Things you dislike about CV: Symphony of the Night

[Asaki]

It's kinda funny how SOTN has so many fans today when I clearly remember it languishing on the shelves for 20 bucks or whatever.

Back in the day, I was pretty bummed that Blockbuster had two or three copies for sale for $15, and I was flat broke.

 

The worst padding must be the Castle A & B of Harmony of Dissonance.

I thought it was kind of weird that there were some areas in HoD where they where obviously planning to have an "up-side-down castle" bonus, but then it never happened. Maybe someone can hack it in some day.

[Eltigro]

I worked at Target in the electronics department when SotN came out. Pretty sure I bought it within a week of its release. I haven't had the game in years as it got lost with most of my other Playstation games, but I still have a memory card with a game save on it. That save, iirc, is at about 197%. I don't mind the whole Inverted Castle thing. I don't remember if it was clearly hinted at or whatever. I don't remember how I found out about it, but I doubt it was on my own. I'm sure I had a magazine like GamePro or something that told me.

 

I loved the graphics and music. The voice acting was cheesy, but I still thought it was better than Resident Evil.

 

The spells were too difficult. Only one I could ever pull off somewhat reliably was Dark Metamorphosis and it usually takes two or three tries. Even looking at directions, I still had difficulty doing some of them so for the most part, I did without. I don't play fighting games, so I'm not real big on complicated button combos.

 

The familiars do take a long time to level up. I've read that the sword powered up is really pretty good, but most of the time, it just kind of followed me around and did nothing.

 

I was fine with backtracking as I felt the layout was good and easy to remember. Also, Alucard handles really well. It was rare that I would miss a jump.

 

I didn't like that the XBox Live download had the cutscenes taken out. I get that it was to reduce the download size, and they didn't really add that much to the game, but it was still a letdown.

[NE146]

Didn't the Sword Familiar get all crazy when it was powered up? Like the animation would have it swoop around and go in and out of the screen eventually. Or maybe I'm misrembering.

[Great Hierophant]

Didn't the Sword Familiar get all crazy when it was powered up? Like the animation would have it swoop around and go in and out of the screen eventually. Or maybe I'm misrembering.

 

Nope, that description is pretty apt and it can take out virtually any regular enemy with one hit by the time it does that. I have a complete save with a maxxed out Sword Familiar and between it and dual Crissaegrim, Dracula's true form is dead within a second of being able to be hit.

[Tempest]

I never bothered with the spells at all. The game is super easy and they're not needed.

[BawesomeBurf]

The worst padding must be the Castle A & B of Harmony of Dissonance. Almost nothing changes between the castles and it is extremely confusing which castle you are in. Plus the bosses are super easy (except for one), the music is awful, the graphics are offensively garish, the story is thin even by Castlevania standards and only using a whip is boring.

I like that game, but you make some very good points there. Still like to replay it on occasion though.

 

As for Symphony, the only issues I have are the game being too easy, and that f**king out of place song at the end, "I Am The Wind." I did a luck mode playthrough (which is kind of hard mode) on my YouTube channel last year and it was still relatively easy. Never had an issue pulling off most of the spells except for Soul Steal.

[Austin]

Can't say I really ever had an issue with any part of the game outside of the ending theme. Obviously not everything is perfect, but the good parts are so damn good that I don't nitpick about the things that aren't as great. The replayability is through the roof on this game and I am still discovering new things about it--that's one of its biggest draws.

 

The upside down castle in particular never bothered me because it did pose a much greater challenge than the standard castle. I can't even begin to count the amount of times I died at the spike crusher things littered all over the inverted Marble Gallery, or at the Galamoth boss. Sure, I can breeze through it now, but in the '90s some parts gave me trouble.

[Zap!]

I'll be the outlier here. While there's a lot to like about the game, I didn't like that you had to play it all over again through the reverse castle to get the ending. It felt cheap and frustrating. I thought the reverse castle was clever when I first saw it, but quit playing about a third of the way through and never picked it up again. It felt like "Well, the game's not long enough, let's make them play through twice! Then we can say 10 hours of gameplay" or something.

