Played by xRavenXP (me)
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This is the longplay of the game Castlevania - Symphony of The Night, known in Japan as Akumajō Dracula X: Gekka no Yasōkyoku and released for Playstation in 1997 and 1998 for Sega Saturn (this version was released in Japan only).
The game begins with Richter Belmont returning to 1792, Transylvania. A violent battle against the dark lord will take place. Richter faces Dracula and defeats him.
Four years after the battle between Richter Belmont and Dracula, darkness reappears. The ghost of the dark priest Shaft, once killed by Richter, resurfaces with a new plan to resurrect his master. He casts a spell on Richter, bringing him under his control. All these facts make Alucard wake up from his sleep. Yes, it's the same Alucard who joined Trevor Belmont 300 years earlier in Castlevania III - Dracula's Curse. Now Shaft must be stopped by Alucard for humanity to be saved.
And Alucard's entire journey will develop into a gigantic castle with a vast area to explore.
During Alucard's journey in the castle, he meets Maria, a close friend of Richter, several times. They help each other and discover the source of Richter's evil, while Alucard moves on to confront his father, Dracula.
Castlevania, until then, has always been a 2D action game with platforms and fighting. However, it had a very linear progression, delimited by phases and bosses.
In Symphony of the Night, series producer Konami decided to take a different course of game progression, borrowing the style of the Super Metroid game. A similar and older form of this type of gameplay was used in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, but it was in Symphony of the Night that this type of gameplay really worked.
This game follows a nonlinear style of play: at first Alucard can only access certain areas of the castle, but by obtaining the three ways he can transform himself (wolf, bat and fog) he can gradually access previously inaccessible areas. A map uploaded by Alucard is automatically updated to show the player his progress in the castle.
In addition to debuting the Metroidvania style in the series, Symphony of the Night was the first Castlevania to have RPG elements added to the gameplay. The whole scenario, the characters and monsters are full of details. Light and shadow effects make the game look flawless for a 2D game. Castlevania's famous soundtracks got even better with Michiru Yamane's compositions, now CD-quality. Artist Ayami Kojima was featured as the character designer for Symphony of the Night. The game has an impressive amount of drawings, characters and monsters, which gives them smooth animations, in contrast to the limited movements of previous games.
The entire video was taken by collecting 200.6% of the map, ending the game by making the best ending twice with Alucard (the second time was to get exclusive items like Duplicator, evolve all familiars and also use weapons more often, including weapons such as Crissaegrin and shield spells) and also includes Richter Mode (which is more limited compared to Alucard mode but has its importance as an extra). I had to set the emulator to Mednafen Mode instead of Pixel Pro Mode in order to make the game resolution more or less fixed (since unfortunately this game has slightly weird aspect ratio and many ressys).
This is a wonderful game that deserves to be played by everyone. Hope you like it.