This Week In Retro: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Patreon)

March 20, 1997: This column is a creature of chaos

by Diamond Feit

From a literal timeline perspective, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is now 25 years old. From a video game design perspective, Symphony of the Night feels like a treasure chest sent backwards through the ages, a preview of what video games would become in the future. It's akin to a circular time loop: Imagine if a mad genius created the perfect video game and quietly released it decades earlier, just so fans could grow up playing it and craft loving homages to their childhood favorite once they reach adulthood and become game designers themselves.

I don't think I'm speaking out of turn when I say Symphony of the Night is perfect. I thought about it in the shower this morning while debating how to write about something I love this much, and one idea I came up with was "what if I list everything I don't like about it for a change." Try as I might, I couldn't even think of two things, and one thing (the magic commands are too finicky) is hardly a list.

So to commemorate this anniversary, I'm going to recall every time I bought a copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and reflect on how I reacted to it at that time. But enough talk, have at you!

1997, PlayStation 1

I am a clerk at Software Etc in the White Plains Galleria. It's hardly my dream job (the Galleria is quite far from my childhood home, and 50 cents of my meager hourly salary goes towards parking) but spending time surrounded by video games has made my summer a rewarding one. Not only do I receive a sizable 25% employee discount on software I want to buy, I can take home any game to play for free so long as I return it the next day. Does that make any product I borrow and open a "used" game? Not according to management, it doesn't.

Reading about Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in magazines has gotten me excited to revisit the series; Super Castlevania IV came out six years earlier and while I played it repeatedly, I had sold my Super Nintendo long ago to upgrade to a 32-bit console. I cannot see or hear the game in motion thanks to my limited internet access (not that YouTube even existed yet), but everyone who writes about the brand-new Castlevania is impressed by its revolutionary changes: The hero isn't a Belmont, he never uses a whip, and the castle is one giant level rather than a series of linear stages.

One of my most vocal coworkers does not share my enthusiasm for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. In his eyes, no one should have to settle for 2D graphics in 1997. That's like a throwback to ancient times, as if I was buying a brand-new Atari 2600 game. As he succinctly put it, many times, much to my irritation: "It looks like poo."

Symphony of the Night does not look like poo; it is exquisite to both the eyes and the ears, with animations aplenty for every single monster in the game. In previous generations, slain Castlevania enemies would disappear into a small puff of flame. In Symphony of the Night, giant wolves cry out in pain, massive skulls shatter into pieces, and zombies burst into fountains of blood. Dracula's Castle is just as gorgeous, with distinctive decorations giving each sector a unique flavor.

I'm not saying that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night alone convinced me that two-dimensional pixel art would never truly go out of style, but playing it for the first time (even in contrast to the excellent Final Fantasy VII) brings me an immense amount of joy. I enjoy it so much, I will be a little disappointed that the next Castlevania game on the PlayStation plays nothing like it.

2002, PlayStation 1

A lot has changed in the world since I last rampaged through Transylvania. I'm now in my fifth year working for the United States Postal Service, surrounded by older adults who look at my video game habits with the fiercest derision. All I want is to unwind with a classic JRPG during lunch without hearing sneers, but my grizzled coworkers disagree.

Even though I own a NEO•GEO, a GameCube, a PlayStation 2, and a Dreamcast at home, I am increasingly spending time gaming on my PC and exploring the world of emulation. In particular, the ongoing development and research into emulating PlayStation games intrigues me; it's one thing to revisit old NES and SNES titles with save states, but messing with a recent game on a disc sounds like pure sorcery.

I can think of no better candidate for testing a PS1 emulator than Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but I am horrified to discover I no longer own a copy. I must have traded it in at Babbage's for a newer, bigger game. At my earliest opportunity (quite possibly the same day I discovered my 1997 copy was gone) I rush to the nearest shopping mall and grab the "greatest hits" version for a song.

Speaking of "song," on a separate but no less essential trip to New York City, I purchase the complete Symphony of the Night soundtrack at a Book Off in Manhattan. Every Castlevania game has had excellent music choices, always making the most of hardware limitations, but Symphony of the Night has an entire compact disc's worth of killer tracks to groove to. The only dud on the album is a Kenny G-esque ballad that plays over the closing credits, "I Am The Wind," though it's perfectly acceptable if you dig that vibe (on par with the infamous light jazz of Marvel vs Capcom 2).

The soundtrack is so good, I bring it to work and play it in the office CD player after the bulk of the staff heads out to deliver the mail. Whenever I'm working the window and using Michiru Yamane's masterful score to make the day pass quicker, multiple customers ask me about what's playing. They are always surprised when I say it's from a video game, and they never, ever object to "I Am The Wind."

2008, プレイステーション１

It's already been a year since I packed up all my belongings, moved to Japan, and got married (why do one major life change when you can do three at the same time). Life in Osaka is fun: My apartment is within spitting distance from a train station and I can be in the heart of the city within an hour. One of my frequent destinations is Den Den Town, our local version of Tokyo's Akihabara. It's nowhere near the size of the capital's electronics district, but it has more takoyaki stands so I think we end up with the better deal.

Inside one of the many shops located around Den Den Town, I pick up a Japanese copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, look at the front and back, and make a snap decision to take it home. The game is already a decade old at this point, but I haven't forgotten how much I adore it. Besides, if I am willing to spend good money on novelty beverages and limited-time McDonald's burgers, I can extend my favorite video game the same courtesy.

