regarding total health, magic power, strength, and defense that grow based on a system of experience points. These experience points can be gained by destroying enemies, many of which give up money when they are defeated. This money, also found in the many destructible items in almost every room of the castle, can be used to buy items and accessories. These items are stored in the same place where one can access Alucard’s personal statistics. Features such as these may seem like unnecessary complications to some, but to others, they are a factor contributing to the game’s high prestige.
Such prestige is most certainly felt upon hearing the game’s music. Rightly honoring its namesake, Symphony has, without a doubt, some of the best game music one will ever hear. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t sound like typical game music at all, that genre that can really only be appreciated by gamers. Indeed, if one took a score from this game and “ported” (using a real gaming term) it into an opera, it would fit accordingly. While the typical gamer might pretend not to appreciate good classical music, there is something attractive and beautiful about listening to it while Alucard gracefully obliterates his enemies. Having music that is so pleasant to the ears makes the normal mundane affair of backtracking (quite necessary in this game) tolerable.
Sadly, the game’s vocal aspect is also where this review must acknowledge the worst of Symphony’s faults. The voice acting is downright horrible. Painful, even. Indeed, upon turning up the volume to better take in the intricacies of the rich music, one might be forced to hold his hears in agony when people actually start talking. It literally sounds as if the actors were trapped in a closet with a microphone and were screaming in an effort to be properly heard.
Since we’re already on the forbidden topic of Symphony’s faults, let’s continue. Due to the game’s incredibly non-linear quality, many of the bosses are pansies. The reasoning behind this is understandable. Instead of making a game where a character must walk in a straight line and will predictably face a boss that he is guaranteed to be prepared for at that moment, the guys at Konami left very few bosses in Symphony that couldn’t be faced at any given time. No doubt, there are a few bad boys that one might not want to fight at his first level but, overall, the most difficult part of Castlevania is the castle itself. Sometimes, a particularly mean formation of re-appearing enemies can be tougher than any boss one might face in the game.
The graphics in Symphony, far from the best that one might find on the PS, range from great to embarrassing. They’re great when you see Alucard’s detail and movements. They remain great when you see the details in the castle’s backgrounds, the portraits, and the terrible monsters. They’re embarrassing, however, when you look at the moon and there is a perfect black square around it. They’re even more embarrassing when you meet another human in the game and they look like a blurry Barbie or Ken doll.
The final weakness in the game is a debatable one, as most people have concluded that it actually belongs on the game’s long list of strengths. Nevertheless, there are technically many, many glitches in the game. While it is true that a typical player may beat the game without ever seeing one of them, they are most certainly there. The problem is that many of the glitches share a very blurry borderline with the game’s hidden secrets. So many, in fact, that it might just be true that Konami left plenty of these glitches in the game to tremendously increase its replay value.
With at least four known endings, Symphony’s already astounding replay value is entirely phenomenal. No review can properly express the amount of work put into this game; it can only be said that if someone hasn’t played it, they’ve missed out on an important part of gaming history.
So, yes, people will have their own opinions about things. However, if one walks into a debate concerning the best game of all time and puts Castlevania: Symphony of the Night down as a candidate, he’s guaranteed to have a strong opening argument.
