Topic: I Critique the Perfect Game

[e105beta]

But not that much. It is perfect after all.

Alright, so I just beat Symphony of the Night AGAIN. To nobody's surprise it was fun to play once again, and obviously I enjoyed it, but there were a few key things that REALLY bugged me about the game as I was playing it. Maybe I'm just picky, I don't know, but I'm hoping I can actually get some discussion on this in a thread where it's not being compared to another game and doesn't need to be defended to the death. To that end, I'm going to ram this one down.

YES, I AM JOURNEYING TO THE DEPTHS OF HELL TO ACKNOWLEDGE FLAWS IN CASTLEVANIA SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT!

And yes, it's going to be a rant.

First Off, the Voices.
Maybe I don't appreciate the camp, or maybe I'm just not traditional enough, but my goodness, the voices. Richter's voice was so cheesy and corny I wanted to eat it, Maria sounds 13 years too old and doesn't hold a shred of emotion, Death sounds way too "conniving henchmen" and not enough "Death", Succubus was just bad, and beyond the funny appeal of "What is a man?!" Dracula voice was disappointing. It sounded like he was a nasty old man with a cold. Not the voice of a command lord of darkness.  Shaft's voice was actually decent, and I think they probably should have switched Death's voice with Shaft's.

Alucard's voice was alright. Not the best voice acting by any means, but I enjoyed the "I am super old, but young, yet powerful, so I have a deep commanding voice". I personally prefer the direction they went with his voice in the PSP version, though I can see why someone would like the original better. Can't beat his "DARK METAMORPHOSIS!".

It's not like they were game breakingly bad, but they made me cringe. I liked the PSP voices/lines much better (not that either are the pinnacle of amazing voice acting) and I know people disagree with me on this, so beyond nostalgia factor or camp value, what makes the original voices so much better? I don't see much.


Second, the Difficulty.
This one almost killed the game for me at times. After running through a bunch of the older Castlevania's, no amount of excellent music and art direction, both of which Symphony of the night has in spades, could disguise the fact that this game is just WAY too easy. Almost to the point where it starts becoming boring.

"But beta, Crissaegrim is a really rare drop, and most people wouldn't get it on their first run-through. Try using a weapon most people would be using."

Woah, woah, woah, slow down there partner. Who said anything about Crissaegrim? No, Crissaegrim comes in near the very end of the game, and besides, this game is easy without even touching Crissaegrim. I broke this game with a Flamberge. Yup, just like any random slob who would be playing this game, I broke through a wall in the Clocktower, ran into a room with a cool looking armor enemy and thought "Dude, he must drop a cool sword!" Thus, I killed him until he dropped the Flamberge. From there, it was just a series of obnoxiously powerful weapons powering through a bunch of cool but ultimately super easy bosses, culminating in a seven hit Shaft kill and a mildly amusing Dracula fight.

In a series full of spectacular and sometimes hair-pulling hard boss fights, Symphony of the Night falls completely flat. When I run into a room with a half-octopus, half-cerberus, half-snake, half-woman Greek abomination spewing evil blue skulls at me, I get slightly amped up for a fast and furious boss fight. Well I was a bit low on health, so I tried to pull off a soul steal, but after trying and failing multiple times, I simply killed Scylla in a couple of sword swipes. Wow, who even needed the soul steal? I mean, by the time I reached Death, I was so powerful God should have just declared me the Grim Reaper. Talk about a terrible battle. I think the only thing that ever bothered me where the crows, and that was only until everything started to deal 1 damage to me.

Am I the only one who has encountered this? Am I too good for Symphony of the Night? I hardly believe that's the case. It seems like the only way to get any challenge out of this game is to not play it the way it was meant to be played.

Finally, the Inverted Castle.
Wow, what a great idea! The real Castle was only the first half of the game! Dracula really lies in another copy of the Castle vertically reflected to the one you're currently in!
Well, it's a great idea in theory.
For me, this was my least favorite part of the game. It took me five run-throughs, but I finally realized why the Inverted Castle always irked me. It's IGA, a man with the ability to do things right when he actually tries, at his worst. It's recycling. In fact, it's even worse than recycling.
They took the entire Castle from before, sucked all the life out of it, then said "Hey, if we flip it over, it's like new levels, right?"
Wrong.

One, most of the castle is completely irrelevant. Being the completionist that I am, I made sure to explore everywhere and get all the relics and what not, but unless one feels like doing that, it's definitely possible to run to the center of the castle and take out Dracula with minimal effort. Most of the weapons you'll find lying around are completely useless after all. Well, save for the Alucard Sword that is.

