The lights are on
Konami’s classic vampire-killing series changed gaming when it arrived on the PlayStation in 1997. It combined a gigantic, sprawling, Super Metroid-style castle with light RPG elements. The huge castle is littered with crazy enemies, room-filling bosses, and tons of weapons to experiment with. But just when you think you’ve explored everything the game has to offer and slain an important boss, you get to do the whole thing again, upside down.
Less thorough explorers could miss out on the second half of the game entirely if they don’t find a special set of eyewear. Players need to wear Holy glasses during a battle with Richter Belmont in order to see and destroy the evil force possessing him. Defeating this entity – the dark priest Shaft – freed Richter from his evil influence. If players kill Richter instead of Shaft, the game ends prematurely. Some gamers watched the credits roll, not knowing how much more game was in store for them.
And what a powerful feeling it is when you enter the portal to the inverted Castle Dracula and realize the entire game was designed to be played upside down. Staircases work in reverse, chandeliers jut up from the ground, and once inaccessible nooks are easily spelunked. New enemies and items populate the mirrored castle, giving familiar rooms an unique vibe from the first time you trekked through them.
The upgrade and exploration-based formula established in the Metroid series was already fantastic, and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night only improved upon it. The visual variety of the castle and astounding, reversible map design is enough to keep Symphony of the Night high in any “greatest games of all time” conversation.
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Certainly a memorable moment and an influential game. I still haven't managed to get full 200.6% though.
Definitely a moment for me. Didn't see it coming and I did kill Richter my first go and thought that was strange. There were a few clues around that led me to reload my game and explore more. Great game.
It's a great game, took me forever to find a copy of it. Until PS3 came out and then sold them on the PSN. XD
By far one of my all-time favorite games. Still have it on the PS1 black disc that plays music when you put it into a CD player.
old school classics....indeed...its also an awesome game you know.
You could argue for the discovery of how to open the clock room floor too. Both just blew my mind.
I was one of the people who killed Richter and it didn't seem right... and you pass through that clock room early, and it never seems right. And then you remember some areas you may have missed or some items you never used. And then - what? Holy glasses? You know something's up, but I don't think you'd ever guess the whole upside-down castle thing. Awesome. So many new enemies with cool loot.
Absolutely love this game! As a person who killed Richter my first playthrough, I felt cheapened by the experience. After I went back and used the glasses and realized there was an entirely new game, my mind was blown! Definitely one of my favorite games of all time and definitely a great moment in gaming history.
This is a great moment, but I would also say the beginning of the game is too. When you play as Richter and different stats for Alucard are determined by how you perform in that stage, that in itself made me go back and play it over and over just to see what specific actions would lead to.
SotN is my favorite game ever.
One of my favs of all time for sure.
love this game one of the best ever played along with the others in the series exceot a few that bombed pretty badly like castlevania judgement and another i cant remember the name of it
One of my favorite game moments is when you enter Sei-An City for the first time in Okami, only to find it has fallen victim to a poisonous gas that is killing everybody in the capital.
If this game had been done today, we would have had to pay for it. Back then, I remember having to pick up my jaw off the floor. All my efforts to finish the game had only gotten me to half way there.
Oh, man. I saw that inverted castle for the first time and my jaw hit the floor!
This makes me want to go back and play this game again...one of my favorite E-V-E-R. I never achieved 200.6%, but my Lord, was that journey worth it. The protagonist? Awesome. The setting? Awesome. (Twice as Awesome when it flipped upside down.) Huge, gigantic, pain-in-the-rear boss battles? Awesome. Not spoon-fed everything about the game by the designers or because the internet was still in infancy and what you discovered while playing the game was even better because YOU figured it out? AWESOME. This game will forever be dear to my heart.