Review: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night(XBLA)

Genre: Action/Adventure, minor role playing mechanics
Rating: Teen - mild violence, blood

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is an action and adventure game wherein the player takes the reigns of Alucard, the half vampire, half human, son of Dracula. Get it ALUCARD - DRACULA. Alucard must explore Dracula’s newly resurrected castle and destroy it before the evil powers can resurrect Dracula himself.

As you explore the castle you gain new weapons, abilities, and items that open up new areas of the castle to explore. The combat is basic and consists of repeatedly attacking enemies until they die. This doesn’t get boring though because as you defeat enemies you gain experience and will level up your basic stats with enough enemy kills. While the combat is simple the enemies themselves can be quite powerful. Boss fights and later levels of the game push out enemies that can kill Alucard in a few hits. You will need to plan ahead and level up quite a bit if your hopes are to defeat every enemy in the game.

The most compelling part of C:SotN is exploring every nook and cranny of the castle. What makes this even more fun is that there are two castles, the one you enter at the beginning of the game and an upside down version of that castle that is unlocked after you defeat a certain enemy. Working your way from place to place can take a seriously large amount of time. As you explore the games map fills in where you have been. You will learn to rely on the map for most of the game or you will get lost more often than not. Backtracking is another big part of Castlevania. Nearly every area of the game world has secrets to be found. When you first enter an area these items might be impossible to acquire with your current set of abilities, but with some extra searching of the castle you can find those abilities and then return to claim what you missed.

With all that being said C:SotN does have one negative aspect about it. The game is extremely vague at times at what the player is supposed to do next. You will get lost and stuck numerous times throughout the adventure without the help of a strategy guide. I guess if you have the patience then this wouldn’t be a big problem but if you want to complete the game at the maximum allowed 200.6% and see all of the multiple endings then you will need to devote a lot time to this game doing nothing but searching around.

C:SotN is a port of the original Playstation game that came out in 1997. The Live Arcade price is $10 and it is well worth that if you have not ever played this game before. If you already have the game don’t expect to find anything of actual value in buying this off of the Arcade. No new areas have been added nor are there any new enemies or items to find.

Graphics - 8…artistic 2D graphics, distinct character, enemy, and level designs, some slowdown and jagged edges

Sound - 9…score sets the perfect mood of being in Dracula’s castle, each area has a great theme to hum along to, cheesy character voices

Gameplay - 8…holds up well despite it’s age, massive castle to explore, high difficulty level keeps things fresh and challenging, very vague at points

Value - 9…the best 2D action/adventure game ever, multiple endings and two castles will keep you playing for hours, at $10 it is one of the few X-Box 360 Live Arcade games worth buying

Overall - 8…if you have never played this then you owe it to yourself to delve into the best Castlevania game around