Pros: Everything: graphics, music, gameplay, atmosphere, and everything else
Cons: The voice acting isn't very good
The bottom line: Everything about this game is of the highest quality: atmosphere, music, graphics, locations, gameplay,… This is platform-horror-roleplaying-Castlevania at its best.
In the Castlevania series, Symphony of the Night is probably the most revolutionary part. Konami has chucked a lot of old aspects of the series overboard, while stuffing in dozens of new aspects. But you won’t hear me complain – I believe this part to be Konami’s Magnum Opus…

Belmont the Vampire Slayer

The Castlevania series has always been about the fight between the Belmont family and the vampire Dracula, from the first time it appeared on the Msx and other prehistoric machines. There have been other characters, but overall the Belmonts were the key figures.
Symphony of the Night starts where the last part ended. Richter Belmont is trying to reach the upper parts of Dracula’s castle, to destroy the vampire for the last time. Since this is only the beginning of the game, it’s not such a hard fight…

Drac is back!

So Richter vanquishes Dracula… but not permanently!
A couple of years later Richter disappears, and rumours have it that Drac’s castle is back… So we meet Alucard, one of Richter’s old acquaintances. Hmmm… “Alucard”… Turn that name around would you? Yep, Alucard is related to Dracula, but he’s only half-vampire and fights his own kind. After Dracula was destroyed by Richter, Alucard went into some sort of slumber. Now that the powers of good and evil are out of balance, his rest was disturbed, so Alucard leaves for Dracula’s castle, fully armed.
He doesn’t use the famous Belmont whip though – sword and shield are his preferred weapons. At the castle’s entrance, however, the Grim Reaper causes him to lose all of his possessions and his abilities. And so begins the arduous trek to Dracula’s tower…

Well if YOU had a choice between a whip and a sword…

Now here is where the new gameplay kicks in. Contrary to earlier parts, Symphony of the Night has some character development, and even a touch of role-playing. You start out empty-handed, but as soon as you kill your first skeleton, he’ll drop something like a sword. Granted, it’s probably a pitiful little scimitar, but it’ll come in handy. And that’s only the beginning! After a while you find a shield, and boy is that helpful! The further you get, the more items you’ll find, including armour, helmets, gauntlets, and a variety of weapons.
While you’re fighting your enemies, you’ll see how much damage your weapon is causing. Defeating enemies will give you Experience Points that you collect to gain levels. This makes the game a lot easier at times: if you reach an end-of-level boss that’s near impossible to beat, you can go back and try to improve your stats (finding some new items in the process). Luckily the castle has plenty of save-points where you can replenish Alucard’s health – fittingly these save-points are coffins.

Lots of beautiful backgrounds

Dracula’s castle is huge! There are hundreds of rooms and hallways, and it would be easy to lose your way… Konami anticipated this and borrowed one of the Metroid Saga’s aspects: you have a map at your disposal. On it you can not only see the parts you’ve visited, but also the save-points and the unexplored passages.
The locations are often breathtaking in their beauty and originality, from the Catacombs to the gorgeous church parts, with 3D backgrounds and great light effects. There are also classic locations revisited, like the inside mechanism of a bell tower, and a hall of pillars where a huge floating eye is constantly watching you. Creepy!

Don’t play this game if you have heart problems

Of course these locations are riddled with the most bizarre and horrible creatures you can imagine. In the beginning of the game you have your usual skeletons and zombies, but as you progress, the enemies get more original, more dangerous, sometimes bigger, deadlier and always more unexpected. In the library I was walking by a bookcase without a care in the world, only to be unexpectedly assaulted by a bunch of flying books, in polygon rendered 3D! I can tell you, I nearly had a heart attack when that happened!

The bosses are even yuckier than my boss

The end-of-level bosses deserve a paragraph of their own. They start out pretty “normal”, with some sort of devil and his reptilian sidekick, battering you with spears and fireballs. But as you delve deeper into the game, these bosses get more horrible and gruesome. In the Catacombs I had to fight a huge orb that consisted of hundreds of bodies, all squirming. The were falling off by the dozens, and I was standing knee-deep in blood and other gunk. You have to see it to believe it.
Alucard has been drawn stunningly too. He moves fluently – not with that artificial walk that many other Castlevania parts sport. In fact, all the art is of exceptional quality. The artist has an original style, with great attention to detail. Everybody’s clothing looks authentic and realistic, in a baroque sort of way.

Vampiric abilities

As I mentioned, Alucard has some nice special abilities. Because he loses them at the beginning however, you’ll have to search the whole castle to find them again. Some of these are pretty “standard”, like the double-jump. But Alucard can also shapechange into a bat, a wolf and a mist cloud. The whole castle takes this ability into account… From the very beginning you’ll be thinking “how the heck do I reach that bit?” If there’s a low passage, you’ll have to change into a wolf. The highest regions of the castle are only accessible as a bat, and as a cloud of mist you can float through rusty bars. Every form has some other advantages too: the wolf can burst through stuff while running, the bat isn’t attacked by other bats, and the (poisonous) mist can kill enemies without getting hit. Of course there’s a price to pay: you have some Magic Points, and maintaining a special form eats away at these.

Why do bad guys always leave useful items all over the place?

And there’s more: items and other abilities play a major part in Symphony of the Night. Short on Hit Points? Wear the right items and stand in your enemies’ blood – you’re not half a vampire for nothing! Is your way blocked by spikes? Wear your crude Spikebuster Armour and rush through them unharmed.
One of Castlevania’s classic aspects – the hearts (who were and are hidden in candles) has been kept; you need these to throw special weapons like axes, knives and flying bibles.

Some of the best music in a game yet

I hope you’ll see by now that this huge game is filled with atmosphere and tension. Even though it’s in 2D, it does get pretty creepy, and sometimes the game made me feel “trapped”. Adding to this sensation was the music…
Ah, the music. Composer Michuri Yamane is one of the best game composers in my book. There’s the ethereal music in the cathedral on one side, with a choir in the background, but also many classical or baroque sounds. Perhaps this isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but the music really fits the game mood.
In contrast, the boss-music has rough guitar sounds attacking your ears. And it’s this unusual combo of music styles that helps make this game incredibly cool. Enough talk, you just have to hear this.

Replay value

The game is huge, and it has plenty of replay value too, given the numerous hidden items and secret locations, that you won’t find easily. Once you finish the game as Alucard (and there are three possible ways to accomplish this) you can play as Richter. This is horribly difficult though, since you can’t level him up, use items,…

Near perfect

Nobody’s perfect, and neither is Symphony of the Night. The voice-acting could have been a lot better, but luckily there’s not that much dialogue. Also, some things were cut from the Saturn version – there was an extra (sort of tree house) level, and you could play Richter’s sister Maria. Now she only makes an appearance as a Non Player Character.

In conclusion

But these very minor gripes shouldn’t stop anybody from getting this game. This is in all likelihood the best game in the series. It borrows from games like Ninja Gaiden and Metroid, but everything has been applied in a very original way. Everything about this game is of the highest quality: atmosphere, music, graphics, locations, gameplay,… This is platform-horror-roleplaying-Castlevania at its best. The night is still young. Let us go out for pleasure…