After long await, the cult classic Castlevania: Symphony of the Night makes it to the Xbox Live arcade. This is hailed by many to be the best title in the Castlevania franchise to date, and I agree. The play style, which definetely reminds me of the old-school Metroid titles, broke out of the classic Castlevania play style with linear levels and bosses at the end of each one. Before I get into my thoughts of the emulated version of this game, I need to say a few things. This game is timeless! 10 years old, and it still plays as solid as most next-gen titles. And the price tag of about 10 bucks makes it a no brainer. If you have played this game through and through in the past, get it and enjoy it all over again. If you've never played it before, get it! You'll enjoy it. Plus the game does some acheivements, which adds a little to the challenge of the game.
My first impression playing this game was a little sour. The game plays in a sort of window with a border around it. This looked a little goofy on my widescreen TV, but after some searching, I finally figured out how to stretch the image to cover up the goofy border and make the game as close to full screen as I could get it. This changed my mind a little bit.
Next, are the graphics. Players can choose between the original graphics or enhanced versions. In enhanced mode, everything just seems to look smoother. Not much difference, unless you're playing in 720p or 1080p. In that case, you're most likely going want the enhanced graphics, as the original were just not intended to be viewed in a resolution like that (and it just looks bad, lol).
The acheivements are a nice addition to the game as well. There's a few that only veterans of the game are going to acheive without a guide, and there's others that are easy enough for a newb. Kill 10 enemies without getting hit with normal weapons, kill 10 enemies without getting hit using special weapons, and find all the morph relics. For the more advanced, there's completing %200.6, finding all 5 familiars (the sword's always the tricky one), and complete the entire game playing as Richter (which is damn near impossible, but can be done).
The controls in the game are excellent. Everything runs very smooth. I hit a very small number of spots where the game seemed to stutter a bit, but considering the last time I played it was on a PsOne, it wasn't a bother at all. I did have the game freeze on me twice, though. The music all the sudden stopped playing, and the next time I tried to enter the menu it got stuck on a black screen. So, if you hear the music stop playing strangely, don't try to go into the menu! Get to a save point, quit the game and restart. But like I said, about 80 hours of gameplay and this happened twice, so it must be quite rare.
But all in all, this game is a must have from the Xbox Live Arcade. For the gameplay value this game holds, $10 is simply a steal. Especially since the game is still going for almost $60 or $70 on Ebay and Amazon!
Anyone else grab this game and want to lend something to the discussion?
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