Topic: Castlevania Marathon by Sumac

[Sumac]

Chapter 2: We put a lot of stuff in the game and it will work...somehow.

Now, let's go to the meat of the game and the factor, why Symphony of the Night is often considered as revolution in the series: gameplay. Let's start with controls. They are very responsive and there are not even the slightest problems with movement. Physics remind me about Rondo of Blood, but without problems with landing from a jump. Alucard is rather heavy and moves somewhat slow, but his animation has certain smoothness, so his slowness is not very apparent. Richter is quite similar to him, when it comes to the weight and agility. Otherwise he is certainly faster, because he has a slide move, and he can run. This ability would have been very useful for Alucard in the Second Castle, but alas - developers probably decided, that running full speed wouldn't fit Alucard's glamorous persona. Besides those basic abilities, Alucard also have a backdash. I guess it was supposed to be used to evade certain attacks, but I didn't find this move very useful. Truth to be told, I have never even used this voluntarily, only when I accidentally confused "shield" button with "backdash" button in the beginning of the game.

Alucard has Magic Meter, which is used for the Spells and Transformations. He is still using hearts for the subweapons. But their significance is quite low, since even without them, Alucard has a whole lot of different abilities, which allow ripping opposition apart. Unlike most of the previous protagonists of the series, Alucard fights with the sword. He can slash forward and downward, while crouching. Attack speed and damage depend on the weapon. Thanks to the responsive controls, it is easy to intercept enemies, which come from behind, before they can do any damage, unlike in some previous games. Also, Alucard is the first protagonist in the series, which can protect himself with a shield. There are some limitations for that, though. Besides normal attacks, Alucard have access to a few magic spells. Some of them require presence of certain Familiars and one of them is patterned after Dracula's classic attack (Teleport + Fireballs). Spells usually can be activated via, sometimes, complicated combinations in the best tradition of some Street Fighter moves. On note, I didn't found spells very useful in the game. They are visually cool, but with the vast amount of abilities Alucard has besides them, and with low level of danger from the enemies...they are not that necessary.

To top that, Alucard can transform himself into variety of different forms: bat, wolf and the mist, all activated via Relics. Each form has its upsides and downsides. In the mist form, Alucard is completely invincible and it allows him to move through the Castles without killing anyone or at least avoid unwanted confrontations. Later in the game Alucard will be able to transform into poisonous cloud, which would allow him to kill enemies, without putting himself in any kind of danger. In the Bat form Alucard can fly very fast and has two attacks: fireballs that fly with annoying delay, and ultrasonic wave. The latter is not attack per se, up until the very late part of the game. In the Wolf form...Alucard can bark. And run very fast. And swim. I didn't found much use for this form, because the bat and the mist forms gave much more freedom gameplaywise. Wolf form was only useful to fill map percentage in some places. But it has more to do with some lousy programming, rather than with the gameplay usability.

All five classic subweapons are present in the game (Cross, Holy Water, Stopwatch, Dagger and Axe). However, there are few more subweapons. Holy Book (Bible) makes it first return after Rondo of Blood. There is also Rebound Stone, probably my most favorite subweapon in the whole game. It was seemingly based on the Diamond subweapon from the Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest. Rebound Stone is much smaller than Diamond and Alucard can throw up to three of them on the screen. Agunea is some strange looking device (or it’s not a device, I am not sure). It fires single bullet into the enemy. As soon as bullet makes contact with monster, Alucard fire a bolt of lightning at unfortunate enemy. It is, probably, the rarest subweapon in the game. It's a cool weapon, but eats too many hearts. Finally, there is Bibuty. Once again, I am not sure what this thing is supposed to be, but from the description it allows throwing some ashes at enemies. In the game, said ash looks like sugar cubes, though. I didn't found this one very useful, aside from the Clock Tower, where I used Bibuty to turn gears, opening the secret room. In general, Alucard is probably having the most ranged abilities amongst 2D Castlevania protagonists. It's actually not a good thing. It will be explained later why.

The most important changes came with the fact, that developers completely changed general gameplay. They turned good, ol' action-adventure game into what can be called "metroidesque RPG". First of, there is no more level by level progression. Like in Metroid the whole Castle presented as one big place divided into relatively small areas. Once again, like in Metroid, player must find new abilities, that will allow him to get into the new areas to get new abilities to progress further...and so on. Some areas has bosses, some don't. Like in Rondo of Blood, SOTN counts completion percentage. Though this time, percentage counted, not for killing bosses and completing levels, but for visiting new parts of the map. In order to get the best percentage, player must visit every area in both Castles and find every secret room (there is quite a lot of them and to access some player must figure out simple puzzles). Symphony could be possibly called successor of both Vampire Killer and Simon's Quest. Vampire Killer was like mini-Symphony in that regard (player had full access to the whole area and should had figure out how to progress further). And CV2 introduced idea of the leveless game.

Like in RPG, player have access to the menu (inventory) with which he can manage items, weapons, potions, turn on and off special abilities and Familiars. Player can also assign different equipment to the Alucard. There are separate equipment slots for different body parts - helms and goggles for the head, armors for the body, capes for...well, capes slot, weapons and shields for both hands. Player can assign different stuff for each hand, thus allowing him to create some interesting combinations, like giving sword in one hand and shield in the second. Aside from having their own set of statistics, some items, in particular swords, shields and rods, have their own special properties. Some could be uncovered by using certain pieces of equipment together, like in case with Shield Rod + Alucard Shield combination. There are also separate slots for assigning rings and amulets. Those things, influence only different statistics.

Visually, equipment changes are not noticeable, though. Only cape changes its color, depending on what cape player uses. It should be mentioned, that Symphony is not the first game in the series, which had inventory. Simon's Quest already had one, but it was quite basic and allowed to choose only different subweapons and Dracula's Parts. Equipment could be found in Castles in random places, though the most powerful items and items with unusual properties are well hidden. Also, equipment could be dropped by enemies. Almost all enemies in the game, except for bosses can drop three items - hearts for the subweapon, basic items (they drop them very often) and rare items (those appear very rare obviously). Rare items are usually very valuable and can give new properties and stats boost to the player.

Another thing, that changed gameplay, was the introduction of the character statistics and statuses. The idea of statuses was virtually introduced in the Castlevania Dracula X, I believe. In there, player could receive "cursed status" during which, he was unable to move fast and attack enemies. In SOTN Status changed are spelled right next to the lifebar. Besides being cursed, player can be turned into stone statue and receive some other status specific damage. Such effects could counter with specific antidotes, like uncurse potions and others. Some items can give temporal status change for Alucard, like protection from the fire, for example. Like usual heroes of the RPG, Alucard, have different stats and can be leveled up. There are two main stats - Attack and Defense. There are other four stats: Strength, Constitution, Intellect and Luck. I am not sure what difference between Attack and Strength, but whatever. Intellect and Luck affect possibility of the rare drops from the enemies. More INT and LCK you have - more chances of receiving something valuable from the killed enemy. All statistics become higher, when Alucard receives level up. However, player can directly affect statistics by choosing different equipment. Almost all items in the game, have they own set of statistics, which affect Alucard's, when equipped. Some could raise his statistics higher, some can lower them. Interestingly, amount of Health Points and Hearts is not connected to the level ups. Player must find "Health Max UP" and "Hearts Max UP" items to gain more Health Points and carry more ammo for the subweapons. It was another thing that was taken from the Metroid series. Once again, SOTN didn't pioneered use of RPG mechanic in the series. That honor, once again, belongs to the Simon's Quest, though in this game player had only one statistic - Vitality, which affected only lifebar, restoring it or making it longer.

