Classical Symphony
If you could only play one Castlevania game, which one would it be? Chances are you picked Symphony of the Night. As good as many of the Castlevania games have been, none are as important or influential as the series' flagship PSOne entry. The next question is about how well Symphony stands for itself after nearly twenty years of games that have lived by the formula it helped perfect. The answer: it still holds up pretty well.
It amazes me that Symphony is well known for it's story. Not to say that it's well known for having a good story. I'm just amazed anyone can remember that it has a story at all. The narrative is such a meager framework that amounts to only a few lines of dialogue every couple hours. It's just frequent enough to remind you that there are other named characters in Dracula's Castle, but not so often as to make your ears bleed from all the brain cell murdering writing.
A favorite English teacher of mine once told me that a review for a movie should include half the plot. At the time, I thought it was a little too much. I was always a fan of just giving the premise. Symphony of the Night, however, is nothing but premise. It has a plot so tiny that I would be shocked if the script has a higher word count than this review. Brace yourself. I'm about to spoil everything. If you haven't heard it by now it's your own fault and frankly, it's not worth the secrecy.
You start out as Richter Belmont, professional kicker of vampire ass. For whatever reason(i.e. because he's Dracula), Richter vanquishes the world's most renowned bloodsucker in the first five minutes of the game. The game then flashes forward to a couple years later when Alucard enters the castle. What spurred him on to go there is never really said, but there are plenty of skeletons to hack and slash. While doing all manor of undead dude-killing, Alucard meets Maria. Maria is a lady who… well she… um… she's blonde… I think. Anyway, she's hanging around the castle looking for Richter who, as it turns out, moved in after he found out the place rents pretty cheap. Alucard then finds Richter. Richter is being controlled by a guy named Shaft who is making him do all sorts of evil stuff. Shaft wants to resurrect Dracula. Alucard then pretends to be shocked and kills Shaft and Dracula. That's it. That's about as intimate and emotional a plot description as has ever existed for this game. Alucard's mom appears at one point to set up an ending where Dracula's heart grows three sizes bigger as he figures out that humans are ok. Oh! And the grim reaper shows up to do… well… nothing.
The point of that plot summary is to say that none of this shit is important. If you come to this game for it's narrative, you're a chump. Of all things, though, allow me a moment to defend the game's voice acting. I have some (read: not much) acting experience and after taking these lines to some of my acting friends, we all agreed that anyone put in a sound booth and made to read this script aloud probably deserves a hug. This shit is career killing.
More than five hundred words into this review, I feel like I'm going to do nothing but trash this game. I can see you there, sitting in your chair with your eyes ready to glaze over. You love Symphony of the Night and you don't want to see some little red haired asshole tell you that it sucks. For one, I want to remind you that I still liked this game. Two, bare with me a little while longer while I trash the graphics. And three, how did you know I had red hair?
Ok, I know what you're going to say, so indulge me in a couple lines of ham-fisted dialogue. Symphony is one of your favorite games. You're used to it.
“Tom!”
“Yeah?”
“Why bother criticizing a twenty year old game for it's graphics? You do know this is a PSOne game, right? Are you stupid?
It's because this twenty year old PSOne game looks like a twenty-five year old SNES game. When I think of the Playstation's best looking games, I remember games like Resident Evil and the Final Fantasies. In particular, those games had some incredible pre-rendered backdrops that still look decent today. I can't help but look at Castlevania and feel like it would've been the perfect fit for cg backgrounds. You might think this is a nitpick, but imagine how much more atmospheric and creepy this game could have been if everything was not just a colorful and cartoonish collection of pixels. Coupled with music consisting almost entirely of fast-paced guitar riffs, the visuals lead to a game that feels very arcade-like. While the arcade feeling is more of a design choice and less of a fault, it's disappointing when you compare it to other Playstation games that were, for the first time in gaming history, trying to do something more dramatic. Presentationally, Symphony of the Night sticks out like a sore thumb next to games like MGS and Silent Hill.
A further criticism I have is perhaps a little unfair. Not too long ago, I played Ori and the Blind Forest. That game was an amazing example of a two dimensional metroidvania game taking place in a coherent environment. Instead of feeling like a set of stitched together game levels, each new area inhabited its own part of a larger forest and each flowed perfectly into the next. Zoomed out, you would be able to see a convincing game world. Symphony of the Night, on the other hand, is one of those games where you have the sneaking suspicion that all the levels were made before the designers knew how to glue them together. There is nothing wrong with it from a purely gameplay perspective, but no game will ever sell you on it's environment when the same small hallway is used over and over again to mask load times. If Symphony were ever to fall victim to being remade, that kind of thing wouldn't fly.
Ok, you've been waiting long enough. You've earned more than a few words on the better parts of this game, and let me tell you, there's something pretty timeless about moving to the left and right and cuttin' dudes.
Before this (still arguably the series' best entry) Castlevania was a pretty clunky set of games. Even Castlevania IV seems clumsy when put head to head with Symphony. The Castlevania name instantly evoked thoughts of bullshit enemy placements. You would be trying to reach the top of a set of stairs to quickly turn around and slash at a fireball only to be knocked off a ledge and killed. The sadist who used to do enemy placement was apparently kicked off the development team, and he took every damn ledge and staircase with him.
The most striking part of Symphony from a gameplay perspective is how balanced it is. The first few Castlevanias on the NES seemed to subscribe to the theory that playtesting is for motherfuckers. The result was a difficulty level that was inconsistent at best. The best evidence of this is during the final boss of the first game. Dracula's first form is something that a lot of gamers struggle with until ultimately losing interest, while his second form can be dispatched in an instant with a little bit of holy water. Every boss in Symphony feels just a bit harder than the last, which is exactly what you should expect out of a video game. Even the typical fodder get consistently more difficult without ever making you feel like you are running into a wall, and with the possible exception of the clock tower, you will always feel like each death is your fault. If anything, the game starts to feel too easy after a while, which is a feeling that was surely alien to avid Castlevania players of the time.
Of course, this is the game that put the “vania” in “metroidvania”. If there is a college game design course on this genre, which there should be, this is surely required playing. It starts with the genre standard abilitease, and the ensuing unlocking of powers is paced out through the entire experience in a way that makes it fun to go back and demolish everything that used to give you grief. Try going back to the aforementioned clock tower once your mist form damages enemies and see if you can fly through without going on a power trip. Seriously, you can't. I've tried and it's impossible.
I'm not really sure that any one enemy in the game is too memorable, but in this respect, the game is better than the some of it's parts. From the outset to the 10-12 hour mark, you'll be slashing at something new. Some enemies that look like a simple palette swap actually switch up their patterns in devilish ways that will definitely keep you on your toes.
Symphony of the Night proves that classic game design formula's can trump most weaknesses in production. It has a pretty boring visual style and a “story” that will make you lose faith in humanity, but it hits near perfect marks on all things gameplay. After a couple decades, not only does this game remain playable, It's probably still the best Castlevania game out there.
