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Castlevania Symphony of the Night ~ 21st birthday
posted by Kaneda – on Thu. 01.November 2018
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21 years ago in November of 1997 a follow up to the greatest game series of all time Castlevania was released in Europe for the original PlayStation under the subtitle Symphony of the Night. At the time when most games went 3D, this one stayed loyal to 2D sprites. I borrowed SotN from a local rental store and knew directly it was a masterpiece! Back then the original Castlevania games on the NES were nothing new to me. I played all of them including Simon's Quest, which up intil now I still did not managed to finish :( .. I did not own any Castlevania games back then, always rented or borowed them and only played them for the short period of time. With Symphonie of the Night this approach would not be very successful, if I wanted to complete the game and see the credits.
From reading game magazines I new there is a new Castlevania game comming out for the PlayStation. I remember the reviews for the game were decent, but not overwhelming. What pushed me to get this game and give it a try, was definitive it beautiful pixel art! Alucard's clothing and architecture of the castle. Baroque/Gothic typical setting! OMG!! But what about the animation? I could not predigt it from the static images in magazines. Also what I could not knew, was how good would be the music! (remember it was 1997!) And it went out so tremendous! The final battle of Richter and Dracula at the beginning of the game just followed by a foreword melody has left an indescribable impression on me. And this was even outdone by a outstanding score Dracula's Castle, that by the way I am listening right now while writing this^^ Thank you for this outstanding soundtrack Yamane-san!!! So when I finally had this game and could play it, I could not let it go. Diving deeper and deeper in to the castle trying to collect items and discover secrets. But I did not discover the biggest secret of the game back then. The upside down castle! I think the problem was, that I had lot of games back then on the PlayStation with it's modchip possibilities :) Also I never played the PC Engine's Rondo of Blood. The fact that Richter Belmont became a villain was fascinating and very realistic for me. I thought that is very cool to have a story where main character who is related to the bad guys (Dracula & Co.) fighting against "good guys" (Belmont Clan) and even killing on of them. So the ending where Richter was defeated seemed very reasonable to me and I was thinking it was the true ending. More excitement related to Symphony of the Night I had to experience later when Metal Gear Solid was released and Psycho Mantis could "read my mind" *rolleyes*. I still remember it as it was yesterday. What a nice "shock" effect!! I mean, which game designer did it before? I'm glad I fell for this trick LOL. Such a nice memory!!! Also the small talk of Dracula and Richter at the beginning of the game is timeless. And I still love it! Even people say, that is is a horrible translation. I don't care!! It's belong to the VG history now and just shows that the video games (or it translations) at that time were not taken seriously, as today. If you want take it seriously and think that a man is not just a miserable pile of secrets, then have at you! get a new bundle at PSN Store called Castlevania Requem. It includes two games that were already released on a PSP as Castlevania the Dracula X chronicles. Symphony of the Night has a new translation in this game and never before released Dracula X Rondo of Blood for the PC-Engine has English dub. I just absolutely love those artworks!! (see below) ありがとう ございました Kojima-san!!!
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