Also, enemies now have different statistics too. Even more than that, some have different vulnerabilities. Like some enemy can be vulnerable to the lightning and holy attacks, but immune to the fire and dark attacks. In the Bestiary that can be accessed in the Library player can read about weaknesses and strengths enemy has.

Menu also gives access to the Relics and Familiars submenus. Relics are equivalents of the Metroid upgrades. They are usually found in some remote places in the Castle and only few of them can be received from bosses. All Relics could be turned on and off, but this actually only significant for changing Familiars, which are considered as Relics as well. You can't have more than one active Familiar at the time. Submenu Familiars allow tracking down strength of your little buddies. Familiars can be leveled up by using them. There are five familiars in western version of the Symphony. Fairy - she automatically heals and resurrects player. Also, she can point out hidden rooms. Demon - rarely attacks enemies and can turn hidden switches. I used him only ones in the game. Ghost - follows player and can attach it to enemies, literally mooching of their lives, acting like a parasite. He is very useful to take down some bosses. Bat - rarely attacks enemies, and when Alucard uses his Bat form, it can also summon several other bats. Finally there is Sword Familiar, which occasionally attacks enemies and gives access to the powerful spell. I rarely used two latter familiars.
The concept of lives was terminated in SOTN. Instead of that, player has only one life, but multiple Save Rooms, which allow completely, recharge Health Bar and save progress whenever you like. Besides stats and amount of experience, game tracks how much rooms you visited in the Castles, how much gold Alucard have collected and how much time player spent in the game in general. Gold is used to buy stuff in the Library. In there player can buy different weapons and equipment, sell gems, and see strategies for the boss battles and read Bestiary entries.
Design of the enemies is varied, though there is somewhat abundance of different types of animated armors. Some enemies from Rondo were reused in this game, though not much. All monsters have nice smooth animations. This game, also, introduced idea of the “funny” enemies, who are non-threatening and just there to entertain player with their antics (Dodo and Yorick skeleton, also Skeleton Dancer, though he could be a bit annoying).

[Sumac]

Chapter 3: general stuff that went wrong with "greatest Castlevania EVUR".

So, we have a lot of new stuff in the game, new mechanics, new type of progression, e.t.c. Impressive. Simply impressive. On the first sight. If one looks deeper, than he'll see a lot of things, which is not right with this supposedly "Ultimate Castlevania". As a one wise man said: "Symphony of the Night introduced "metroidvania" formula to the series, without perfecting it." I don't remember who has said it, but he was absolutely right. First, I start with discussing levels.
One of the main attractions of the Castlevania series was always its level design. While maybe it was not always pinnacle of creativity, in the main games, levels almost always impressed with amount of details and attention to the general logic and progression. In other words: while playing Castlevania game, more often then not, you felt like you were going somewhere. Locations weren't simply labeled like "big and chaotic Clock Tower", but actually were leading somewhere and often had intrinsic connections between each other that made sense. Symphony dropped the ball here. Most of the locations in the game are simply places, which are designed to fill some purpose, but nothing else. They are mostly unchangeable inside themselves. So, when player goes through the Long Library, he doesn't feel like he is getting somewhere. He simply traverses in the Long Library area and…then exits it. Almost none of the Areas in Symphony don’t have "start" and "finish" or some great changes inside. The same set pieces with little to no change and rather similar backgrounds await players. Castle has stopped making impression of an actual place and gave impression of a real adventure. It became just a playground for killing monsters and leveling up. Some areas have rather "old school" design approach (ex: Entrance Hall, Clock Tower, partially Abandoned Mine and Underground Cavern), but most of them just serve to function as the place, instead of being the place.

Another thing, that is connected to the problem, described above, is a big amount of filler rooms in the areas. The most obvious example: vertical chambers in Alchemy Laboratory and long corridor in the Marble Gallery. The Outer Wall is pretty much one big filler area. Those areas are usually consisting of copypasted tiles and backgrounds and have little-to-no enemies. The question: why those areas exist? For leveling up? But they usually contain very few enemies. To present challenge? But platforming doesn't pose any danger in the game, because there are not insta-death pits or spikes. While some parts of the other areas don't always give impression of an actual place, those filler chambers look even more out of place and somewhat make me question credibility of the level designers.

I think the reason for both of this problems, is the fact that developers were trying to create big areas. Unlike short levels from the past games, they didn't have definite start and finish points and they weren't self-contained, so player could always revisit them. Old school approach to the level design allowed gradually change design inside of the level and kind of "tell story in the level". This approach was out of question in the Symphony, thanks to the general genre change, so devs seemingly designed all areas around two core ideas - to be good looking and relatively big. I think, this is the reason for the levels feeling more like "places labeled as *something*" instead of feeling like they are actual places and having some sort of progression. And since the whole game takes place inside the Castle, devs were forced to design levels as closed areas, turning the whole Castle into bunch of rooms and corridors, corridors and rooms. The worst offenders in that regard are Coliseum and Outer Wall. Coliseum for example, largely consists only of multiple corridors. If it wasn't for the top notch graphic and music, such design could have been considered as very inferior to that of the past games, where levels could offer much more interesting stuff and wasn't that...patterned. Sad price for the size, so to speak.

As for level design in general - the main gripe with the Symphony for me, is the lack of meaningful platforming. As was stated above, there is no way to die after falling from anywhere. There are also Alucard abilities to turn into Bat and Mist, which make platforming completely redundant. Some areas feel like they were created with the idea of punishing player for the wrong jump, like Royal Chapel, but in the end, even this place doesn't pose any serious challenge or danger. The game could have been so much better, if there were bottomless pits and spikes killing from the single touch. But I guess, levels were designed to appease to the young players, so they didn't go into hysterics after losing their progress after falling into the random pit.

Now for the problems with the gameplay. The most obvious of them is the lack of balance. In case of Symphony it has a double meaning. The first meaning - is the lack of balance between player and the enemies. Though, it became pretty much a norm for the rest of the "metroidvanias", it started here, in the supposedly best CV ever. While Alucard have so many abilities and not restricted in movement, his enemies usually very weak, slow, have simple predictable patterns and generally limited in what they can do. In order to compensate for this obvious oversight, some of the enemies has lots of lives and can do big amount of damage (Armors in the clock corridor in the Second Castle comes to mind). But those enemies could be skipped by using mist or bat forms, making their existence completely unnecessary. While the game have, probably, the biggest bestiary ever, pretty much none of the enemies are real threat, save for two-three rare species. Most of them fight Alucard as, if he was Richter Belmont from Rondo of Blood. And even in that case, I don't think they would have been big threat.

