Castlevania: Symphony of The Night

Since its US debut in 1987 on the NES, Konami's Castlevania series has gone on to become one of the most popular franchises in video-game history, with releases on nearly every major platform (including the Super NES, Genesis, and GameBoy). Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the PlayStation, PSN and XBLA - is not just the best Castlevania game - it is quite possibly the best 2D action adventure side scroller ever made.

Unlike most previous Castlevania games, Symphony features a main character who isn't one of the whip-cracking Belmonts. In an even more bizarre twist, it turns out that the hero, Alucard, is actually the son of Dracula. Your task as Alucard is to explore Dracula's castle (rumored to only appear once a century) and find out why Richter Belmont, the hero of the first game (and descendant of the original Castlevania hero, Simon), has mysteriously vanished.

Since the main character doesn't carry a whip, gameplay was obviously changed quite a bit from past Castlevanias. You can use several different weapons and items, each of which is kept in an RPG-like inventory subscreen. But Symphony mimics an RPG in more ways than one. Experience is gained from killing enemies; attributes are raised whenever Alucard levels-up, which is good incentive not to pass up enemies when trying to get from one area to the next; special skills are learned by performing different control-pad movements that subsequently save to a move list in the subscreen; and you can find and use numerous magic items during your quest. Even with the new trappings, though, the basics of the game are true to previous installments - break candles, collect hearts and money (which you can now actually spend in a shop), and fight ghoulish enemies. Although the 8 bit Castlevania series was never known for its control scheme, SOTN features tight, precise controls with the pinpoint accuracy and impeccable timing of a fighting game.

Perhaps the most important new feature added to Castlevania is its map system. Extremely similar to the one in Super Metroid, the map (which can be viewed at any time by pressing the Select button) opens up room by room as you travel through the castle. You can buy an extended map that shows you some of the areas you have yet to visit, but as you might imagine, it's limited and doesn't show you any of the castle's hidden portions. Even if it did, it wouldn't much matter; like any good adventure game, many areas can't be accessed until later in the journey. Specifically, you can't visit certain places until you've found the three souls that Alucard can transform into - Wolf, Bat, and Mist, each of which can be used at any time for a small amount of magic power.

Needless to say, the graphics and musical score are great, which is what you'd expect from Konami. The anime-style look of Dracula X has been replaced with a more Gothic look and feel that adds a surprising amount of depth to the game's wonderful atmosphere. In terms of character graphics, Alucard is one of the most well animated sprites Ive ever seen. Some of the lesser enemies are dragged straight from previous Castlevania titles, but almost all of them have unique attack and death animations, and the bosses are some of the most towering, revoltingly detailed and twisted monstrosities in the history of videogames. Being able to square off against Frankestein, The Mummy, Medusa, and other abominations such as Beezelbub, shown below, certainly makes it one of the most fun games to play around Halloween.


Suffice to say, this game still holds up visually in 2008, and the excellent XBLA version offers a smoothing function which really reduces the jaggies without sacrificing crispness. Each area of the castle comes to with life gorgeous backgrounds, multiple levels of parallax scrolling, and stellar special effects (particularly of note are the lighting and fog effects used in certain levels).

The extraordinary amount of weapons and secrets that make this game seem fresh even after being out for so many years is why this title outdoes its Game Boy Advance successor Harmony of Dissonance or any other Castlevania title. The incredible attention to detail makes the game stand out among the best games of its or any generation. Once you've finished playing through both castles with Alucard, you can take Richter through the story again for more old-school type exploration.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is easily one of the best videogames ever released and a true testament to the fact that 2D gaming is not dead by any stretch of the imagination. The game is very large, nonlinear, amazingly well detailed and animated, a delicious treat for the ears and eyes, and will most certainly keep all but the most jaded modern gamers entertained for a long time.