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24 hour exclusive - The World Design of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Patreon)

Published:
2018-11-14 15:11:06
Imported:
2020-03

Content

Hello!

Sorry for the delay on this one. 

I actually took a week off work. My first full week off  since starting GMTK full time in 2017! I played Red Dead Redemption 2 and Return of the Obra Dinn, baked a tart, went to a fireworks show, passed my driving test, watched scary movies on Halloween, and generally had a good time.

And also, man, these Boss Keys episodes sure take a long time! I have to play the game through at least twice, capture the entire game, sum up the experience in a pithy video, and make all sorts of graphs and maps and stuff.

But anyway, it's here. Hope you enjoy it. Gonna take a bit of a break from Boss Keys and focus on other series for a while, but will be back with Metroid Prime in the new year.

Ta-ra!

Mark

Files

The World Design of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night | Boss Keys

There’s a reason why we call these games “Metroidvanias”. After a bunch of largely linear games, Castlevania opened its doors for exploration in 1997’s PlayStation classic, Symphony of the Night. In this video, we look at how it’s world design works, as we learn what it means to make a good Metroidvania. Abilitease from https://www.giantbomb.com/abilitease/3015-57/

Comments

Anonymous

(I also put this comment on Youtube, but I expect it to get buried immediately when the episode goes public.)

Anonymous

Maybe it's just a preference thing, but while I understand your criticisms I don't personally agree with them. Maybe it's just because I've beaten the game several times and I know the mechanics really well, but I really enjoy how the world is laid out and what it allows you to do. I like that it's a game that allows you to make your own path through the world, and isn't afraid to let you fail as so many games are. Even when you go down a dead end and 'waste' 15 minutes you've still become stronger for it and learned more about the castle, so it's still progress in a way. Even if you wander down every path you can that isn't the correct one, it has a purpose and the game doesn't tell you that it was all pointless, because you'll probably come back there later. I also love that it's possible to skip around and sequence break a whole lot in Symphony, using tricks such as jump-kicking you can get up into the clocktower early and do things out of order, which lends some variety to replays if you know how to do it. Then there's the inverted castle, which doesn't last nearly as long as the first 'half' of the game considering you already know the layout and have all the powers you need to traverse it, and is really impressive from a technical standpoint that they built every single room in the game to work equally well upside-down as rightside-up. The inverted castle feels more like a victory lap to me than anything else, because all of the skills you've learned, gear you've acquired, and powers you've found now blend together seamlessly and let you truly handle it however you choose to and much more quickly than the normal castle. Like I said, perhaps I just have different preferences and more experience with the game, but while I understand your criticisms they don't land for me personally. Great video though. Oh yeah, and where was the dependency chart?

Chad Serrant

Nice Shaft cameo, haha!

Anonymous

This is great! I confess, I know it would only add to the already hefty workload you have for this series, but I rather miss the charts.

Anonymous

I'm also the kind of person that has played this game a lot. I replay it at least once every year. I really like the analysis and would have to agree on most of what was said. My only observation is about the statues path in the clock tower. Usually it stays opens for one minute and closed for another minute, but there is an esception to this. The first time you traverse that area you are always greeted with the first cutscene with Maria. And while the mechanism to open that statue is related to your playtime, it won't apply on this first visit. While you are on this first visit the statue path will always be closed during the cutscene, but as soon as the cutscene ends (and before you get to control again Alucard) the game plays the animation of the statue opening its path accompanied with its distinctive loud noise. I can't really say because the game stopped being a new experience to me a long time ago, but my impression is that the first thing to do after watching that statue opening is to try and jump on its path until you realize you can't. If you stay long enough you can see the statue closing again, but regardless of that you have the memory that there is a path there that you still can't go to. Now, connecting the dots to see it is related to time is a different story. The only thing to say is to realize it is on a clock themed area with sound emphasis on the time passing. And maybe, if you are really observing, you can note that when the statue opens/close is the exact same time the minute hand in the clock moves. As an extra note. The clock in that room is accurate and keeps track of you play time assuming you started at midnight. Pause the game and see your recorded playtime matching the time in the clock.

JC

THANK YOU!! Long before I became a patron, I was hoping you would do a video on SotN. While on your channel you mention so many other games that are "Metroidvanias" in their design, and indeed have several videos dedicated specifically to the Metroid franchise, the "-vania" part has been more or less neglected so far. So I'm really happy you got around to doing a video exclusively on Castlevania. This makes me very happy.

Anonymous

'Grats on passing your driving test! Your break sounds lovely. Friendly reminder: you're allowed to have some time off like that. Keep taking care of yourself, I'm sure your patrons will understand. Also, hey, great vid! :D

Anonymous

Absolutely love me some Castlevania. Really enjoyed the Boss Keys episode and mostly agreed with your take on the game's sense of progression. I think the game was a bit too nebulous at points in terms of where to go/what to do, but future games refined the process a quite a bit. On that note, I'd love to see you tackle through the rest of the the non-linear CV games, Boss Keys style. I know they take a lot of work to make, but just a personal request. Cheers!