Second balance problem: Alucard have almost perfect controls, he have spells and transformations and can restore his lives in Save Rooms. With careful planning and leveling up, player can become nigh invincible for the enemies and bosses. It is certainly not what I expected from Castlevania game. It seems developers didn't think of possibility leveling up enemies as well, to preserve at least moderate challenge for the player. There was another possibility – to simply replace weak enemies with stronger ones over the course of the game. And I couldn't say that it didn't cross their minds, since there are few areas in the game where enemies were indeed replaced. But for some weird reason it was never applied for the whole game.

Balance and level design issues are not the only problems of the game. For example, there is obvious problem with navigation in the Menu and submenus. In order to reequip something you need to enter the menu, then enter submenu, then choose slot, then find item you want to use, assign it and exit menu. New players could become confused in all this amount of submenus, and this procedure is rather annoying as well. Probably the biggest issue with Menu is the cluttered list of items from which you must assign equipment for the both hands. It's not a problem, when it comes to body, head, cape and ring slots, because there are simply never so many items in those lists. But when it comes to hand slots...beware. Everything, that you have collected and that could be used with one hand or the other, is added to the list. Weapons, Shields, potions, food, one time use items, e.t.c. It's all goes into one single list. No wonder, that by the end of the first part of the game, this list will look like cluttered mess, where it's hard to find anything, that wasn't picked right now (new items are added at the end of the list - at least devs thought that out). If you use some items, they disappear from the list, leaving empty slots. If you swap your weapon with something else, then it’s usually go into slot instead of item you assigned. However, if you have empty slots in the list, then your weapon can randomly end up in them. Imagine my surprise, when I found my favorite sword, somewhere in the middle of the list, where previously were two items, that I used like two hours ago. Also, there is no search function, so if you want to find something specific...well, good luck. You will need it.
Using potions and food is another can of worms. First you need to equip potion / food instead of weapon and to do this you need to go through all this annoying submenus. Then you must use potion or, in case of food, throw it on the floor and consume it. After that, player must return into the menu, find his weapon and reassign it back to the slot where it was. Simple function "assign last used weapon" is not presented, though it could have been an obvious decision for this problem. Truth to be told, presence of Fairy familiar, somewhat alleviates this problem, since Fairy is a pretty much automatic script, that heals you and uses appropriate potions, when necessary. However, you don't have access to her in the beginning and, you if want to use some other familiar, you will not have any other choice, but to go through "assign-use-reassign" routine.

While Symphony considered RPG-like game, different statistics, play rather miniscule role in the game. Generally, player should care only about ATT and LCK (and that's only, if he want to get rare drops from enemies). All other stats are kind of just there and in order to keep up with the harder enemies (in reality enemies that just have more lives, not that they actually become more dangerous) it is sufficient to use latest found armors and weapons. All this invulnerabilities that enemies should have according to Bestiary are pretty much nothing more, but a decoration. There is no enemy in the game, who couldn't be killed by simple powerful weapon, despite whatever weaknesses and strengths he has, rendering all this weakness / strength element almost void.

Finally there is abundance of equipment. There are a lot of weapons in the game, that provide only cosmetic changes and some pluses for the statistics, that in reality have little-to-no effect on the gameplay. The same goes for shields. I guess, the only reason for existence of such amount of shields is the ability to combine them with the Shield Rod for different outcomes. And once again, it adds more for the quantity rather then for the overall quality of the game. Graphical niceties and special effects are good, but I believe, they should be useful in more ways, than just showing player how talented Konami artists were. The biggest gripe is, of course, amount of one time use items and food items. Especially food items. Why there are so much of them? Some can heal Alucard only for 19 HP and that is pathetic amount even in the beginning of the game. Besides, there are a lot of Save Rooms in the Castle and player should be darn inaccurate or unlucky to die somewhere for real. In general, their main purpose as of now - is just to exist in the list of items, cluttering its space.

All this problems with equipment could have been solved if only game allowed selling unnecessary stuff. However, for some reason player can sell only gems at the Library and nothing else. And there is no "drop Item" function. Both would have been very simple to realize, but...developers seemingly thought otherwise, sadly.

Anyhow, even with all this problems, Symphony still could have been a good game. It could have been a really good game, if not for one big problem, that appear after player finishes his adventures in the First Castle. This problem pretty much makes this game, not completely horrible, mind you, but rather bizarrely strange and not in a good way. Of course, I'm speaking about Upside Down Castle.

[Sumac]

Chapter 4: One big Upside Down problem.

Remember, how in the prologue I described my first reaction at processing the fact, that fabled "Inverted Castle" was nothing more then just topsy turvy Castle from the first part of the game? Well, I must admit, that this feeling is still somewhat with me. I still can't fathom what demons of hilarious decisions possessed designers to make the second part of the game like this...
Possibly it was like this:

Dev 1: We need somehow to finish the game with something impressive. Also, we have some resources left like enemies, few abilities and music tracks – there are not much of them, but should be enough for conclusion of the game. And we need to put these bosses from the first Castlevania somewhere, so fans would see how we care about them, by making references to the first game in the series...whatever it was. The thing is...we don't have much time and money left to design new big areas. So, do you have any ideas?
Dev 2: Maybe we can design some small new areas, which could appear after you defeat Richter...
Dev 3: Better yet, we can create something like chaotic realm that consists from various discolored pieces of other levels...
Dev 1: That's would be obviously a hack job. We need something more impressive.
Dev 3: Or we can change palette of the Castle and call it Dream Castle or True Dracula's Castle...
Dev 4: Let's make more long corridors!!
Dev 1: I guess, we already filled our quota with long corridors for this game. There is no-one who can overdo this. But I like idea about the second castle...
Dev 3: I've got it!! We can make an Upside Down version of the first Castle!! It will cost us pretty much nothing, we'll remove all interactive objects from it and we won't provide any story, except for the very very final of the game. If anyone asks why, we'll say, that its original creative decision made to confuse players!!
Dev 2: But how we will explain, that in story?
Dev 3: Magic!
Dev 1: Ingenious!! Let's work on that.

Ahem...So, maybe it wasn't like that. I am really sure it wasn't like that. I hope it wasn't like that. However, the obvious lack of dedication in the latter part of the SOTN is obvious, even without wild imagination. I've read somewhere that IGA said, that second castle was created, because of lack of time. If it was indeed the case, it shows.

Graphically Second Castle looks pretty much the same as the First Castle. The only change is the lack of interactive objects in the backgrounds and slightly different palette in some of the areas. It doesn't really make them look different in any meaningful way. As for the music, there are some new tracks, but it seems developers run out of new music and were unable to assign new melody for each upside down area. So for several levels player will listen to the same melody over and over. Though, new tracks are good by themselves, since player will be forced to listen to them, almost half of his time in the Second Castle, it’s likely he'll start severely dislike them. In combination with the seemingly meaningless and easy adventure, music will make gameplay look stale and boring. Some areas reuse music from their normal counterparts.

