Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is a 1997 action role-playing game created and released by Konami for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. It is a direct follow-up to Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, taking place four years after that game’s events. Toru Hagihara directed and produced the game, with Koji Igarashi serving as assistant director.
The game features Alucard, Dracula’s dhampir son, who returns from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse as the main character. Alucard explores Dracula’s castle, which reappears after Richter Belmont disappears, and fights to stop his father from regaining his lost power. The game’s design differs from earlier games in the series, reintroducing exploration, levels that do not follow a single path, and role-playing features first tested in Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest.
Symphony of the Night sold poorly at first. However, it later gained popularity through word-of-mouth and became an unexpected success, gaining a dedicated group of fans. It sold over 700,000 copies in the United States and Japan. Critics praised the game, often calling it one of the best video games ever made. They highlighted its gameplay, atmosphere, visuals, and soundtrack, though some criticized the voice acting. The game is also seen as a pioneer of the Metroidvania genre, influencing many exploration-based action-adventure games. Symphony of the Night had a lasting effect on the Castlevania series, with later mainline games adopting its gameplay style.
Gameplay
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night uses side-scrolling gameplay where players move left and right across the screen. The goal is to explore Dracula’s castle to defeat Shaft, a character who controls Richter Belmont. Richter is the ruler of the castle and a hero from a previous game called Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. To free Richter from Shaft’s control, players must find a special item during the game and use it in battle. After successfully freeing Richter, the game reveals a new area called the Inverted Castle, which is an upside-down version of Dracula’s castle with new enemies and bosses. Alucard, the main character, must defeat five specific bosses to collect five pieces of Dracula, as seen in a previous game in the series. This leads to a final battle with a newly awakened Dracula.
The game allows players to explore the castle in any order, but most areas are blocked until specific items or abilities are collected. These include the ability to transform into a bat, wolf, or mist. As players explore, a map updates to show their progress.
Unlike earlier Castlevania games, where players typically used whips, this game lets players collect and use many different weapons. The game includes an inventory system and other features common in role-playing games.
In Symphony of the Night, Alucard’s health and magic points determine how much damage he can take and how often he can cast spells. Players can collect hearts from enemies and candles to use sub-weapons, as in earlier games. Alucard has four attributes: strength (power of physical attacks), constitution (resistance to damage), intelligence (power of magical attacks and sub-weapons), and luck (chance to find items or land critical hits).
Defeating enemies gives Alucard experience points, which increase his attributes when he levels up. Players can also find Life Vessels and Heart Vessels to permanently boost Alucard’s maximum health and hearts. Alucard can cast eight different spells, each requiring specific directional inputs and using varying amounts of magic points. Later in the game, he can summon familiars, which help in battles and exploration.
After completing the game, players can unlock alternative modes. Entering “Richter Belmont” as the username lets players control Richter, who uses a whip and sub-weapons. In the Sega Saturn version and the PlayStation Portable game Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, as well as the PlayStation 4 version Castlevania Requiem, players can also control Maria Renard.
Plot
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night begins at the end of the previous game in the series, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, where Richter Belmont fights and defeats Count Dracula. Four years later, in 1796, Richter disappears. One year after that, Dracula’s castle reappears. Alucard arrives at the castle to destroy it and meets Maria Renard, who once fought with Richter and is searching for him. Alucard meets Richter, who claims to be the new lord of the castle. Maria believes Richter is being controlled by someone else and gives Alucard the Holy Glasses, which help him see through illusions. In the castle’s keep, Alucard confronts Richter and learns that Richter plans to resurrect Dracula so they can fight forever. During a battle, Alucard breaks the spell controlling Richter. Dracula’s servant, Shaft, then appears and says Dracula will still be resurrected soon.
Alucard leaves Richter and Maria to fight Shaft, entering an upside-down copy of the castle to find him. Shaft explains he wanted to destroy the Belmont clan by controlling one of its members and causing the clan to fight itself. After defeating Shaft, Alucard faces his father, Dracula, who plans to end humanity because Alucard’s mother, Lisa, was executed as a witch. Alucard refuses to join his father and defeats him. Alucard tells Dracula that he has been stopped many times because he lost the ability to love after Lisa’s death. He also says Lisa’s final words were about eternal love for him and a plea not to harm humanity. Before dying, Dracula asks for Lisa’s forgiveness and says goodbye to his son.
