Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2917 in Video Games
• Brand: Konami
• Released on: 1999-07-06
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: PlayStation

GameSpot Review
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). The latest installment - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the PlayStation - is quite possibly the best 2D action side scroller ever.

Symphony takes place four years after Dracula X, a PC Engine title in Japan that never saw a US release. Unlike most previous Castlevania games, Symphony features a main character who isn't one of the whip-cracking Belmonts. Stranger still, it turns out that our hero, Adrian Fahrenheit (aka Alucard), is actually a son of Dracula. Your task 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. Oh, and you've also got to kill quite a few monsters along the way....

Since the main character doesn't carry a whip, gameplay has obviously changed quite a bit from past Castlevanias. Now 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.

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 Roman approach that adds a surprising amount of depth to the game's wonderful atmosphere. Each area comes to life with vividly animated enemies, gorgeous backgrounds with multiple levels of parallax scrolling, and stellar special effects (particularly of note are the lighting and fog effects used in certain levels). The voice acting is also good, and the storyline is awesome.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is easily one of the best games 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 and will keep you entertained for a long time. --John Ricciardi
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Manufacturer Description
The vampire is back with more depth and better graphics in this sequel from the long time favorite series. You take the role of Alucard son of Dracula in an attempt to find out what has happened to Richter Belmont a descendant of the game's first hero.

Customer Reviews

Excellent side-scroller action
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night harkens back to the early and great Castlevanias of the old NES, but with vastly updated graphics, gameplay, and even ambiance. Sure, it's still a 2-D scroller where you roam around and jump around on platforms and what not, but it's at the top of the heap. The game starts somewhat oddly with you as a vampire hunter facing off against Dracula in a fairly wacky fight that always reminds me of a pro wrestling match. You beat Dracula, at which point time warps ahead and you switch to Alucard, Dracula's remorseful son (spell Alucard backwards..yah, clever) who brings the fight to Dracula's vast and labyrinthe castle in an effort to do away with his evil sire for all time. At first I was put off by what I thought was a bizarre and inelegant introduction (the human vampire hunter is a character from one of the mediocre middle Castlevania games, and is very unwieldy) but it turns out the manner in which you use him to defeat Dracula "historically" in the plot affects Alucard's starting abilities. Meaning if you beat up on Drakula with magic, Alucard later favors magic. Ditto for melee combat.

Anyway, the game is lush and filled with endless amounts of loot. Any monster has a chance to drop rare goodies when slain (based on Alucard's Luck stat), fake walls crumble to reveal hidden platemail, accidentally-tripped switches open bookcases or trapdoors, and zillions of types of monsters appear from all over the place. The music is great and quite haunting, and the game's RPG and money system are quite well developed. Alucard has quick "combo" spells you can use while fighting, and many of the weapons, shields, and armors he finds have their own effects which have to be discovered in game play. I've located weapons that let Alucard teleport, summon the undead to fight for him, call lightning, ice, or fire, or even waves of holy light down on his foes. Everything from helms to circlets to rings to boots can be worn, and Alucard eventually even develops the ability to transform into traditional vampire modes. Dissipate into a swirling cloud of mist and waft through a ceiling vent to escape your enemies, turn into a wolf and charge through crowds of zombies, or transform into a bat and fly around breathing fire on everyone. Lastly Alucard collects various magical relics throughout the game, that do everything from let him breathe underwater to have permament familiars that float around with him on screen and help him out (the dancing runesword is not to be missed). As an example of the thought put into this game, your familiars themselves even gain experience and go up levels, growing both stronger and smarter over time. For example, the runesword familiar at first just kinda floats along behind you, lethargically swinging at things long after they took a bite out of you. But after a while it turns into a gleaming heat seeking weapon of vengeance, mercilessly smiting anything the second it shows up on screen. At one point I turned Alucard into mist and just drifted around while the sword familiar took out a boss for me. This game also has more items and secrets in it than your average Final Fantasy, and is more addictive. It is also one of the least frustrating games you can find; you can save as often as you want in save rooms you find on your map (in a coffin, natch), heal yourself easily, and as a vampire you're more than a match for the sluggish beasts you meet early on. The challenge of the game comes from an easy balance of combat and puzzle solving, rather than a heavy reliance on one or the other.

Lastly, and most entertainingly, the bosses in this game are amazing. Unlike earlier side scrollers where the game progressed through 'levels', in Symphony of the Night you simply roam around an enormous, maze-like castle. You never know when suddenly a steel grate will drop behind you and you'll find yourself trapped in a fight with, oh, a grotesque giant mummy suspended on steel hooks that takes up 6 screens worth of animation. That's just the sort of thing that's worth the price of admission.

Amazing! That's all I can say.
This is the first game I wanted to buy when I got my Playstation, sadly, it is super rare and took my 6 months to find used. This is probably the rarest Playstation game, which is sad, because it is also one of the best.

It combines classic Castlevania gameplay with RPG elements, such as the use of magic, and level points system, and a deeper storyline. Also adding to the depth is the use of money, relics that give special abilities, and a wider variety of weapons. The ability to equip weapons of your choice is a first for the series. By far the coolest is the ability to transform, you can be a bat, a wolf, or fog (!). The main character is Alucard (spell it backwards), who older gamers might remember from Castlevania 3 for NES. You meed a wide array of characters, some good, some bad, throughout your journey through Dracula's castle. The object of the game: same as the rest-find and destroy Dracula and end the vampire bloodline.

The graphics are classic 2-D, which might turn off some gamers hoping for something more like Castlevania 64 (which was fully-rendered 3-D). Despite the 2-D, the control and character movement is greatly enhanced thanks to better animation and smooth controls. Castlevania games always had great music, and SOTN is among the best in that department. Each score perfectly matches the given environment, with beautifuly orchestrated melodies. Don't let the old-school look discourage you, this is an amazing game.

Calling Castlevania: SOTN simply a nastalgia trip, while true in my case, would degrade the value of the game. It is an excellent and addictive game that satisfies on almost every level. It ranks among the best games for the Playstation, and you sould expect to pay a hefty price for a copy. It is now super-rare.

The start of the Gameboy games legacy...
This game, which started the trend of all those terrific Gameboy Castlevanias, like Dawn of Sorrow, is an awesome play and a top 10 of just about everyones Playstation game list.

First off, this game is huge. You have to play through this game twice to get the entire experience and real ending to this game. It has a second quest, much like the old school Ghosts and Goblins, if you can remember that game... but with its own unique invereted way.

The amount of items you can gather and collect in this game is staggering too. There are numerous swords and spells to pick up and just about every weapon has its own special abilities which adds a lot to this game. Because of that no weapon seems the same.

And the relics just plain old rock. They give you abilities like changing into bats, wolves, mist forms, and allowing you to do super jumps and double jumps to unlock new areas.

Also, the hundreds of different bosses and enemies are all interesting to hunt down and slaughter. Especially the cool looking bosses, which can sometimes span an entire couple of screens...

Though this game is extremely rare to try to get a hold of now, if youre a Playstation gamer or action fan then you owe it to yourself to pick this up. Its one of the most complete and enjoyable action/adventure games of the last ten years.