My main problem with the Second Castle is not, that they have reused an entire map of the first Castle, though obviously it left a bad impression. I dislike how it was reused. To begin with, when Alucard appears in the second Castle he already has almost all abilities. It means, that player can simply overpower or escape from most of the enemies. Second problem, is lack of any clear goal. Player just arrives at the Topsy Turvy Castle to do...what exactly? There is no story up until battle with Reaper, which supposed to happen in the end of the adventure. And there are no characters to interact with. No-one tells what the hell player is supposed to do, where to go and what to collect. It's like Simon's Quest all over again. The only clue is that after player defeats Darkwing Bat he will receive Ring of Vlad. If player have played aforementioned Castlevania 2, then he maybe will be able to recognize what is demanded of him (collect Dracula's details). Of course, if he won't think, that it’s just meaningless coincidence.

On that note: Second Castle is mentioned in the story seemingly only once, when Alucard questions Richter and Maria about Shaft whereabouts. There is no any information provided about how the Second Castle was summoned to existence or what this place is. To think about it, there is no any information whatsoever provided about it, at least in English dub of the game. So much for the "involving storyline". Oh, well.

The problems with design and challenge become even more apparent in the Second Castle. First, all interactive stuff in the levels, like elevators, and the like has gone. Second, enemies’ placement is weird. While First Castle was brimming with supernatural life, and most of the time enemies were spread evenly throughout the areas, many places in the Second Castle are simply empty or have very little enemies. In some areas enemies concentrated in a few big rooms. Player will have hard time to defeat them, but not because of the good enemy placement or their abilities, but because there are simply very many of the enemies in one place. It seems it should have made game more difficult, but once again, considering Alucard abilities, this doesn’t bear any positive changes for the gameplay. There is also strange decision to put flying stone skulls in some corridors and chambers. I am not sure what it should have accomplished. In few areas in the Second Castle, enemies are not cluttered in several rooms, but as in the first Castle, spread throughout the level. However, usually there are only two or three types of them, making it still a far cry from the First Castle.

Balancing issues are worse in the second Castle, than in the first. For some weird reason, Alucard can quickly gain 7-8 level ups in a row, just by killing over and over Nova Skeletons in Reversed Outer Wall. Good way to keep difficulty up. Not. In general, enemies in the Second Castle still can be killed from one, maximum three attacks, with some very rare exceptions. Enemies themselves deal more damage, but because they're much slower, then Alucard, and still use primitive patterns they really don't pose any meaningful threat. Kind of radical departure from previous titles. Though, at some points developers finally attempted to play in "good enemy placement on the level". However, their efforts more often came as meaningless, for reasons described above.

Bosses also complete joke. None of them save for Shaft and Dracula; don't pose even a minimum threat. There is still some stuff to collect in the Second Castle, in particular Alucard's armor, which he had in the very beginning of the game, before meeting with Reaper. But even that is not very important task. Player needs Alucard set of armor (or rather only Alucard Shield) to quickly dispatch Galamoth and even then, it’s only an optional task.

The main task in the Second Castle is to collect Dracula's details, like in Simon's Quest (Rib, Heart, Eyeball, Nail and Ring). Each one kept by boss from Castlevania 1 and appears after their defeat. Those bosses are Bat, Medusa, Mummy, Monster and Grim Reaper. I've heard, that game have a bug, and player can get to battle with Shaft and Dracula without killing Reaper (and collecting last part of Dracula), though I don't know, if it is true or not. As with the other Relics, those five parts of Count, provide some special powers to Alucard, but they generally act as attributes (ex: protection from Curse), rather than active abilities.

Another annoying thing is that every time, when player want to visit Librarian, he needs to return to the First Castle, via teleporter or Library Card. That's half of the problem, however. Main problem here is that player can return to the Second Castle only by using teleporter in the regular Castle Keep. So, every time, when player feels like buying some items, he will be forced to restart his exploration of the Second Castle from the Castle Keep. At least developers could had decency, to offer "return to the place, from where you teleported to the library" function. But, no. It seems any method of making game time longer was considered fair.

Overall, Second Castle is one big sloppy mess. It doesn't have much to keep player interested in the game and have a lot to make player bored from it. Low challenge, reused music, lack of the things to collect, absence of storyline and clear objectives, contributes to the general feeling of detachment from the game. It doesn't mean that absolutely everything about Second Castle is bad. In particular there are few places, where developers remembered, that Castlevania should be challenging platformer and a have interesting bosses and enemies like Zombie Trio and Oz themed enemies in the Reversed Library. But in the end, Second Castle still feels like a rush job. And no amount of nice backgrounds can fix it.

[Sumac]

Chapter 5: Areas and bosses of the night (and boredom).

As it was said before, SOTN doesn't have separate levels; instead there are multiple interconnected areas, each representing certain location of the Castle. This chapter dedicated to brief description of those locations. I will comment on both Normal and Reversed versions at same time, since there is very little actual differences between them...save for the fact, that one is Upside Down. Duh.

Castle Entrance / Reverse Entrance.
Is the first are in the main game. Since it is recreation of the first level from the original Castlevania, this area has one of the best level structures in the game. Like in Rondo of Blood, the corridors are free from platforms, but inhabited by zombies. Fishmen basement, in this version is not a basement per se, but a part of the water-filled actual cave, that player will visit later in the game. This is one of the few places in the game, where enemies (Fishmen) keep spawning non-stop. In the corner of the "Fishmen Place" player can find small room with torch - this is the same room, where Shaft was keeping Maria in Rondo. Reversed version of this place is not remarkable at all, though corridors have interesting enemies like Dodos and Orobouros, which after death transforms into bone dragon that moves in the background. There is no boss in any version of this area, though you can fight Slogra and Gaibon in the place where, Alucard meet Reaper. They will escape after some beating. The music here is, probably, trademark melody of the whole game - Dracula's Castle.

Alchemy Lab / Necromancy Lab
In both versions, this area looks nothing like a laboratory. It is more similar to the museum, what with giant statues here and there. The only things, which will occasionally remind player, what this place is supposed to be, are tables with retorts that could be found in this place. This area is very impressive in size and level of detail, but very boring in its structure: there is a lot of meaningless jumping and copypasted chambers. In the reversed Lab there are few rooms, filled with Lesser Demons and some other enemies - one of the few rare relatively challenging places in the game. Bosses in the normal version are Slogra and Gaibon - they use the same tactics as in SCV4 and have new attack in which they combine they efforts to kill Alucard. It doesn't make them stronger though. Boss of the reversed Lab is graphically impressive, but even less challenging, than Reaper's minions.

Marble Gallery / Black Marble Gallery
Somewhat lazily designed area. Tones of copypasted stuff everywhere and rather strange structure. First notable thing about this place is a giant clock, which in both Castles can open a way to the large secret area that is crucial for the game completion. In normal version it can be opened by equipping Rings of Sun and Moon. In reversed Castle you need to collect all Dracula's details to gain access to the secret place and battle Shaft. Second notable thing about this level is a long (very long) copypasted corridor. In the normal Castle it’s the only place where player can meet Diplocephaulus, kind of...odd enemy, for the lack of better term. In the reversed corridor there are only some flying skulls and skeletons. What a joke. Normal version of Gallery doesn't have boss, but reversed has Shaft and Dracula as bosses. Shaft attempts to be challenging (and he once again uses his spheres - 6 this time), but with Alucard's abilities (and Rebound Stone) he is not much of a serious threat. Dracula is strong...and that's about it. Player doesn't need to use any kind of clever tactic to defeat him, just dodging his seldom attacks and constantly hacking at him will be enough. Kind of major let down, after inventive battle in Dracula X and rather non-trivial fight in Bloodlines. Maybe Dracula boss battle was rushed too?

