Topic: My Thoughts on the Sega Saturn Version of Symphony of the Night

[ForgemasterWolf]

   So I finally got around to actually playing the Sega Saturn version of Symphony of the Night, I’ve heard it said that this version is better and they want the content from it in the newer versions, while others call it horrid. I played the original version Saturn version, not the 4M hack with improvements or the patch that ports the original PSX English into it on Mednafen 1.31.0.

   But now that I’ve played it and seen what it has to offer it felt quite weird, the performance is bad, but some of the new items are alright, specifically the Glaring Cloth was cool, due to it making all the annoying enemies like the Chonchons trivial. The Godspeed Shoes are pretty cool, even though it just skips the beginning part of the walking animation and increased the speed of the animation, I liked it, going fast is always good.

   The music within the new areas is cool, makes me wish the inverted castle got better music instead of it being Finale Toccata and Lost Paintings over and over and over again. After doing some digging on TCRF and such I found out most of extra content was just cut content from original release, all though I am not sure if the level design of the Underground Garden is the same as the original plans or not and I found nothing about the prison being planned.

   The enjoyable stuff aside, I honestly felt the extra levels were just boring and they were just 2 to 3 short hallways, then there’s the bad performance and overall gameplay being the slowest out of all ports, even without the frame drops makes it feel annoying. Let’s also not forget the 2 seconds it takes to pause and the other 2 to open the map and the stretched graphics.

   But even with all that, it’s still Symphony of the Night, it’s like someone makes a sandwich you really like but you find out they burned the meat and tried to hide it by throwing some spicy stuff on it. Reading the dev notes included in a Word file inside the game disc makes me heartbroken to be honest to see that the small team was really trying to do the best they can, but they just didn’t have the time or resources to do so.

   Overall I think the port is worth playing if you are extremely invested in the series, but with the game discs being rare and expensive, disc rot being a serious thing on Saturn games and Saturn emulation not being exactly beginner friendly, I can see why most people would avoid it like the plague on top of the already that existing issues within the port.

[X]

I honestly wouldn't mind trying the Saturn version if I ever got my hands on it. IGA had a rare opportunity to implement the Saturn version bits when he was doing the Dracula X Chronicles. The extra stages could've been greatly expanded upon and in some cases, done differently. The extra music for these unused areas isn't bad and in some cases could've been used in the DXC version so that this: instead of it being Finale Toccata and Lost Paintings over and over and over again. could've been avoided, lol. And the ridiculous/goofy-looking enemies could have been changed up a bit to make them less-so. We did get the items/familiar cards plus Maria mode so it wasn't all left out. Although Maria is seriously under-powered and her boasted magical abilities were removed/changed which kinda sucks. I get that they wanted her to resemble her Rondo counterpart, but she was nerffed down quite a bit. This makes her playable to those who don't mind a tough challenge (which was probably the intent).

[Dongled]

Honestly, I think people boasting about the Saturn port are just Sega fanboys. Yes, Sega's version has additional content not in the original game but man, it's rough playing the Saturn port. It's just...not good. I have the 4MB version with the english hack via a repro I bought and it's neat to have it in my collection but not the definitive way to play the game IMO.

[nokundhi]

It's very disappointing that they didn't even bother to touch up the rest of the Saturn content for the DXC release.

[zangetsu468]

Honestly, I think people boasting about the Saturn port are just Sega fanboys. Yes, Sega's version has additional content not in the original game but man, it's rough playing the Saturn port. It's just...not good. I have the 4MB version with the english hack via a repro I bought and it's neat to have it in my collection but not the definitive way to play the game IMO.

I can attest to the Sega fanboying element being a myth imho and from my perspective. I never purchased a SS until years later and I purchased it primarily for Guardian Heroes (not for any specific love of Sega or the console).

In relation to OP’s post, there are several elements that make the SS version the superior version imho:

- The OST is more extensive (Richter and Maria having their own opening Castle themes) and the inverted prison’s theme is great.
- The audio quality is louder and noticeably better.
- Characters: Maria & Richter are playable from the start & Richter actually has his SOTN artwork outfit. 
- The navigation through the prison cuts significant travel time out of traversing the centre of the castle.
- Most important of all: The SS controller, it defecates all over the PSX controller as a way of playing this game.

Do the above pro’s outweigh the con’s of the slowdown and reduced visual effects - Yes imho.

[EstebanT]

That's so crazy that people still defend this garbage port after all these years.

[BLOOD MONKEY]

The only worthy additions are the Godspeed Boots, maria, and the idea of the underground garden/cursed prison. in execution the garden and cursed prison both fail kinda hard though.

all of the new content and artwork is amateur work at best, downright horrendous pixel art at worst. "richter has his sotn artwork outfit" is the worst pro to list here as it's worse than anything you'd see in a fangame.  it's a disrespectful portrayal of symphony of the night.

that said, i'm glad some people still enjoy it. it's definitely a very intriguing addition and i'm not mad at the fact that it exists, just sad that it's not anywhere near as good as it should've been.

oh and the extra hand is a neat idea too. should be ported back to the playstation and use that extra button.

