User Rating: 8.2 | Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku (PSOne Books) PS
The Castlevania series has conquered a niche in the video game universe that has yet to be challenged. After all, what other action game lets you square off against classic horror movie staples like Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster in the setting of a huge, gothic castle and its surroundings? This has been the Castlevania series’ formula for success throughout its many installments on a variety of different platforms. Out of these nearly two dozen iterations, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (SOTN) for the Playstation has garnered the greatest amount of praise, so much in fact that it is often labeled as the best 2D side-scroller ever. Having played through it recently, I must say that it is a great game, but its flaws make it fall short of supremacy. As with anything yielding both good and bad news, it’s best to get the worst out of the way, so I’ll start with SOTN’s storyline. The game puts you in the role of Alucard, the conscientious half-human son of Dracula who was last seen as a playable sidekick in Castlevania III. Awakened from what was supposed to be an eternal slumber, Alucard discovers that his wicked father’s lair, Castlevania, has mysteriously reappeared, and he rushes in to defeat him. There, he meets up with young vampire hunter Maria Renard and joins her in her search for Richter Belmont, who defeated Dracula four years prior before he vanished. The whereabouts of Richter and Dracula as well as the mysterious, premature appearance of Castlevania could have made for a good storyline if any of it were interesting at all. The characters are devoid of personality, the one real plot twist is quite predictable, and the few attempts to exploit the fascinating dual nature of Alucard still fail to give any depth to the protagonist. Put bluntly, SOTN’s plot is so dull and uninspired that it makes me wonder why the game’s designers decided to include one in the first place. The other titles in the series have done fine without any deep attempts at plot and dialogue, and it certainly doesn’t help that the voice acting for SOTN’s dialogue sequences is delivered with all the intensity of a junior high drama performance. Fortunately, the game isn’t carried by its storyline, but instead by its outstanding gameplay and presentation for which the Castlevania series is known. For the most part, SOTN remains true to the gameplay and objectives established in previous Castlevania titles. You still smash candlesticks that yield items, use sub-weapons like daggers and throwing axes, and fight a succession of monstrous bosses until you finally face Dracula. However, the game makes some innovative departures from this formula and even implements some new features. The most obvious and affective of these is the addition of several RPG-like elements. Over the course of the game, Alucard will gain levels, equip an assortment of weapons, armor, and accessories, and cast spells that consume magic points. Also, Alucard can eventually transform into a bat, a wolf, or a cloud of mist when he collects special items called relics. There are over two dozen relics in the game, including one that allows you to double-jump and others that summon small sidekicks that will attack enemies and point out secret areas. All of these things are managed through a pretty standard and straight-forward menu screen. The one real problem here is the item management system, or lack of it. There is no way to easily sort out or even drop items in your inventory, which gets pretty annoying in the later parts of the game when you have to sift through scores of cluttered items to find the one you want. This is minor gripe though, and overall these new elements are implemented into the game very well. Another thing worth mentioning is SOTN’s open-ended level design, which can be best described as a blend between Super Metroid and Castlevania II. Using a grid-based map similar to the former, Alucard will travel through several distinct but interconnected areas in Dracula’s castle. This departure from the level-based structure of prior Castlevania installments encourages exploration, and there is quite a bit to be done in this game. Also like Super Metroid, the map doesn’t display any of the several secret areas; you’ll have to backtrack your way through the castle once you gain certain abilities or items needed to find them. Fortunately, the time spent backtracking is cut down by almost a dozen warp zones (for lack of a better term). These rooms, which are scattered throughout the castle, can be used to teleport to different areas as you find more of them. All of these features and elements seamlessly combine to make an extremely solid, well-oiled gameplay machine. The controls, for one, are exceptionally tight. Whether you’re jumping, attacking, or dashing backwards, Alucard’s actions are all very responsive and fluid. The pace of the action in SOTN is also faster and steadier than any other Castlevania game, making the experience all the more enjoyable. As for the difficulty, there really isn’t much. It’s a bit tough at the beginning when you’re first getting acclimated to the control scheme, but once that’s done and you’ve equipped Alucard with some decent wares, it’s smooth sailing from then on. You’ll also die very rarely. Wherever you are in the castle, there’s always a save point around the corner where you can restore your hit points. Some of the bosses are extremely easy as well. I defeated a flying boss just by jumping up and attacking it repeatedly before it had a chance to touch me or even hit the ground. Unfortunately, to compensate for this lack of difficulty, SOTN employs some unsavory gimmicks that make the gameplay a little unbalanced at times. For example, you’ll traipse through an area where all you have to face is a measly skeleton, only to be confronted by swarms of flying armored knights and medusa heads in the next. Needless to say, this provides more annoyance than challenge. All in all though, even these few instances can be forgiven due to the sheer amount of fun it is to play the game. As I mentioned earlier, SOTN continues the Castlevania series’ tradition of remarkable presentation. The visual aspects of the game are very well done. Each of the areas that you’ll encounter within Castlevania has its own distinct look while fitting in with the game’s gothic aesthetic. The animations, especially Alucard’s, are all very fluid and varied. The game makes good use of the PSOne’s hardware in this area, as there can be many enemies on screen at a time without any flicker or slowdown at all. What really stands out though are Ayami Kojima’s excellent character designs and portraits. Her detailed, Romantic vision gives SOTN an original look that raises the bar for the long-running series. The game’s score has also received a lot of praise, and with good cause. The music of SOTN is catchy, tightly arranged, and features some of the best synth heard on the Playstation. The score attempts to comprise a wide breadth of musical styles, but succeeds mostly with the minor-key Baroque compositions that are the series’ mainstay. The ventures outside of this musical realm are handled somewhat less maturely in my opinion. The screeching metal-lite guitars of the more rock-oriented pieces failed to impress me, and a particular muzak-quality jazz fusion track featured a shuffle beat, a horn section, and little else. Yet at the same time, I found myself humming the melodies of these tunes and others in the soundtrack for almost a week after I finished playing it, and they fit well within their respective settings, too. It’s too bad that though the music takes a dive along with everything else during the second castle that’s featured in the game. Unlike the first castle, where each area has its own unique theme, the same four boring tracks are recycled throughout the second one. Even so, there’s still no denying the quality of the production and composition of most of the game’s score. Overall, despite its relatively minor flaws, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is a solid, original platformer that’s a worthy addition to any PSOne collection. Fans of the series will undoubtedly appreciate its combination of classic and new elements. Newcomers will also dig it, as it is probably the most accessible Castlevania game available. I personally don’t think that it’s the über-classic that everyone makes it out to be, but it’s still a good game that sports fun and sometimes really engaging gameplay. If you’re able to find it for a good price, then go for it.