Outer Wall / Reversed Outer Wall
Needlessly big transition area. To cover the fact, that its design is rather lacking, developers make it so weather randomly changes in this area, after each visit of the player. It does make things a bit better. In the bottom of the area player can find room with telescope to watch Ferryman in his natural habitat. Also, player can prove himself as young ornithologist and watch life cycle of a white bird. Player needs to revisit this room again and again to see how the bird will lay eggs and how two little chicks will grow up. This probably one of the most amusing things in SOTN...that has nothing to do with actual game. Boss of the regular area is Doppelganger10, who is simply Alucard’s double with small amount of life. The only notable thing about him - is his very spectacular appearance, from behind stone Mayan plates on the wall. In the Reversed Wall the boss is the (Frankenstein's) Monster. Or at least this cartoonish thing is supposed to be him. Both are very easy to defeat.

Long Library / Forbidden Library
Library is a dead end area, since it doesn't connect to any other level in the game. On the good side, regular version has Librarian from whom you can buy some important stuff. Area has one of the very few actual 3D monsters in the game - Spellbook. Other inhabitants include Dhuron from Castlevania 3 and lots of FleaMen. Reversed area has interesting set of enemies that are reference Wizard of Oz: Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. None of them even remotely resemble their Oz counterparts in appearance, though. Also, Lion is seemingly partially copypasted from Armor Lord. In general both versions are quite boring and uneventful. Boss exists only in normal version of the Library. It is Lesser Demon, who will try some lame attacks and monster spawning to distract player. He will later appear us regular enemy in the second castle. He is very easy to defeat, as most bosses of the game.

Clock Tower / Reversed Clock Tower
Clock Tower, SOTN Edition. Actually this area takes a lot from its predecessor from Rondo. At least, when it comes to the level structure it's almost faithfully recreates structure of the Clock Tower from ROB. Even Annette's prison cell is here, though, to open it, player needs to strike four cogs in two rooms. As for the design, it's kind of nice, but somewhat messy with all this mechanical parts here and there. Background of moving cogs looks rather unimpressive. Overall, Clock Tower wasn't the best level in Rondo, neither its here. Dracula X version of the area can topple this version any day. Reversed Clock Tower is pretty much the same deal, only it one of the few areas, which actually attempts to be hard. If player doesn't want to lose a lot of nerves, he'd better skip this part, using Mist form. Bosses of the areas are Karasuman for normal version and Darkwing Bat for Reversed. Karasuman is very easy boss that can be cornered and killed easily. Later he'll appear as regular enemy. Darkwing Bat is SOTN's version of the Phantom Bat from the first CV. It has the similar attacks to his Rondo version and doesn't pose any kind of challenge. The room, where you fight bosses is the same place, where you have fought Shaft’s Ghost in Rondo.

Underground Cavern / Reversed Underground Cavern
It starts from several boring vertical chambers and continues into interesting cave labyrinth. It is one of the better designed areas in the game, that doesn’t follow Rondo’s pattern. Reversed version is full of supposedly difficult enemies, that in reality not very hard to defeat at all. The area has a beautiful waterfall and ferryman with atrocious voice acting. Boss in the regular version is Scylla. However, before fighting her, player will fight one of its worms and only later the boss himself (clever idea, BTW). The legendary monster doesn't have legendary difficulty to match. In reversed Caverns boss is the Doppelganger40 - supposedly stronger version of the Alucard's double, who is not as dangerous as mainly annoying. Scylla’s room in the reversed Castle filled with rather screwed enemy – Evil Octopus. Seriously, these guys look insane.

Nightmare
This place is a one room area, which exists only in regular Castle. Here player will listen to some cheesy dialogue and fight a Succubus. To access this area player must put Alucard to sleep (save his game) in suspicious save room. Save sphere is colored purple in this room instead of usual combination of red and yellow. This is where I don't understand developers of this game...They had a perfect opportunity to surprise player with a sudden battle, but instead they clearly marked fake save room as a trap. Whatever. Succubus herself is rather lame boss and she could be killed in less than 30-40 seconds without trying. There are only two notable things about her: she is voiced (and when it comes to Castlevania being a voiced villain is a truly big accomplishment) and she has bare chest in her artwork, which was censored, when the game was released in America. It seems according to censors, hacking zombies into bloody pieces is OK, but visible nipples are evil. Let's continue...

Royal Chapel / Anti-Chapel
What with the stupid name "Anti-Chapel"? Well, whatever...Anyway, Royal Chapel is the most beautiful area in the game. If this place had unforgivable platforming it could have deserved title of one of the best levels in the history of the series. But even in its current form it is breathtaking location. Music and unearthly atmosphere make their work and almost charm the player. The fact, that it one of the few challenging places in the game, full of platforming action, also helps great deal. There is also interesting place - confession booth, in which player can summon ghosts of a preacher and a woman. Boss of the normal Chapel is the Hyppogryph. He is rather lacking as a boss. When I fought him I had impression, that I was playing as the boss of the level and the poor thing was newbie player, since it looked like Hyppogryph was trying to escape from me to the corner of the room. Boss of the Anti-Chapel is Medusa. She could be dangerous, if player will not use shield. Otherwise, battle with her is uneventful.

Castle Keep / Reversed Castle Keep
Yeah, I am describing the last area in almost every Castlevania game prior, in the middle of the areas list. Strange. Anyway, this area if fairly short, contains few upgrades and teleport from one castle to another. In the regular Castle Keep the boss is the Richter Belmont. In order to defeat him and receive access to the Second Castle, player needs to take Holy Glasses from Maria in the secret location under giant clock in Marble Gallery…on the fool moon, of the 4th month, with hat of equinox an ivory staff equipped….Sorry, wrong game. Otherwise, player will be forced to kill Richter and receive bad ending. There is no boss in the Reversed Keep.

Olrox's Quarters / Deathwing's Lair
Despite impression from the beautiful music (and this is one of the best tracks in the game, IMO), this area is not expensive looking and lavish with gold and good looking furniture. It's mostly consists from different grey boring corridors with spikes and zombies and big open field with fountain in the middle. There is really nothing interesting here. Normal boss is Olrox, who will fight player in two forms. In the first part of the fight he looks like expensively dressed vampire. In the second - he transforms in the ugly reptilian creature. This battle maybe not very hard, but very very spectacular, thanks to the awesome special effects. It is certainly one of the best boss fights in the whole game. His counterpart boss in the Reversed Castle is, appropriately,  worst boss in the game, who you can defeat with just attacking and walking a bit in front of him. Pathetic. This was the battle after I stopped played SOTN for the first time, BTW.
And who the hell is Deathwing?

