It’s rare that I find the time to return to classic games, and even rarer that I finish them. I’ve tried many established “classics”, and while I can appreciate the influence they’ve had, it is hard for me to ignore problems that have been solved in later iterations and generations. Symphony of the Night is one of the lucky ones that I’ve finished—perhaps due to the fact that it is on the XBLA for ten dollars—but that doesn’t mean it is without fault. No, for every instance of good character design, free exploration, and interesting role-playing mechanics there are nagging, significant, or just plain stupid flaws that I can’t imagine being okay with ten years ago, let alone today.
I only know the rudimentary facts about Castlevania lore, but I gathered that Richter Belmont is the original vampire hunter from the first game in the series. The game starts with you controlling the final moments of his defining moment against the vampire lord, Dracula. A few months after Dracula’s death, Richter is nowhere to be found, and a mysterious shaman is trying to bring Dracula back again. Alucard, Dracula’s son (and name backwards--Dracula must’ve been one of those avant garde parents), comes out of his self imposed slumber—supposedly to rid the world of his bloodline, even though he isn’t murderous—to fight his father and possibly find Richter in the process. Sadly, the plot isn’t noteworthy, and the god-awful voice acting doesn’t help one bit. But story isn’t what you should come looking for in this game.
The meat of Symphony of the Night comes from two main pillars of design; the first being character growth. To my knowledge, this was the first ‘Vania game to have an RPG leveling and inventory system, and parts of it work well. Alucard can use hearts (read: magic meter) to wield special items, stronger attacks, and spells. New swords, armor, and gems can be equipped and some spoils can be used on the spot to recover health and hearts. The system is deep, and as Alucard gains levels and abilities, more areas of the castle open up. But the basic combat isn’t particularly fun or ability oriented. Instead of using time consuming spells and squirrely projectile items, I found myself almost always using a powerful sword and spamming the attack button. It is a shame that the RPG elements and combat don’t mesh well because all higher-level options are rendered useless.
Exploration is the second, more successful pillar. It may sound crazy now, but Symphony of the Night gives you literally no direction at any point during the game. Often you’ll run into boss battles that aren’t mandatory, find secret rooms, and get new weapons that are strewn throughout the labyrinthine castle. Many of these side bosses and joke characters (A certain skeleton from Hamlet is one of the best) make the castle seem wild. Though for all these fun secrets, there is frustration to be had. Stuck behind an impassable hallway of spikes? Figure it out on your own. Need to find a powerup? Find it on your own. The silent bluntness of Symphony of the Night is staggering, and while I appreciated the freedom, it can be overwhelming. Thankfully most of the puzzles and powerups aren’t too difficult to find, but every once in a while you’ll get a hellacious brain buster or boss that takes some time to parse.
Despite being a re-release on a much more powerful console, Symphony of the Night’s technical presentation is fundamentally weak. The character sprites haven’t been redrawn in HD so they all look muddy. Even worse, the original resolution hasn’t been increased and there is no widescreen support. Instead you get Alucard and Dracula staring back at you in the vertical space where the game should be. I can’t believe that it would’ve been that difficult to put it in widescreen at least. Thankfully, the enemy and castle designs still ooze creativity. The character artists essentially had free reign to create whatever crazy Halloween creatures they could conjure up. A gigantic brain consisting of corpses, Frankenstein’s monster, and so many old horror staples as well as new designs lurk in the depths of the castle. The designs are consistently fresh, yet slightly campy in a way that keeps the game from getting too stern.
That is, until the last act.
Through some events that I won’t spoil, Dracula’s castle is flipped upside down for the latter half. This sounds cool in theory, but in practice it is just annoying. I could immediately tell that the castle was created with the un-inverted design as the primary goal. The inverted castle changes the scale of many rooms and makes navigation a chore. It leans far too heavily on Alucard's bat form which allows him to fly. To make matters worse, the new inverted enemies are incredibly powerful; balance seemingly gets left with the regular castle. Alucard has a limited range, and these punitive bosses and enemies easily juggle him to death. Even in the regular castle, enemies can get some cheap shots in--but never to the extent that the inverted enemies do. This wouldn’t be the biggest issue if not for the game over screen that overstays its welcome (if you can call it that), and then spits you back out to the main menu every single time. I can’t express how frustrating this is, and it happened too many times for me to just gloss it over.
The Live Arcade release of Symphony of the Night doesn’t take full advantage of the platform with its presentation, but even if I didn’t consider the aesthetic blunders, the game hasn’t aged that well. The first half of the game is really enjoyable, but the inverted castle is rotten to the core. The fact is that many “Metroid-Vania” games have fixed issues present in their forefathers. The original is still interesting as a co-progenitor of the genre, but it definitely doesn’t hit on all the beats it once held. Like so many classics, Symphony of the Night might’ve been the top dog of its day, but simply doesn’t have enough good, long lasting design choices to keep it pristine.