 

I would have to agree. I never liked it when games make you go through the entire game twice, although the second quest does have much more variety than in say Ghosts and Goblins.

[Reaperman]

Maria's not available in playstation version, and Richter's not available as an option from the start. Those aren't the case in the saturn version, of course, but alucard's unplayable to english speakers in that one.

Its radical departure from castlevania gameplay disappointed me at first. SOTN is paced far differently than what I was expecting, being a bit of a plodding backtracker. Castlevania III is still my favorite, and I'd hoped SOTN's focus on Alucard meant a return to CV3 from the 16-bit games on genesis/snes that I didn't care as much for. SOTN ended up unfortunately splitting the franchise in a way that a significant portion of new castlevanias are just vastly inferior copies of SOTN. Combine that with the fully-3d ones that keep popping up, and we get very few games of the traditional playstyle. SOTN was a great game, one of the best castlevanias, but I don't think its impact on the franchise has been very positive.

 

I will also mention that I bought it as my very first playstation game, and initially found its sparse use of the system's hardware capabilities highly disappointing. So much so that I put it down for a good while, and had to go out and buy a couple flashier games to feel like I had just upgraded to the right console generation. IIRC I got armored core and one of the jet moto games (jm2?)--both much better choices for a flashy playstation game.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Reaperman

[Eltigro]

Sometimes I like when old topics are revived... and I'm reading through and suddenly find that I replied to it long ago.

 

I still think SotN is one of the best Castlevania games (not a controversial opinion). I played through it again not too long ago on the PSP.

[Zap!]

Sometimes I like when old topics are revived... and I'm reading through and suddenly find that I replied to it long ago.

 

I still think SotN is one of the best Castlevania games (not a controversial opinion). I played through it again not too long ago on the PSP.

 

2017 is nothing to me. I've been known to bump 15 year old topics if necessary haha. Some can't stand me for it, because it's not against any rules and they can't do anything about it.

[Mclaneinc]

SOTN is just a superb game, its sounds great, plays superbly and just is a delight...

 

Any one saying otherwise should be burned at the stake....Just like Dracula!

 

Pah...Mere humans...

[Eltigro]

 

2017 is nothing to me. I've been known to bump 15 year old topics if necessary haha. Some can't stand me for it, because it's not against any rules and they can't do anything about it.

 

Oh yeah... I've seen some super old necrobumps or whatever they call them... It's just funny that I completely forgot about commenting on this and then, as I'm reading along, I'm kinda composing what I would say... then saw my post and it was pretty much what I was thinking. So two years on, my opinion hasn't really changed much.

 

And as far as bumping old posts go, I think as someone is adding something to the conversation, or asking a new question, I think it's fine. It could even mean that someone is using the search like they should!

[Zap!]

 

Oh yeah... I've seen some super old necrobumps or whatever they call them... It's just funny that I completely forgot about commenting on this and then, as I'm reading along, I'm kinda composing what I would say... then saw my post and it was pretty much what I was thinking. So two years on, my opinion hasn't really changed much.

 

And as far as bumping old posts go, I think as someone is adding something to the conversation, or asking a new question, I think it's fine. It could even mean that someone is using the search like they should!

 

Definitely true. Plus I think that by bumping this thread, I added to a fine topic of conversation.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Nothing.

Having had two years to reflect on the subject, there are actually two things I dislike about Symphony of the Night.

 

1. It's bloody expensive. Even the Greatest Hits release on the PlayStation is going for $64 and up right now.

 

2. It hasn't been ported to the Nintendo Switch yet.

 

 

Other than that, no complaints. It's still my favorite game in the entire Castlevania series and I feel like no other Castlevania game has ever managed to top it's aesthetic, pacing, character design, difficulty curve, soundtrack, story and any other details I might have forgotten to mention. It's just the perfect Castlevania game in my opinion, and I sure need to get another copy someday since my last one was lost in a big unemployment collection purge many years ago.

 

 

Castlevania III is still my favorite, and I'd hoped SOTN's focus on Alucard meant a return to CV3 from the 16-bit games on genesis/snes that I didn't care as much for.