Coliseum / Reversed Coliseum
Rather small area with very basic design. Corridors and chambers, chambers and corridors + few rooms in the corners. The only notable thing about normal version is the awesome music (that reminds me about Santa Esmeralda's hit "Don't let be misunderstood" - somebody ought to make the mix of the two) and battle with bosses - Minotaur and Werewolf. Or rather not battle itself, but cringe inducing monologue of evUl Richter. The boss battle can be hard, if player will not see through the tactic of Wolf and Bull combo. Their sprites are reused from Rondo, but as was the case with Slogra and Gaibon, Werewolf and Minotaur can combine their efforts to destroy Alucard. On note: they can use their post-mortem attacks from Rondo as regular attacks and they usually use them at the same time. Both monsters become regular enemies in the reversed version of the area. Boss battle in the upside down Coliseum is also very impressive. Alucard will be put against his former comrades from Castlevania 3 - Trevor Belmont, Grant Da Nasty and Sypha Belnades (not actual ones, but imposter zombies, I guess). While the battle is not very hard, player still must be a bit cautious, since he will deal not with the one, but with three relatively quick opponents at the same time. Each of the enemies covers his own area – Trevor attacks on the ground level, Sypha doesn’t allow to jump closely to her and Grant delivers sneak attacks, while player busy dealing with his teammates. To make life easier, player can defeat Trevor or Sypha first and then destroy Grant. Though, when I last played the game, I defeated Grant first, since he jumped around me like annoying frog and received punishment he was asking for.

Abandoned Mine / Cave
Much like Outer Wall this is another transition area. Unlike Wall, it’s short, so it's more tolerable. There is not much to say about this place, aside from the fact that is has very impressive entrance, designed as the head of the dog (Cerberus). Slogra and Gaibon serve as regular enemies in the Cave, but they are barely a threat. Boss of the normal area is Cerberus, who is laughably easy. Boss of the Cave is Reaper, who is even EASIER. Yeah, great Reaper, who always was nightmare of the Castlevania players in this game, was reduced to mere pitiful boss fight. Not for the last time sadly. Reaper fights in two forms, he starts as traditional Reaper in purple robe (but without big scythe) and attempts to overcrowd player with multiple sickles. In his second form he transforms into something...skeletal, that probably must vaguely resemble Anubis. In that odd appearance he fights with two giant sickles and barely can move. Player will not have any problems to dispatch him very quickly. It seems, it is this battle, which started, happily, short-lived tradition of transforming Reaper in some odd form in the second part of the battle with him.

Catacombs / Floating Catacombs
Well, technically they are indeed floating catacombs, what have you...
This area combines interesting level structure and the boring one in single package. There are big rooms with lots of platforming and at the same time - some long corridors. Also, this area serves as a home for the one (and maybe only) difficult enemy in the game - Discus Lord. I am not sure how good he is at conversations (I needed to do that lame pun), but he is very good with his main weapon - razor-bladed disc, that he throws like some kind of giant yo-yo. There is also funny enemy Bone Ark - two skeletons who carry Bone Dragon Skull on the palanquin. If player kills Bone Dragon Skull, both skeletons will start madly running away from the player. Anyway, while level structure is a bit basic, this place is certainly not boring, since it’s filled with the enemies. If only other areas of the castle were more like this...In this place player must navigate through the corridor with spikes, using Alucard bat form and sonic wave. It could be a bit hard to go through this place, but not very much. Boss of the regular area, is definitely on of the most impressive beasts in the game - Legion (I want to punch idiot who renamed him into Granfaloon in western version). This thing consists of multiple human bodies with some sort of worm like thing in the middle. This battle maybe not very hard, but very very impressive in the scale and atmosphere. The same goes for the boss of the reversed version of this area - Galamoth. He is a two screen tall lizard with wand, which he can use to call lightning. While one of the most impressive battles in the game, this fight is not mandatory and player can complete game without defeating Dracula's rival. Besides, this battle was designed a bit unfairly, so if player want to take down Galamoth fair and square he’ll need A LOT of patience and the best equipment he can find. Alternatively, player can use Shield Rod + Alucard Shield combination to kill thunder lizard in 10 seconds. Sadly there is no big reward for doing this.

[Sumac]

Epilogue: Spawns of Symphony of the Night.

Obviously developers put a lot of effort and soul in the Symphony of the Night. However, there are still too much shortcomings to call it "the best Castlevania ever". Lack of balance and challenge, not very interesting design of some areas and obviously rushed second part of the game. If anything, developers shouldn't have created Second Castle in the first place. They could had simply replace old enemies and bosses with new, more powerful ones, to keep up with player's progress and at least make this game a bit more challenging. Why this simple idea didn't occur to them, one can only guess.

I personally have complicated feeling towards SOTN. On one hand, even with all of its problems, from the visual point of view - it is a 2D masterpiece and a milestone for the series as a whole. On another, besides having problems of its own, this game have spawned the whole bunch of clones and reduced series creativity and originality to the point, when Castlevania stopped being itself and turned into generic platformer, barely connected with its past. The problem wasn't with copypasting formula itself, but rather with the fact, that template was flawed from the beginning. Somehow, while recreating SOTN again and again developers somehow managed to step on the same rakes over and over, merely masking their presence with another useless subsystem or a one-game gimmick. At the same time, this clone process somewhat cheapened SOTN importance for the series. If SOTN was just a one game of its kind, then it would have been much better for the series, I think. And I personally could appreciate this game much more, rather then always remembering what had become of my Castlevania because of it.

[Sumac]

And that's that. My biggest review yet is finished and published. 
My next review will be about Castlevania Legends.

[Sumac]

First draft of Castlevania Legends review is finished.
If everything will go well, then, maybe I post it here tomorrow.
Currently I'm writing NITM review.

[Chernabogue]

A really interesting discussion/review about SotN. Bravo for the hard work!

[Sumac]

A really interesting discussion/review about SotN. Bravo for the hard work!

Thnak you very much!! 

Unexpectedly it was easy to write. Maybe because a big gap since the last time, when I wrote something.

[Sumac]

Castlevania Legends Review by Sumac.

I dicovered Castlevania Legends somewhere in the end of 2000s. I don't remember seeing it in the list of the Game Boy games, when I searched for the Castlevania games on this platform, back in 2003. Maybe I missed it or maybe it was absent from said list. Since it was a Game Boy title it didn't attract much of my attention. While I respect Game Boy, I don't think it can deliver something really spectacular, so my attention was focused on other Castlevania titles. For the first time, I've played this game back in 2008. It didn't impressed me back then. Let's see how my opinion changed (or not) in the course of the last 4 years.

It seems, that back in 1997 Konami decided seriously force Castlevania as one of the top titles amongst its peers. For this purpose, not one, but two games were released in the same year for different platforms. One of them was Symphony of the Night for PlayStation, and another - Legends for the Game Boy.

