Bush Mackel

The Castlevania franchise has been around since the early years of gaming on the NES. And almost as soon as it made its appearance, it became an instant classic.

In the years since its inception, some say Castlevania has lost some of its sparkle. Certainly Castlevania 64 didn’t help matters, but the fact remains that amidst the many Castlevania sequels, there was one that became the pinnacle of the franchise, Symphony of the Night.

The Breakdown
If you’ve never played any of the Castlevania games, here’s the usual deal… Lord Dracula has arisen and needs to be put back into the coffin from whence he came. Usually that task falls to the Belmont clan, a family of vampire hunters who fight Dracula and dispatch the creatures of the night with their family heirloom, a holy whip named Vampire Killer.

• Graphics – Even though this game made its first apperance on the original Playstation, Symphony of the Night still holds up because its graphics and backgrounds are beautifully sensual, and have a tremendous amount of visual style that shouldn’t be overlooked. If the developers stopped there, you’d be doing great. Add on some simply fantastic character and environment animation that crop up when you least expect it, and you have a very enveloping world.

• Gameplay – This isn’t an RPG but it’s not your daddy’s platformer either. Given that you can level up your character, get better weapons and armor and even unlock magic spells, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has the best of both worlds. And since control always feels tight and responsive, you’ll never find yourself cursing at the game because your character is doing something you don’t want him doing.
• Music – I don’t even know where to begin when discussing the music. It’s moody, it’s expressive…It’s really unbelievable. Some tracks are haunting – backed by powerful church organs, while others are fantastically wild guitar driven pieces that are sure to amp up the energy. If you’ve never heard the music from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, I think most would agree that it might be worth the cost of the game alone. No joke.

XBox 360 SOTN Enhancements and Changes
New to the 360 mode is “enhanced graphics”, but they don’t look any more enhanced to me. Imho, they just made colors look super bright and I don’t need that. (Obviously I turned the “enhanced graphics” off). Oh, and one change that I care about is that apparently with a patch released from Live, the song “I Am the Wind” was replaced in the credits! I really liked that song!

Furthermore, this is the kind of game that people on Live take pride in getting the achievements for, especially the heralded 200.6% completion achievement. So what are you waiting for?