![]() The fact that the game doesn't actually end once you've unlocked the "regular" castle just shows how much depth there is. No, the story isn't terribly amazing (Alucard, Dracula's son born to a human mother and his infamous father, rejects his vampric nature to side with the humans in destroying his father's castle before Daddy Drac can be reborn yet again), but hearing hilariously delivered lines like "Mankind can ill afford a savoir such as you" and "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!" is almost reason enough to go for this version rather than the updated, retranslated version available in the Dracula X Chronicles. ![]() There's also the matter of the game's translation. Yes, it's an unapologetic homage to the Metroid style of gameplay, but wrapped in a proper action-RPG setting where main man Alucard actually deals points of damage with every strike and slowly gains more hit points and hearts to use special items, it all feels fresh even today. It offers a constant string of impediments that are slowly unlocked as you search the castle for your lost powers. The layout of Dracula's castle, though, is arguably better than any of the others. Symphony also kicked off the birth of the so-called Metroidvania style that would eventually see plenty of GBA and DS sequels down the road. The result is a game that is technically lo-fi (there's a bit of graniness to some of the sound effects) but feels much more grandiose than the disparate parts would have you believe. Though the music in the game is synthesized, it has a fullness and range that scoots around the limitations of what you'd normally associate with a digital orchestra as it opts to ladle on generous amounts of breathy choir falsettos while dabbling in more diverse styles like jazz. But the game handles 2D beautifully here with smoothly animated sprites, the odd bit of parallax fanciness and a style that was (and in many ways still is) unmatched. ![]() More recent games like Odin Sphere and GrimGrimoire are at least keeping the genre alive, but SotN was the pinnacle of 2D at the time - even more surprising given that the PS one wasn't really supposed to be a 2D powerhouse. Symphony of the Night represents a rather unique snapshot in the history of games it's the swan song of 2D as it went the way of the dodo (or at least the California Condor) and 3D gaming rose as the de facto standard. ![]()
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