Storywise this game set an ambitious goal - to tell the origin of the feud between Dracula and the Belmont clan. Technically Legends retcons Castlevania 3, which stated, that it was the first clash between Belmonts and the Dracula. In reality Legends as vague as any other entry in the series. Basically origin of an epic story could be summed as this: Dracula trades his humanity for the dark powers and starts terrorize people of Transylvania. Young Sonia Belmont, who "had bond" with Dracula's son, Alucard, decided to stop evildoer. She went into his castle, fought Alucard to prove her strenght and defeated Dracula, starting the legend. That what could be picked up from the game itself. When Dracula sold his humanity, what dark deity was involved, why Sonia decided that Belmont family must always fight Dracula, did she even decided that in the first place...nothing was made clear. If not for the supposed status as "origin", this game could have been just another random entry in the series. In general, the story is not very impressive, not as origin, nor as standalone title. I liked dialogues, though. They maybe wasn't as...colorful as SOTN's, but they weren't cringeworthy either.

Graphically the game is not very bad. Its backgrounds a bit less detailed than Belmont's Revenge, but a bit better than in original Castlevania: The Adventure. There are no impressive background pieces, like statues in the final level of the CVA2, though. And some levels feels repetetive and plain.

Music in this game is rather non-memorable too. I would say, that it's not very impressive, somewhat messy and overall not very interesting. It's sounds like it could belong to any other game, but Castlevania. The only exceptions from this are remixes of the Bloody Tears and Vampire Killer. Not because of the arrangements (they are not that good), but because some new parts were added to both classic tunes, making them more interesting, than usual. Sounds are kind of just there, and some of them were reused from two previous Game Boy games.

Gameplay is generally good. At least when it comes to controls. Once again, they are worse, than in Belmont's Revenge, but a bit better than in Adventure. Sonia feels a bit slow, but not nearly as sluggish as Christopher Belmont was in the his first outing. There are problems with control responsivity, though. Sometimes, game doesn't recognize, when player stop pushing directional button and Sonia continues to walk for a few seconds more. In some cases, when Sonia needs to jump from the edge of the platform, this can lead to cheap death. In order to not let it happen, player needs always apply just enough pressure to the button. The problem is, that in the heat of boss battle, it could be rather hard to do. Especially it goes for the battles with Executioner and Dracula. The whip could be powered like in previous Game Boy titles. After final upgarde, Sonia will gain ability to shoot fireballs from the whip.

Level design is good and done in the style of the old school games. There is a lot of punishing platforming, however, there is a big problem with enemy placement. The first problem is that there are enemies, that attack player from the angles from which he couldn't even possibly counter them. Examples of such enemies are annoying dark spirits and bats. The former, just love attack player from the bottom. Another major problem are enemies that spawn nearby player's starting position. Imagine situation - player enters the room and immediately attacked by enemy who spawned nearby entrance. In some cases this is taken even further: enemies spawn right on the place, where Sonia is standing. The worst thing, though, is that enemies respawn. If player go back a bit in the level and then return to the place where he has fought enemy, this enemy will be there again. In many cases this is really annoying, because you can't go back even for a quarter of the screen. All of this, are often occurences in the game, which make it really tedious and annoying. It's like designers didn't even think how player can counter this situations at all. The levels themselves are not very interesting. While structuraly good, they lack any creativity, that was present in the first two Game Boy titles. Aside from different graphics, they mostly feel the same.

KCEN seemingly decided to make game a bit more interesting by introducing secret items to collect in the levels and the hidden stage. This secret items look like traditional Castlevania sub-weapons, but they are in this game as collectible items only. It somehow should be tied with how Belmonts found those weapons, but I really don't see how its relevant to this. I mean, Sonia collects them, but where they came from and how Belmonts figured out how to use them? Since traditional subweapons are collectibles only, Sonia have her own set of subweapons. Unlike previous games, she automatically receives them after defeating bosses. Her subweapons are this: Soul Wind - acts like Stopwatch, frezeeing enemies on the screen. Soul Flame - damages all enemies on the screen. Soul Bat - makes stronger damage to the enemies on the screen. Soul Saint - power ups Sonia's whip, enabling it shooting projectiles. When used with final upgrade of the whip, it enables shooting two projectiles at the same time. Soul Ice - replenishes helath, similar to Laurel from Akumajou Dracula 68K.

There are also some traps in the levels. If player destroy certain candles on the stage, Sonia will be immediately transported to the room with respawning enemies. To get out from there, Sonia supposedly must kill all enemies. Hidden Stage could be opened in similar manner, by striking the lone cnadle in the level 5. Hidden stage is not all that special, though. But it's neccessary to complete it, in order to receive the best ending.

Enemies are slow and dumb, but since they can respawn they are presenting a constant danger. Bosses are unbelievably primitive. Most of them are just flying from one corner of the room to the other, while attacking player with projectiles. Only three bosses act differently: Executioner and Dracula in his two forms. Even Reaper and Alucard weren't spared from primitivity. Alucard, though can strike with his sword, besides shooting fireballs. And sometimes he transforms into bat and dash to the other side of the screen.

Unlike my previous entries, I will not describe bosses in detail, since aside from graphics, they have pretty much the same tactic. Executioner instead of jumping from one side of the room to the other, is walking from one corner to the other, while jumping on the platforms. He wouldn't be very difficult, if not for the aforementioned problem with controls, when you can't jump properly from the edge of the platform. Dracula in his first form, have almost the same tactic as in CVA and CVA2. He teleports around the room and shoots fireballs. It's easy to defeat him. His second form...is hilarious. It looks like giant vaguely humanoid shaped blob, with multiple faces on its body and ugly bat like head. Blob shaped body is there only as decoration. The real danger coming from the head which...teleports around the room and shoots fireballs. Yeah. Very creative. The main danger here, is once again, possibility of falling into the pits on the floor. Like in CVA2, player must find several save spots on the screen to evade Dracula's attacks. Thanks to the colouring in the Game Boy Color mode, Dracula's body, look like a pink blob, adding insult to overall hilarious design.

In general, the game is very weak. I mean, after Belmont's Revenge, which was an awesome game, it's really strange to see Legends ending like that. It's like its creators throw away most of the things, that made CVA2 a good game, like creative levels, interesting bosses, good music and the like. Instead of this, Legends is rather primitive game, not completely devoid of good ideas, but poorly executed nonetheless, when it comes to overall package. In general, this game left rather mediocre impression on me and I don't have any desire to replay it anytime soon.

[Sumac]

After some calculations, it looks like I don't have time for CV Marathon on this week, so it will be resumed only after New Year. Sadly, I lost the whole month, due problems with motherboard and now I am unable to go back, to the initial schedule.
Anyway, there will be another review pubslished on this week for the Nocturne in the Moonlight (Saturn version of the Symphony). That will be the last review in this year.

[Sumac]

Nocturne in the Moonlight review by Sumac.

So, it will be the first time, when I am writing review, not for the game itself, but for the upgraded version of it. I've learnt about NITM at Castlevania Dungeon, when I was searching for information about Symphony of the Night. After playing SOTN for the first time I didn't have any intentions to play in its port, since I wasn't impressed by original. But after my second playthrough, I decided, that I want to see this game for the sake of complecity. I played in it in 2008, but only as Maria. Recently I finally have played in NITM as Alucard and now I am ready to write a little review about how this game compares to the PS1's SOTN.

