Hello there!

A few months ago, I had posted a similar thread about Super Metroid here.

I recently got the Castlevania Requiem collection very cheap on a PS Store sale, and finally had the chance to play Symphony Of The Night to the end. I never had a PS1 so this is a big deal for me after all these years. And now, I am proud to say I have played both games that coined the term "metroidvania".

In my opinion, SOTN is a great game. It followed the steps of Super Metroid in terms of interconnected areas and navigation, as well as save rooms. It has great variety in enemies and environments. And that music, wow. The whole gothic atmosphere is definitely a great fit for such a game.

This one, though, was a bit more RPG-like, with tons of weapons, armors, potions, stats, leveling up etc. Which is why I can finally say I personally prefer the metroid side of the term "metroidvania".

The thing is, SOTN is more combat-oriented and a bit of grinding is needed here and there to keep up with the difficulty increasing. Although I did not think the game was super hard, I found it rather challenging in places. Also, RPGs are not my cup of tea in general, so the whole equip/compare/get potion/eat/scroll pages of inventory was kind of tiresome for me.

One thing that made me more confident while playing Super Metroid was that defeating enemies would spawn those nice HP energy beads whenever I was in need. In SOTN I was always anxious to find the next save room to replenish my HP :)

Although I lean more towards Super Metroid, I still think SOTN is a very well-made game and should be experienced at least once by fans of the genre. I had a great time with it for sure. It took me 15 hours to complete it at 193.5% (if I have read correctly I needed just another 2-3% to get the "best" ending, but still I was too tired so I watched it online).

I would like to hear your opinions and experiences on the game as well!

And now some questions:

1. After I finished the game I got the option to play as Ricther or Maria. Is there a motive to replay the whole game just with a different character? Does anything change so drastically as to justify that?

2. I have Bloodstained - Ritual Of The Night on my wishlist and would like to play that at some point too. How is it compared to SOTN? Is it completely identical in gameplay or are there any differences?

Good morning fellow neighbor! I've been lucky enough to play Symphony of the Night at release (and several times after that). I'll agree with you that Symphony of the Night is a great, well-made game. I don't have much experience in metroidvanias in general, i haven't played Metroid and i don't even remember if i played another game like that, but i too had lots of fun with Symphony of the Night and i think it's one of the best games made for the PS console.

Everything the game offers, from graphics to gameplay to the majestic soundtrack is top-notch (hell, even the loading corridors & save game screen is well made with the spinning coffin and all that), even if i can't really compare it to other games of the genre. Other than that, i should mention the very attracting box artwork, because that was what drew me in first time; anime style is not my cup of thing, but somehow this one clicked with me.

All the above isn't just nostalgia speaking: i did another walkthrough last year on the PSP and it was as good as i remembered.

Hey neighbor :)

Exactly as you said, I'm not into anime style as well, but this game's art is top-notch! I liked it so much that I definitely want to find a high-resoution image of the artwork and print a poster.

Totally unrelated, I also forgot to mention earlier that I found the game very difficult at the beginning. It requires some patience until you get strong enough to progress comfortably. From that point on, the game just... flows. It kind of had a "reverse" difficulty progression, if you get what I mean ;)

Sotn is my comfort game. If I don't feel like playing anything I'll boot sotn and play. I sometimes use a randomizer available online to spice up things. And they often resulted in crazy fun gaming session.

If you haven't, definitely give hollow knight a go. That one is damn good metroidvania.

I wish I could buy it here.

Same, that game is magical. I bought it a while back on Xbox 360 but unfortunately my Xbox doesn't work anymore ;_;

Definitely. Would buy that here again, it was that good.

It would be the best surprise release for Halloween! Well, the game is not halloween-themed (pumpkins, candy, etc.) but the Dracula theme has always been a popular one for this time of year. Have you played Bloodstained? Is it similar to Symphony of the Night in gameplay?

I still have the game which I originally bought back when I bought a Playstation console, in order to play some of the "must-play" PSX exclusives that everyone was supposed to play at least once in their life. CV: SOTN was one of those games.

So yeah I started playing it but somehow I just got bored quite quickly, and never really got back to the game. Oh well.

Nowadays I mainly know the game from all the memes about the bad English and over-voiceacting in the game.

It may have affected my sentiments that I never was a Nintendo kid but a PC computer kid, so all these "metroid this castlevania that" things were pretty alien to my when I finally got my Playstation.

I have recently started playing Bloodstained, but I'm still not that far in.
I can't compare it to SotN, since I've only played Aria's Sorrow in the Castlevania series.

In Bloodstained though, the controls are rather unresponsive and delayed. Especially jumping.
The graphics also make it hard to see what is foreground and background sometimes too.
The bosses so far have not had a good way of telegraphing where their attack is coming from.
Some enemies like bats also come out of the blue thanks to a rather zoomed in view, and their attack pattern is difficult to react to before they fly off-screen.
I've also had to use AutoHotKey, since it doesn't support binding keys to mouse, but that's not unusal sadly.
It's still a pretty good game though. I'm just a cynical grouch with rather high standards.
Oh yeah, the dialogue is..awkward too.
It think it focuses too much on a flashy style/graphics/cinematic perspective, which makes gameplay mechanics suffer. Worth a try, at a sale. If you love the Metroidvania genre

Good game but it's one of those where I don't see what's utterly amazing about it. So much praise for the game and I just don't get it. The upside down castle is awful.

To be honest, this type of games was alien to me as well. It wasn't until I played Ori and the Blind Forest that I found out that platformers can require exploration in open-ended worlds :) So all this is pretty recent for me too. Now I can't get enough of them.

I don't think these are high standards. I mean, who wants unresponsive controls and unpredictably appearing enemies in their games? It's good to know about these issues, thanks.

Also, ALL dialogue in Symphony Of The Night was awkward :)

It's the same with Alwa's Legacy. Upside down is awful..Please, devs..just..stop.
I tried Ori and the Blind forest.
Good gameplay and mechanics, responsive and fun..
A big However coming though..
I just hate the "artistic" seemless cutscenes and most of all, the f-ing chase scenes.. Hate them.. With a passion.
I alt-f4 quit at the third one..or was it fourth?

Do play Hollow Knight. It is absolutely the best Metroidvania out there. Until Silksong hopefully ,)

Another Metroidvania game I would recommend, if you want one that's very much like the Igavanias, is Timespinner. It may not be that long or that impressive, but I did find it quite fun when I played it.

Agreed, if you can stomach a little SJW plot and dialogue, it has some good gameplay and mechanics.

I'd also recommend Rabi-Ribi..
Chasm is okay if you like the Igavania style.