I won't find time to play it until 2009 when I pop it in my PlayStation 3 and discover it completely holds up. Since I last visited the Count seven years earlier, the Castlevania series thrived on Nintendo handheld consoles, and I played them all. Yet Symphony of the Night doesn't feel like those games because Alucard is not Juste Belmont, Soma Cruz, or any of the other human protagonists to take on Dracula. He's Dracula's (only?) son, and the tragedy of patricide is inexorably stitched into the game itself. In that regard, the chill ending music makes more sense: Killing your father and destroying your childhood home is no victory, even if it is the just thing to do.

As a budding game journalist, I write about my experience revisiting Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on Bitmob, a community-driven writing portal that will not last more than a few years. Fortunately, my words endure on the internet for now—just ignore the wrong name in my byline.

2011, Xbox LIVE Arcade

I never owned an original Xbox, so I saw no reason to get a 360 at launch, but a few years into the HD generation I find myself drawn to Microsoft's console due to its vast digital offerings. I have already spent more time playing downloadable titles on my PlayStation 3 than any disc-based games, and the selection on Xbox LIVE Arcade is even better! As a bonus, the console isn't popular in Japan, so imported titles are dirt cheap. With no more excuses, I buy my 360 in 2009 and slowly make my way through the exclusives.

When a sale drops the price of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to a mere $5 (or whatever the Microsoft Points equivalent is), I am unable to resist the chance to play it on a new console, knowing full well that this playthrough will include the added thrill of earning achievements. Most of them are routine story-based feats that I would complete regardless of platform, but a few rewards are tied to unusual tactics like killing consecutive enemies without taking hits. I unlock them all, making Symphony of the Night one of the few 100% games in my Xbox library.

The hardest achievement of the bunch by far is beating the game as Richter due to his lack of character growth or healing items. This isn't much of an issue in the first castle as Richter enters Dracula's lair overpowered compared to the inhabitants. Once he runs through the throne room and enters the inverted castle, however, everything changes. Ritcher gets an automatic attack bonus but the enemies deal more damage than ever. I only manage to survive by carefully plotting the fastest possible route and saving at every opportunity. Ironically, the last boss is a pushover because Ritcher's Hydro Storm wipes him out immediately. You can't kill a vampire hunter if you're already soaked with holy water.

Xbox d-pad issues aside, the XBLA port is flawless. By this point a few indie games are showing their fondness for the "Metroidvania" formula, so Castlevania: Symphony of the Night feels as fresh as ever despite its age. There's even an unexpected advantage this port has over the original game:

"I Am The Wind" no longer plays over the closing credits. Again, no disrespect to Cynthia Harrell, but I'm not an easy listening fan and it's the only downer in the entire soundtrack.

2019, PlayStation 4

At long last, I am officially a Retronaut. I don't have a weekly column (yet) but I have carte blanche to write for the website because Jeremy Parish believes in me, a wonderful vote of confidence from a person I admire. So when Konami surprises the world by announcing Castlevania Requiem, a bundle of Symphony of the Night and its predecessor Rondo of Blood for the PlayStation 4, I react to this news with excitement at first. With no way to play PS1 classics on PS4, this would be my chance to bring the game to the biggest screen in my home—with a second excellent game included!

The reveal comes with a twist, however, when Requiem turns out to be a high-res overhaul of The Dracula X Chronicles, a PSP port of Rondo of Blood that included an unlockable remastered version of Symphony of the Night. The bulk of the game is the same, but Dracula X Chronicles and Requiem do allow players to choose between English and Japanese dialogue options, add Maria as a playable character, and restore a few of Alucard's companions that were cut from the overseas PS1 version in 1997. "I Am The Wind" remains on the outs, for better or for worse.

Resurrecting deleted material and giving players more options sounds like a net positive, but there is a nasty catch: The English script and voices were all rewritten and re-recorded with new actors. For all its glory, the localization of Symphony of the Night has always raised a few eyebrows for its wild divergence from the original Japanese dialogue and hammy English acting. I never considered it "bad" (it is certainly leagues better than most games from the 1990s) but it isn't on par with the level of performances we hear today.

In my opinion, if you're going to overhaul a piece of art, any changes you make should be for the better. Is a more "accurate" translation better than a creative localization? Are more established professionals better than the original voices? In both cases, I say no; 1997's Symphony of the Night is quotable and memorable, but the lines in Dracula X Chronicles and Requiem are instantly forgettable.

I write all these feelings on Retronauts.com in October of 2018 just as Castlevania Requiem hits the PlayStation Store, admitting in the piece that no matter how concerned I am by the edits made to my favorite video game, I might buy it someday just because I'm an addict who can't help myself. Sure enough, I buy it on sale less than a year later and earn every trophy I can for Symphony of the Night. To do so, I need to clear a few challenges I never fulfilled back in the 1990s like eating a tossed peanut or finding the super-secret-hyper sword. Do I miss the original dialogue? Yes. Is the game still a masterpiece? Also yes.

Reflecting on my 25-year relationship with Symphony of the Night, it is shocking how little my opinions have changed. I am a completely different person in 2022 than I was in 1997, 2002, 2008, 2011, or even 2019. Yet nothing about Symphony of the Night has soured in my eyes during all this time. There are plenty of movies, TV shows, and albums that I loved in my youth which no longer entertain me—a completely normal fact of life—but no matter how many times I purchase and replay Symphony of the Night it hooks me without fail.

If Konami announced a Switch port, I'd almost certainly buy it. If it appeared on the PC (and the bastards don't region lock it), I would definitely buy it. If Symphony of the Night makes its way to an as-yet-unknown video game console thirteen years from now, I will very likely buy it. If my grandchildren ask me what video games were like in the 20th century, I will dig out whatever copy of Symphony of the Night I still own on any future platform and show it to them, because if I haven't gotten my fill of this game in the last 25 years, another 25 won't make a damn bit of difference.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.