Graphics is pretty much the same, however, some backgrounds look a bit strecthed, but that's a minor problem. What I didn't like is that in some rooms foreground sprites end just a bit before border of the screen and you could see background layer. Another problem with graphics is that for some reason Sega Saturn is unable to handle sprites transparency. Instead of this, Saturn used dithering (sprites depicted with small holes, making them look vaguely transparent). It's actually looks somewhat ugly. Some animations were added, some simplified. Most obvious example is Alucard transformations: on PS1 he smoothly morphed from one form to another. In NITM he instantly changes between different forms without any kind of in between animations. The only good thing about it, is that player can almost instantly transform into mist form, other transformations still take some time. There is also strange thing about Bat form transfromation - after player pushes transfromation button, Alucard continue to move, wherever player sent him before transformation. That gives Alucard complete invicibility for several seconds, before he finally assumes Bat form. In some cases it can be useful. Overall, the game looks a bit worse, than its PS1 counterpart, but it is not something really important for me.

Music is the same as in PS1 versions. However, because some new areas were added, soundtrack was also expanded. There are few new melodies and all of them are excellent: Vampire Killer and Bloody Tears received two new remixes each, Begining also received new remix. Besides, there are completely new tracks - awesome organ pieces Chaconne A'moll and Chaconne C'moll, and one of my favorite tracks in the series, Guardian, that plays during Maria boss battle. New tracks play in the new areas and when you play as additional characters. Since this game was released only in Japan, horrible English dub is not present and that's actually positively affects atmosphere of the game to a certain extent. Alucard sounds like a typical bishounen - cold and aristocratic. Maria sounds a bit too soft for her depiction in the art. Dracula sounds awesome - he is not anymore stupid cartoonish villain, but a credible fiend, that can sound a bit sad (in the end of the game). I especially liked the voice of Reaper - he sounds somewhat monotonous. Ferryman and Librarian are very good. Shaft is controversial - his voice is deep, but it sounds like he is speaking with the bucket on his head. Richter speaks with grandeur, but not chesse, when being in the good mode. When he is under Shaft's spell, he sounds even more awesome, chanelling calm insanity. This unsetting feeling just oozing from his words and much better, than overacted to the max evil!Ricther in English dub. Maria and Shaft are probably only two cases, when I like English voices better.

Gameplay is mostly the same. It means all problems of the original SOTN is present here: lack of balance, boring level structure and others. However, KCEN have done some things to adress several problems. They've added figural "third hand" to the Alucard. This addition is supposed to adress problem, that I extensively mentioned in my SOTN review, about neccesity to jump back and forth through the menu and the game, to heal Alucard with food and potions. Now player can assign food and potions into the third hand and there is no need to do all this annoying "go into menu, return from the menu" stuff. All content from Japanese version of the SOTN on PS1 is present in this game, thus you have two more familiars and some new items. New familiars are Sprite (she is the same as standard Fairy, but can sing a song for Alucard) and Nose Demon (he is the same as regular Demon familiar, but have different face and voice). One of the most important additions to the game is the Running Boots relic, which Alucard picks up on the way to the teleport after battle with Richter. This relic allows Alucard to run, like Richter. His running animations is just his regular walking animation sped up, but Boots really make Second Castle a bit less tedious. Why KCET didn't thought about this obvious solution, is anyone's guess. Another important minor addition - is Alucard's Spear weapon (the same, that was / will be used by Eric Lecarde in Bloodlines). It can be found in Hell Garden (reversed version of Underground Garden).

The most important addition to the game, besides Maria and Runing Boots, are two new areas - Undeground Garden and Cursed Prison (and their reversed versions - Hell Graden and Reversed Prison). Both don't feel like they belong to the NITM, because of their very different level structure. It feels like they were literally ripped from one of the past games - comparing to the blandly designed NITM areas, those new levels have an old-school approach to the level structure, platforming and enemies placement. Hell garden even have enemies, that could be compared to Alucard in agility!! That what original SOTN was missing.

Undeground Garden / Reversed Garden
Reversed Garden is home to pretty much all best enemies in the game in terms of difficulty. Regular Garden is not so much, but it has a Grining Tree, one of the oddest enemies in the whole game. Also it has a new boss - Skeleton Leader, that is one of the fastest bosses in the game and seemginly was designed with old-school approach too. He is fast, reletnless in his attacks and have variety of patterns. He is certainly a force to be recconed with, even with Alucard's hax abilities. To make this area even more awesome, it has Vampire Killer remix as the background melody, and Bloody Tears remix as the sone during boss fight. In reversed version this area strikes with very ingeniously chosen set of enemies, that kind of cover each other and doesn't allow player to relax, making this an example of how SOTN could have been, if KCET didn't design game with newby players in mind. Reversed version doesn't have a boss. Begining remix plays in the reversed version of the area.

Cursed Prison / Reversed Prison.
This area is also designed with old sensibilities in mind, however, it lacks very important thing - boss of the level. This place is very atmospheric, thanks to the organ piece Chaconne A'Moll playing in the background and also presents variety of new enemies to fight, like Ghosts and marble statues. Reversed version is not very impressive and mostly use formula "one set of enemies for each floor". Chaconne C'Moll plays in the reversed version of the area.

Additions, that are not essential to the main game: now you can play as Richter from the begining. You don't need to finish game as Alucard to choose him. Also, Richter has a new costume, that supposed to resemble his art, but if anything, it looks only vaguely resembling Kojima painting. Besides, this new costume was unfinished and in general looks somewhat ugly. KCEN added ability to play as Maria - she is pretty much walking weapon of mass destruction. She has ability to heal and to summon a giant dragon, that deals enormous damage and can be directly controlled by the player. She also has triple jump, as far as I know she is the only character with that ability in the series. Like Richter she doesn't have any story (missed opportunity, since unlike Richter it could have been rather easy to make one for her) and final boss in her game is Shaft.

Overall, NITM is not very special. It adds new playable character, two new areas, and some small alterations to the gameplay, but it doesn't do anything serious to really improve on SOTN's problems. Balance is still broken and tonnes of items exist just to take place in the inventory, without ability to sell them. I think that this game was a missed opportunity to fix almost everything that was wrong with SOTN. It seems KCEN were going in the right direction, but, alas, were interuppted before they could finish, what were they planing. Graphically the game is a bit inferrior, but as for me, I'd take a game, that plays better for a bit, rather than the game, that is more beautiful, but have more problems. While NITM is not big improvement over SOTN, I like it a bit more. I like new music, playable Maria, new areas, new tracks and enemies, Japanese voice acting and ability to run in the Second Castle. It's not a choice between good version of the game and bad version of the same game, it's more like a choice between boring version of the game and less boring version of the game. So, I chose something less boring.

[Sumac]

And that's it. Final review for this year. It seems, despite my best efforts Castlevania Marathong will ultimately take more than a year to finish. I never planned this, but I am intend to finalize it.
The next review will be for Castlevania 64, but I think it will take some time, before it will be published, since I haven't even replayed the game so far.

Anyway, it was a nice to make reviews for the people and hope, that at least somebody have enjoyed them. Happy New year and the best of luck for all of you. 

CVM to be continued in the next year...

[Sumac]

Castlevania Marathon is continued!!
First review will be for Castlevania 64 and most likely it will be published somewhere on the weekend. 

[Lelygax]

Hey, good to see you Sumac, how have you been?