The RPG Fanatic Review Show - ★ Castlevania Symphony of the Night Review ★
122https://rpgfanatics.com The Halloween Special! The RPG Fanatic retro reviews Castlevania: SOTN by Konami, considered one of the greatest games in the franchise and starring its most popular character, the vampire Alucard!
The chronology / continuity / timeline issues of the Castlevania series are also discussed, as well as the gameplay of the games. And of course, there is occasional humor and funny jokes!
Castlevania Dungeon fansite is mentioned in the review, check it out at the link below! http://www.castlevaniadungeon.net/
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Japanese: 悪魔城ドラキュラX 月下の夜想曲 Hepburn: Akumajō Dracula X: Gekka no Yasōkyoku?, Devil's Castle Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight) is an action role-playing video game developed and published by Konami in 1997. It is the direct sequel to Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and features Dracula's dhampir son, Alucard, as the protagonist. Its initial commercial success was limited, but it was critically praised, gained sales through word-of-mouth and eventually became a hit; GameRankings and Metacritic list its approval score for the original PlayStation version at or above 93%. It has since been re-released on several other gaming consoles and is now usually considered a sleeper hit and a cult classic of video gaming.
Symphony of the Night was an important milestone of the Castlevania series. It steered the series away from the standard level-by-level platforming formula of older titles and introduced a new style of open-ended gameplay mixed with role-playing game-like elements that would be emulated by most of its successors. A similar, earlier form of this type of gameplay existed in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.
Like many installments of the Castlevania series, Symphony of the Night uses a 2D side-scrolling style of gameplay. The objective of the game is to guide primary player character Alucard through the undead-filled castle, as he sets out to defeat the vampire Dracula.
Symphony of the Night begins during the end of Rondo of Blood in which Richter fights and defeats Dracula. Four years later, Alucard (Robert Belgrade; Yuri Lowenthal in the redub) arrives at the castle. Inside, he meets Dracula's servant Death who warns him to stop his quest to destroy the castle; Maria, a seventeen-year-old vampire hunter on a quest to find Richter; and the castle's librarian, who sells him various items and equipment. Periodically encountering Maria throughout the castle, he meets Richter, who claims to be the master of the castle and forces him to do battle with two monsters. Alucard defeats the monsters, and finding Maria again, tells her about Richter; upset, she leaves him to confirm it for herself. Convinced that Richter is under the control of another, she meets up with Alucard again, and urging him not to hurt Richter, gives him an item which allows him to see past illusions. In the keep of the castle, Alucard confronts him, and learns that he plans to resurrect Dracula so that he may battle the vampire for eternity. Alucard breaks the spell controlling him, and Dracula's servant Shaft appears; he reveals that despite ending his spell on Richter, Dracula will be resurrected soon, and summons an inverted version of the castle.
Although the game was directed by Toru Hagihara, assistant director Koji Igarashi is said to have the most creative influence over the game, as he was also involved in the story writing and programming. From the beginning, the game was to represent a fresh, new direction for the franchise. According to Igarashi, Symphony of the Night started out as "...something of a side story for the series, we were able to break a lot of Castlevania conventions and introduce a lot of new elements that we still use today. For Igarashi, regular action games were too short, so he wanted to create a game that "could be enjoyed for a long time". Consequently, the development team abandoned the stage by stage progression of the previous Castlevania games, in favor of an open castle that the player could freely explore. Taking inspiration from Super Metroid on SNES, most of the castle areas were initially inaccessible to the player, who could gradually obtain various items and vampiric powers that opened up more and more of the castle. The idea was to reward exploration while retaining the hack-and-slash action from the previous games. Symphony of the Night marks the first appearance of artist Ayami Kojima in the video game industry. Kojima's role in the game's production was that of character designer, specifically tasked with conceptualizing the game's main and supporting cast in a unique way. Her designs for Symphony of the Night borrow heavily from bishōnen-style art. These illustrations proved popular amongst the Castlevania fan base, which prompted similar designs to be done by Kojima for later titles.
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