Two, the beautiful room to room atmospheres of the first Castle are gone. The Inverted Castle is just one big slightly dark red and dark blue tinged mess of a few replayed songs. Books no longer come out of the shelves in the library, merman no longer jump out of the water, and all the little switches and what not are already done for you. The rooms are simply filled with slight variations of enemies you fought in the in first Castle, including a few minor bosses, and flipped upside down. To be honest, I don't even really like running through upside down rooms. It looks tacky.
Nothing feels new, and it's a pale shadow of the first Castle. Intentional? Maybe. It might be an example of how Shaft isn't as creative as Dracula, but considering how the Reverse Catacombs were actually redone for the Inverted Castle, I'm going to guess lazy.

Three, well, going along with the difficulty, you're so brokenly powerful by the time you get here, it's a breeze, the only challenge being Galamoth, who only gives out a life drop on defeat.

IN CONCLUSION

It may sound like I hate this game, but that's not true at all. I love this game. Castlevania could use a Symphony of the Night 2, albeit with a couple fixes here and there.
It seems, though, that the more I play it, the worse it gets, and yet everyone else seems oblivious to it. It's an excellent game, yes, but it needs improvements. It's not perfect. There are plenty of things Castlevanias with far less legacy hype did better. Dawn of Sorrow, a game that I've noticed gets fairly reamed by fans, had a much better weapon and ability system. Portrait of Ruin, a game that gets reamed even more, had a much more balanced end game. Despite the obvious copy paste with the end paintings, the bosses were far more entertaining and I was still earning equipment that hadn't been outdated 3 areas ago. The partner system was also a nice addition.

I've never been good with ending rants, so yeah, I think Symphony of the Night needs to be acknowledge for what it is: An excellent game, and a great title that added a bit of freshness to a long string of Classicvanias, but not this heavenly being that puts all other Castlevania games to shame.

[thernz]

I think for the voices, I prefer the old ones because it had the camp factor. The PSP one had little redeeming value, they were just bad with nothing to back it up. The dialogue was just rephrased. The voice acting itself didn't improve at all and was still awkward, and yeah. The only thing the PSP version would have over it is production value so there wasn't that terrible echo. It was just soulless with nothing of interest. I'd prefer bad quirkiness over just bad banality.
As for the difficulty, I didn't really find it to be that much of an issue because of how well-designed the levels were. It wasn't hard, but it didn't need to. It was an exploration title first and foremost and difficulty acts against the will of exploration. I appreciate how much it awarded exploration, albeit already being easy that kinda made it overkill. It's perhaps too rewarding.
Also, yeah, the Inverted Castle was pretty bloated. It did some neat twists in the level design. I liked the Clock Tower. Everywhere else fell pretty flat which is a shame because there were some interesting enemies, they just needed tweaks to the level design they inhabited to be fully fleshed out. Besides that, it DID give a still unprecedented shift in the way Alucard traveled. Alucard was pretty much forced to use all his abilities at all times to traverse the castle. Could've used more interactivity nevertheless. If anything, the should have ramped up the exploration aspect there and build on the potential of this oddly constructed beast.

I didn't really think Portrait of Ruin had a better balanced ending because the new portraits were really just slightly altered designs. With the Inverted Castle, things were really shifted even if it was just flipped. The Portrait paintings were inferior rehashes of their originals most of the times. Plus, I felt the abilities bloated. You got Charlotte's owl and then a half of a hour later you got Jonathan's super jump that made the owl transformation useless.

[uzo]

This is like complaining that Super Mario Bros 1 didn't have the advancements and changes that 3 had. It was the first of it's kind. Of course there are going to be lesser refined systems and the like.

The inverted castle was pretty cool, new, and innovative at it's time as well. No game ever flipped the whole damn map upside-down before.

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

This is like complaining that Super Mario Bros 1 didn't have the advancements and changes that 3 had. It was the first of it's kind. Of course there are going to be lesser refined systems and the like.

The inverted castle was pretty cool, new, and innovative at it's time as well. No game ever flipped the whole damn map upside-down before.

this is so true ^^^
in my opinion e105beta you where just LOOKING for all the flaws in the game instead of just outright enjoying the game itself.
whether you enjoyed the game or not its obvious that you have some sort of resentment towards the attention and fanbase CVSOTN has accumlated over its time and felt the need to post the topic in spite of that. "judgeing by the "Perfect" game statement"

[Profbeanburrito]

Whoever said Symphony of the Night was the "Perfect" game? I thought everyone already knew it had flaws...

[Ahasverus]

IGA:
"I don't play SOTN, it has too many bugs"

IGA:
"SOTN was perfect"

'nuff said.

[CristopherLee]

SOTN it is not the kind of game I want to play over and over again, like Super Mario Bros 3. The game is great but not perfect, that's for sure.