[Dracula9]

a ten foot skeleton in a purple wig throwing dynamite > everything objectively better in the original psx release

[mgfcortez]

I played NITM a few years back on my shield, I had to use save states because at anytime the game would seem to crash and I'd have to reset the whole thing to start again. the new areas were cool, but wasn't much to them, plus my favorite part in playing SOTN is the voice work. same reason I hate the DXC version, you replaced Alucard's voice with a little boy, hey old man! lol WTH trash IMHO, anyway the game could had been much better but I do hear people have worked on it and improved many of the slow downs and the sprite stretched problems. and even got English text now, so might play it again. but psx is the best way to play it.

on a side note. does anyone thing the voice files could be replace? with all the cloning of Alucard and putting him and Dracula's DXC voice into Castlevania Arcade, it would be very cool to redub the Japanese script in English with the English cast and put it in the SS game lol probably not possible though, if anyone knows if it could be done let me know. thanks. 
 

[PFG9000]

I've never made a big fuss over game performance.  And loving SotN for so many years, I assumed the Saturn port's extras would be the bee's knees.  Boy was I wrong.  Part of the joy of SotN on the Playstation is its silky smooth movement, the grace of the animations, the gorgeous graphics, etc.  Those are all compromised in the Saturn port, and that ruins the experience for me.  I've put an hour or two into it, but have yet to finish it.

[Abnormal Freak]

It's a crap port, quite honestly. Fired it up three times over the span of a few years (from the beginning, for some insane reason) and couldn't bring myself to finish it any of those times. The biggest problem is how slow it is to check the map: pause, wait a few seconds, hit select, wait a few more seconds, back out, wait a few seconds; repeat. For a game where you want to reference the map frequently to make sure you've uncovered everything, this really breaks it.

The added areas don't add anything special, few of the new sprites look decent, the exclusive music sounds bad. Maria mode is kinda cool, that's about it. That and it just doesn't feel like a complete package. Like PFG said, part of what makes SOTN so good is its smoothness—excellent graphics, great sound, and mostly rock-solid performance. I can forgive the Saturn version not having transparent layers, and even its uneven pixels/goofed up aspect ratio, but it feels sloppy in just about every way compared to the PSX original. Don't like it. But I will finish it one day just because I own it and I ought to. For science.

[mgfcortez]

It's a crap port, quite honestly. Fired it up three times over the span of a few years (from the beginning, for some insane reason) and couldn't bring myself to finish it any of those times. The biggest problem is how slow it is to check the map: pause, wait a few seconds, hit select, wait a few more seconds, back out, wait a few seconds; repeat. For a game where you want to reference the map frequently to make sure you've uncovered everything, this really breaks it.

The added areas don't add anything special, few of the new sprites look decent, the exclusive music sounds bad. Maria mode is kinda cool, that's about it. That and it just doesn't feel like a complete package. Like PFG said, part of what makes SOTN so good is its smoothness—excellent graphics, great sound, and mostly rock-solid performance. I can forgive the Saturn version not having transparent layers, and even its uneven pixels/goofed up aspect ratio, but it feels sloppy in just about every way compared to the PSX original. Don't like it. But I will finish it one day just because I own it and I ought to. For science.

well I did finish it not 100 but I went through both castles. I'm not 100% NITM, I hardly even used the map at all. plus it was a pain to remember to save state every few minutes because I knew it would freeze up any minute. I must have reset it 20 times to finish the game. truly I didn't enjoy it too much. being I couldn't understand the Japanese text and the Japanese voices aren't my thing. so truly I don't think I will play it again. and if I do it may just be to go to the garden or prison just for the fun of it lol


on a brighter note. I found out you can actually replace the voice and music files in the PSP version of SOTN. so DXC may become my favorite version after I put the work into editing the AT3 files. 
if only I could clone SOTN Dracula and Death. way too little audio to clone their voices. but have been able to clone Richter and Maria a bit. so if we ever get cloning good enough to use a minute of audio and clone voices, I would love to do the Japanese script. might do the DXC script and just replace Alucard, Richter and Maria and leave Dracula and Death in the iso. anyway I did a test on one line and I got the Die monster, you don't belong in this world. line running. so I know I can do it after just replacing the first AT3 file. only 255 left to go  now just to put the work in and replace them all with the psx voices in the PSP ISO.

[Think Tank]

It's a sub-par product for sure. The new features are of low quality and do not outweigh the numerous flaws. It's like the director's cut of Donnie Darko. It made the film far worse by adding in all that extra crap.

[United_VirusX]

Personally I enjoy playing this port even with the huge amounts of issues it has and tend to play it more then all other versions, would I say its better then the original PSX release or the DxC/Requiem version? nope not at all