Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

[Mir]

Anyone here played C:SotN? Back when it came out I was seriously addicted to that game, and to this day every few months I'll litterally pop it in and play it start to finish two or three times. I think they used mind control rays or something because I've never played a "beatable" game so much for so long. Next to Xenogears (which deserves it's own thread), I think it was the best playstation game (maybe even second best game period). Certainly I don't think any Castlevania game has even come close to being as good as this, except maybe the original Sega Bloodlines one, or the GBA rip of Symphony of the Night, but still nothing touches it.

What do you think?

[Ahnkosis]

That game is as close to one of my favorite games of all time as you can get. When I sold my collection of 15+ squaresoft titles and 35+ playstation one games, I kept only 3 games: Vandal Hearts, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Castlevania, SoTN. It is seriously one of the best 2d Castlevania games. Collectively, I probably have over 200 hours played on that game.

[Nakilos]

I loved the game, played through it a few times when I had it. First time I played through it I didn't even realize you could play through it backwards until a friend mentioned it, and it really renewed the game for me.

Kind of sad, I'd rather play PSX emulator games now than most of the garbage thats out today.

[Vinen]

Originally Posted by Ahnkosis

That game is as close to one of my favorite games of all time as you can get. When I sold my collection of 15+ squaresoft titles and 35+ playstation one games, I kept only 3 games: Vandal Hearts, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Castlevania, SoTN. It is seriously one of the best 2d Castlevania games. Collectively, I probably have over 200 hours played on that game.

Vandal Hearts 1 & 2... two of the most underrated RPGs ever.

Depressing Endings for #2... unless you manage to figure out how to keep her from commiting suicide..........which is a task in itself.

[Whyme]

Still have my original PS1 SotN disc... scratched to hell and back but it works like a charm. Yes, the game is easily one of the best, most addictive games ever made.

Damn now I'm gonna have to go play it.

[Kevincheese]

I love SotN. Didn't get it til maybe 2 years after it came out, and sadly I was never into Castlevania when I was younger... but it's easily a personal favorite. Tactics is as well; imo Tactics is the best game on PSX, but Castlevania is almost, as well

[Janx]

One of the best damn game soundtracks of all time.

I just got done playing it YET AGAIN just the other day. I should do it again but playing as Belmont this time..

[Hatorade]

hell yeah playing as belmont was tough unless you learned all his moves. His magic was damm cool also.

[Lord Thanos]

Originally Posted by Ahnkosis

That game is as close to one of my favorite games of all time as you can get. When I sold my collection of 15+ squaresoft titles and 35+ playstation one games, I kept only 3 games: Vandal Hearts, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Castlevania, SoTN. It is seriously one of the best 2d Castlevania games. Collectively, I probably have over 200 hours played on that game.

You sir are a genious!

Final Fantasy Tactics was the best PS1 game ever, I still have my copy and play it occasionally, I just love fighting Gafgarion and Elmdor

I remember reloading my save file over and over again whenever I failed to steal all of Elmdor's Genji samurai armor and his weapon

I also loved Castlevania: SotN, it was classic Castlevania gameplay, unlike that abortion 3D crap they released for the N64

Vandal Hearts am afraid to say I never played them

[Ahnkosis]

I gave up trying to steal that crap lol, I didn't want to take the time to raise all of my party as thieves so I could try it. If you like FFT, try out Vandal Hearts. It's not as in-depth and much more linear (you just get mission after mission basically), but the graphics are good for its time and there isn't another game with cool fountains of blood when you kill another enemy unit. First go-round only takes like 20 hours tops, after that it's an 8 hour playthrough (even finding everything). Even still, it's fun to play.

[Nakilos]

Final Fantasy Tactics was the best PS1 game ever, I still have my copy and play it occasionally, I just love fighting Gafgarion and Elmdor

Sort of disagree. Honestly the game was pretty short in terms of required battles, and some things made the game rediculously trivial. Most of the special characters were rediculously good (Orlandu with the only sword in the game with auto haste, awesome stats, in addition to every knight ability immediately springs to mind), and some job were so easy to exploit. Calculators, while a really creative concept, were simply gross. Nothing like being able to kill 3 enemies with a no mp cost holy instantly, a gross advantage with spells requiring multiple turns to finally cast. Different strokes for different folks I guess!

Personally I prefered Tactics Ogre more, but that had some cheese too i.e. as I recall you could turn a character undead and they were basically unkillable. Thankfully I didn't find out about that until like 3 battles before the end of the game as it sort of ruined it for me.

Wild Arms was one of my favorite RPG's. Surprisingly decent storyline as I recall, and it was a cool mix of technology without it just being a FF clone. Wild Arms 2 wasn't as good, but the sealed boss fights were really fun. Too bad the storyline/characters left me mashing X to get through the dialogue more than actually paying attention to it.

[Szlia]

I don't really get the fascination people have with Symphony of the Night. For me it's like a Metroid clone without the secret passages and the feeling of exploration of a Metroid. It was certainly pleasant to play though, but I rate both Castlevania IV for SNES and Dracula X for Super CD-Rom / Turbo Duo above it.

[gavinrad]

ive actually just started playing through Lament of Innocence again, it's pretty good, but hard to get used to after Symphony.

[Cybsled]

Ya it was basically like a Metroid...but a Metroid RPG ;p

SOTN got easy as hell though when I discovered that shield rod + Alucard shield = I can kill any boss in the game in 5seconds.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Just because you can use cheap tactics to win doesn't make a game shitty. That's like playing Ninja Gaiden and saying it sucked because you used cheat codes and the game was easy.

Anyways...

SoTN and FFT are two of my favorite of all time games. The sound tracks are great and moreover, the gameplay is fun. SoTN appeals to the classic gamer in me (much in the way Super Metroid did) because they took my favorite games from when I was kid (spent fucking months playing Castlevania 1. Could never beat death. I finally cracked it out of storage last year and finally beat it on my 1st play through) and made them better.

FFT is just...well...after the shit pile that was FF7, a return to the more classic feel of FF was appreciated. And to make it a strategy game was just even better. The story was great too. You don't really see depth like that anymore.