Absolutely a must have.
You are Dracula’s son Alucard trying to discover why your fathers castle has reappeared so soon before its proper time. In your travels you discover that the famous vampire hunter Richter Belmont has declared himself lord of the castle and you set out to do what ever is necessary to put an end to your fathers castle and anyone trying to bring him back into the world.
Game Play:
I will be the first to admit I never really liked the Castlevania games. It is not that they didn’t look decent because they were always at or near the top of what was possible during their eras . When Symphony of the night came out though it blew me away. This game is almost more of a piece of art than a game. All of the story progression is handled in game by very well animated sprites. The sound track is all CD quality (since it was playing off a cd it is kind of a no brainier) but it was the first game I ever played that made me think “God, I need to get this sound track”.
Where as the other Castlevanias were pretty much straightforward kill the boss proceed to the next one until you finally kill Dracula this one had enough game to really sink your teeth into. Infact if you did just play it strait through and kill all the bosses in standard fashion you would only get through half of the game. By uing an item you find in your fight with Richter you get to go to the second half of the game and finaly get to the true boss. The upside down castle had what seemed like the largest bosses I had ever seen at the time. I giant rotting corpse hanging from a ceiling, a lightning beast, and more all awaited you there.
As far as I know this was the first Castlevania game with any kind of stat building in it. Perhaps that si what I like about it, it is more of a thinking mans plat former, being prepared for an encounter is almost more important than just raw skill.
Rather than being stuck with just your trusty and effective (but boring) whip you had an entire arsenal available for the taking. I have spent days on end trying to get all of them and some still evade me to this day. Also you can transform into three other forms. A bat for flight, A wolf for speed, and fog for fitting through tight spaces and gratings. Even these forms are upgradeable.
Controls:
This is the game that I judge all games against as far as controls go. No hesitation, when you jump you don’t have to strain your self worrying about falling to your death due to miss judging your jumps, it just works almost like it is an extension of your self, which really is as it should be.
Summary:
In short, if you still have and play a Playstation one, this is defiantly a worthy addition to anyone’s collection.