After escaping the collapsing castle, Alucard reunites with Maria and Richter. Maria is happy Alucard survived, but Richter feels guilty for causing Alucard’s fight with his father. Alucard tells Richter, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” (a quote from Edmund Burke), and decides to leave the world because of his cursed bloodline. Whether Maria tries to stop Alucard or accepts his choice depends on how much of the castle the player explored. If the player explored most of the castle, Maria chases Alucard. If not, she leaves with Richter.
Development
In 1994, work began on a Castlevania game for the 32X, later named Castlevania: The Bloodletting. A working version of the game was created, but Konami decided to focus on the PlayStation instead. As a result, the game was cancelled. Ideas from this project were changed, and the game became Symphony of the Night.
The game was directed and produced by Toru Hagihara, who had previously directed Rondo of Blood. Igarashi helped with the story and programming. Later, Hagihara was promoted to lead his division, and Igarashi became the assistant director. The game was meant to show a new direction for the Castlevania series. Igarashi said the game started as a "side story" but allowed the team to break old rules and add new features still used today. The team wanted to change the design because they saw many Castlevania games in discount bins, and older games had limited replay value. Igarashi, who liked 2D games, helped improve the controls.
Igarashi wanted a game that could be played for a long time, so the team changed the traditional level-by-level structure to an open castle that players could explore freely. They looked to Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda for inspiration, which used exploration and backtracking to increase gameplay. Symphony of the Night was also influenced by Super Metroid. Igarashi used the success of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, which focused more on exploration, to convince Konami to support the new game. The team used ideas from Zelda to make parts of the castle inaccessible at first, allowing players to unlock areas as they gained new items and abilities. This encouraged exploration while keeping the action gameplay from earlier games. Instead of using whips, the team chose Alucard as the main character because the whip took too much screen space and they wanted unique moves like transformations.
Role-playing features were added because Igarashi thought earlier games were too hard for average players. A leveling-up system with experience points was introduced, giving players better stats as they defeated enemies. This, along with items, armor, weapons, and spells, made the game easier for less experienced players.
Symphony of the Night was the first game for artist Ayami Kojima. She designed the main and supporting characters, influenced by bishōnen-style art. The game used 2D visuals, with characters moving on scrolling backgrounds. The PlayStation lacked hardware for scrolling, so developers used the same methods for background displays. Occasionally, the PlayStation's 3D features were used. The game included opening and ending scenes created by another Konami team. Igarashi and the team were unhappy with the quality of these scenes, which used flat models without textures.
The music was composed by Michiru Yamane. The soundtrack includes styles like classical, techno, gothic rock, new-age, jazz, and metal. "I Am the Wind," a vocal ending theme performed by Cynthia Harrell, plays during the credits.
Versions and re-releases
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was first released in Japan on March 20, 1997, in North America on October 3, 1997, and in Europe in November 1997. The Japanese version included an art book with a short manga based on the game and a soundtrack from earlier Castlevania games.
The North American and European versions were translated by Jeremy Blaustein, though he did not participate in voice recordings. Blaustein added a quote from French writer André Malraux: "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets." Other changes included improved artificial intelligence, a sound test feature, and fixing a bug that caused the game to crash. The game was not heavily promoted in the United States, had limited funding for its North American production, and was not initially a major financial success. It was re-released in Japan on the "PlayStation the Best" label on March 19, 1998, and in North America as part of the "Greatest Hits" collection in 1998.
In 1998, the game was released for the Sega Saturn in Japan by Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya. This version allowed players to control Maria Renard and fight her as a boss, and Richter could be played from the start. When playing as Alucard, a "third hand" was available for using items like food and potions, but not weapons. Alucard could use special items, such as the Godspeed Boots, which let him move quickly like Richter. New areas, the Cursed Prison and the Underground Garden, were added with new bosses. The Saturn version included music from earlier Castlevania games but had longer loading times and lower-quality graphics compared to the PlayStation version. Some visual effects, like mists and waterfalls, were replaced with dithering due to the Saturn's limited hardware capabilities. The game’s graphics were stretched to fill the screen, causing some images to appear distorted. The Saturn version was criticized for being a simple port that did not take advantage of the system’s features.
By the time the Saturn version was released, it was confirmed that it would not be released in the United States. A version for the Game.com was planned but canceled. A prototype of the game was found online in 2022.