Have you played Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon yet? Because if you haven't then it's the Castlevania III sequel you've waited all these years for.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Jin

[derFunkenstein]

It ends.

Two years later and this is still the worst thing about the game. I haven't found anything else.

[NE146]

 

Oh yeah... I've seen some super old necrobumps or whatever they call them... It's just funny that I completely forgot about commenting on this and then, as I'm reading along, I'm kinda composing what I would say... then saw my post and it was pretty much what I was thinking. So two years on, my opinion hasn't really changed much.

 

And as far as bumping old posts go, I think as someone is adding something to the conversation, or asking a new question, I think it's fine. It could even mean that someone is using the search like they should!

 

Well what I find weird about this forum software is if I click "My Content", this thread doesn't even show up despite participating in it (albeit years ago), and it having new content.

[Newsdee]

I would have to agree. I never liked it when games make you go through the entire game twice, although the second quest does have much more variety than in say Ghosts and Goblins.

The inverted castle blew my mind. Especially since I thought I was finishing the game. It didn't feel like backtracking to me, but rather an interesting way to make the game richer. They did change enemies and bosses if I remember correctly.

 

In fact I suspect it may be another map altogether, but they created it by inverting the original one. Not sure. What I mean is that it's not some lazy programming trick, they visibly put effort in it.

 

The only other time I was so pleasantly suprised was Infinite Space. I didnt know from reviews the game was so much longer than it seemed.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Newsdee

[Lord Thag]

The inverted castle blew my mind. Especially since I thought I was finishing the game. It didn't feel like backtracking to me, but rather an interesting way to make the game richer. They did change enemies and bosses if I remember correctly.

 

In fact I suspect it may be another map altogether, but they created it by inverting the original one. Not sure. What I mean is that it's not some lazy programming trick, they visibly put effort in it.

 

The only other time I was so pleasantly suprised was Infinite Space. I didnt know from reviews the game was so much longer than it seemed.

Yeah, nice to see Infinite Space mentioned. That was an amazing, out of nowhere game that few remember now.

I also like all the weird/glitched/hidden stuff in SOTN like the hidden area off to the left of the first hub. Hard to access, but cool that it's there.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

The inverted castle blew my mind. Especially since I thought I was finishing the game. It didn't feel like backtracking to me, but rather an interesting way to make the game richer. They did change enemies and bosses if I remember correctly.

In fact I suspect it may be another map altogether, but they created it by inverting the original one. Not sure. What I mean is that it's not some lazy programming trick, they visibly put effort in it.

The only other time I was so pleasantly suprised was Infinite Space. I didnt know from reviews the game was so much longer than it seemed.

Same here, the inverted castle is one of my favorite parts of the game on account of all the new enemies, weapons, and armor to find. Another game that blew my mind in the same kinda way was Ōkami. Just when I thought I had beaten the game the developers were like, "Nope! That was only half the story, now it's time for part two." A very good thing in my opinion, since I really didn't want the game to be over yet.

[Tanooki]

I didn't hate the inverted castle at all, it was kind of clever. Though there was a variation of it that bugged me so badly I had to put the game down and come back to it notably later doing a total restart as the implementation was just kind of fubar and that was Harmony of Dissonance on the GBA. They have not a mirror but a phased effect of a similar but not with unique spaces castle A and B you need to try and navigate seamlessly and it doesn't work out so well like that.

 

The only thing I disliked about SOTN was SOTN being the fan favorite. Back when I worked at Midway in 2001 a former Sega employee was brought on and in our team, he was kind of pissed at them at the time as they were doing some pretty rotten stuff to employees so he wanted to dump his gear and I ended up with his Saturn (didn't pop for the 32X.) One of the first games I ended up getting my hand son was Nocturne in the Moonlight, the larger version of SOTN with the added full area and boss, and it had other expanded spaces on the existing castle. People always wanted to dump on it because saturn had slightly longer load times and no transparency, but I think it made up for it having access to Maria and Richter to play and the added content. SOTN just never sat right with me as it felt like the lesser smaller title even if they're mostly the same. i'm not sorry, but transparency and load times don't make a game better.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Tanooki