I think the only problem of this title is the lack of difficulty... yes, the voices and all the other stuff don't bother me. The only "real" problem is the difficulty: but it is a BIG one. When I first played it I don't have any intention to "look for all the flaws". But I don't find it enough challenging. Actually, the last stages were a little boring for me.

I never liked much the Metroid style. But, in fact, when an idea is well done it really don't matter if you don't liked at first. In this case, the idea is well done but it lacks of a better level design and more tough enemies. I think everyone will agree that Alucard's great adventure was the first game using the "RPG MAZE" formula... and THE BEST of them all. It was downhill since Symphony of the night.

[Alutwon]

I thought the inverted castle was due to time constraints, but I may be wrong. Play SotN for what it is (pretty) and if you want a challenge go play Super Metroid (also pretty) lol

[SIRHardle]

SOTN is one of the best games of that decade. No wonder is still lingers in people's, media's and even non-gamers mind after 13 years. Sure it's major problem is the unbalanced difficulty/challenge, as things are very easy to deal with. With so many resources and the broken level up system Alucard was just way overpowered. Other than that it's a game that's just a blast to play, I can beat 100.3% each castle in 90mins, it's just so fun to play and breeze trough. Whenever I replay it I always do different things and I ALWAYS find a new weapon/item I haven't seen before or that I don't remember, and I'm pretty sure I've played that game more than 10 times by now.

I'm ever so curious about Esco's project, Crazy Mode SOTN? =)

[darkwzrd4]

The game is great, but I always thought that the inverted castle was lack luster.  Besides, it's as Alucard says in the game: "this castle is a creature of chaos...".  Then again, considering that there were likely time constraints, it's not surprising.  I mean consider the one panel in the entrance that leads to the underground gardens in NitM.  I heard that was not finished because of time constraints.  Then again, from what I've seen in youtube videos, that area was lack luster as well.

What I would like to see is a true remake.  Not a remastering like they did for psp.  I mean a true remake with a new map, and a second castle that isn't a inverted version of the first.  No more walking on the ceiling.  The outside could look up side down, but the inside should be right side up and the bosses should be challenging.  Also, there shouldn't be weapons like the crissargrim that turn the second castle into a cake walk.  And, Death should be the hardest boss next to Dracula.  This is just my opinion though.

Any short comings can be attributed to budget constraints, time constraints, and the fact that it's the first cv of its kind.

[Vrakanox]

I didn't like the inverted Castle part I'd rather them have done something new. An entire new area. I also didn't like the fact that you couldn't use items from the menu. You had to equip them in your off hand and then use them as far as I know. Also some parts of the game were just hard to figure out. Where to go next what to do. Nothing like Simons Quest though. It was still amazing for its time and still my absolute favorite of all the Castlevania games but of course like all other games it had its flaws.

[Thunderbrand]

e105beta...

That is an absolutely fantastic, honest, and truthful review of SotN. One of the best I've ever read. While I do love SotN, and have since the day it was released, I cannot disagree with ANYTHING you wrote. Very well stated.

[Dremn]

But not that much. It is perfect after all.

Alright, so I just beat Symphony of the Night AGAIN.

Stopped reading here, was expecting Super Castlevania IV.

[Valtiel]

Stopped reading here, was expecting Super Castlevania IV.

Bro highfive *clap*.

No but seriously, I agree with most of what the OP stated.

The biggest flaw to me is the difficulty (I didn't mind the voices at all since the story was terrible anyways). The game started incredibly good and then in a matter of 45 minutes you're taking 1 damage from 75% of the mobs of the castle. And you got like 300 hp before entering the inverted castle. You can fundamentally explore ignoring mobs.

In fact, I think SotN is, in terms of design, one of the worst CV games. What really makes it a stellar experience is how well it controls. It's one of those near-perfect 2D experiences. Alucard's stroll, the responsiveness of the controls, the jumping mechanics... it's a game that feels a bit "meh" when I think about it, but once you take the controller in hand, it's just so smooth.

That's why we need more console CV games. A pad >>>>>>>>>> handheld controls. Big screen >>>>>>>>> small screen, in terms of control precision design, etc.

[PFG9000]

I don't think anybody was saying SotN is perfect.  The voices have always been criticized (though I feel the writing is the real problem), and it's always been known as a ridiculously easy game.  The inverted castle doesn't get as much flak as the other two points, but beta is right; it's lousy compared to the first castle.  I wish the inverted castle had more of the Metroidvania formula, where you have to explore to find an item that lets you access a new area that holds an item that lets you access a new area, etc.  I wish each area had its own music, because hearing the same one throughout 70% of the inverted castle gets really old, especially on replays.

So yeah, beta's post is totally correct except in the assumption that people think SotN doesn't have those flaws.