In 2006, Konami announced a port of the PlayStation version to the Xbox 360, distributed via Xbox Live Arcade. Backbone Entertainment developed this version, which was the first Xbox Live Arcade game to exceed the 50 MB file size limit. The game featured leaderboards and 12 achievements. Full-motion video sequences were removed from the North American and European versions but were later added to the Japanese version. The closing music was changed from "I Am the Wind" to "Admiration Towards the Clan" due to licensing issues. A later patch fixed a distorted background image in one ending. In 2009, the game was included in the Konami Classics Vol. 1 compilation for Xbox 360 alongside Super Contra and Frogger.
In 2007, the PlayStation version was re-released as a "PSone Classics" title on the PlayStation Network for North America, Japan, and Europe. It was playable on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation Vita.
A version of Symphony of the Night was included as unlockable content in Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the PlayStation Portable, released in 2007. The English version included a new script and voice acting, with an option to use original Japanese voices. This version added new moves for Maria Renard based on her abilities in Rondo of Blood. The closing theme was changed to "Mournful Serenade," and an English version of "Nocturne" was added. The Dracula X Chronicles versions were re-released for PlayStation 4 in 2018 as part of the Castlevania Requiem compilation. Android and iOS versions were released in 2020 based on the Dracula X Chronicles version.
In 2010, a puzzle game called Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night, inspired by Symphony of the Night, was released for iOS.
Reception
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was highly praised by critics when it was first released. Reviewers admired the large, open game world filled with many secrets to discover. They also appreciated how the game added role-playing features without changing the basic gameplay of the series. Many critics highlighted the cleverly designed enemies and the story’s unexpected twists. GameSpot called it "easily one of the best games ever released" and said it showed that 2D games were still popular. Computer and Video Games said the game felt "the freshest thing of the year," even though it used old-style gameplay. Next Generation described it as "classic" and called it "spectacular" for a 2D side-scrolling game during the time of 32- and 64-bit systems. GamePro gave it a perfect score of 5.0 in all categories—graphics, sound, controls, and fun—calling it "one of the best games of the year."
Although many believed 2D games were outdated, critics praised the game’s graphics for smooth animation, special effects, and strong atmosphere. John Ricciardi of Electronic Gaming Monthly noted that the animation showed "amazing attention to detail" and that the effects created an immersive experience. However, some critics disliked the use of 2D graphics. Entertainment Weekly said the visuals looked old-fashioned compared to games with 3D environments, and IGN mentioned that the character animation was not very smooth and that 3D effects were limited. A few critics criticized the voice acting, but GameSpot praised it. Most reviewers agreed that the music was excellent, with IGN describing it as "sometimes exciting and always helping to improve the action."
In Electronic Gaming Monthly’s Editors’ Choice Awards, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night won "PlayStation Game of the Year" and "Side-Scrolling Game of the Year." It was also a runner-up for "Best Music" and "Game of the Year." It was named "Best Sequel" in the annual Buyer’s Guide. PSM listed it as "Game of the Year" in its top ten games of 1997.
The game was nominated for "Console Game of the Year" and "Console Adventure Game of the Year" at the AIAS’ first Interactive Achievement Awards.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has a large fan following, and original PlayStation copies are now considered valuable collector’s items. It showed that 2D games remained popular during the 32-bit era, even as 3D games advanced quickly.
The game has continued to be praised by critics and has appeared on many "greatest game" lists. In its release year, Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked it the 12th best console game of all time, calling it "one of the best, period." It was included on GameSpot’s "The Greatest Games of All Time" list. IGN placed it 16th on its "Top 100 Games of All Time" list, and Game Informer ranked it 24th in its "Top 200 Video Games Ever." GameZone named it the best Castlevania game ever made. GamePro listed the discovery of the inverted castle as the 26th-greatest moment in gaming. GamesRadar called it the second-best PlayStation game of all time, after Metal Gear Solid. It was ranked 4th on EGM’s list of 100 greatest games and was the highest-ranked PlayStation 1 game on the list. Edge placed it No. 35 on its list of "The 100 Best Games To Play Today," saying the moment the castle turns upside down shows "a work of genius."
The gameplay of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and its 2D successors is often compared to the Metroid series. Both games are seen as pioneers in the genre, leading to the term "Metroidvania," which combines parts of the names Metroid and Castlevania to describe games with similar features.
At first, the game sold only a moderate number of copies, especially in the United States, where it was not heavily promoted. However, positive reviews helped it gain popularity through word-of-mouth. The PlayStation and Saturn versions sold 225,862 units in Japan, while the PlayStation version sold 477,304 units in the United States. In total, 703,166 units were sold in Japan and the United States.