Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

(Image courtesy of Gaming Console Network)

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is a 2D adventure game developed and published by Konami for the Playstation. The player controls the character Alucard, the song of Dracula, as he explores his father's castle in an attempt to become stronger and defeat him. The player can find a variety of items, weapons, and "relics" (which unlock new abilities) hidden throughout the castle, with the player being able to take a very non-linear path as to what order they discover things in, with the only exceptions being certain plot-related events.

It is interesting to note that Symphony of the Night is almost nothing like the games that came before it. Earlier Castlevania games took place on long levels that had several alternate paths which eventually lead back to the same main path, or opened up an alternate stage that then lead back to the same stage the player would have normally played. Symphony of the Night changes this entirely by introducing the concepts of an inventory, character stats, spells, health and magic upgrades, and more, as well as only having one "level"- the castle in its entirety. As mentioned earlier, Alucard can explore the castle's rooms in any order, bound only by his strength and the abilities the player has acquired. This new formula, alongside with the Metroid series, birthed an entire genre of games known as "Metroidvanias".

For such a radical departure from the main series of games, Symphony of the Night's designers must have thought very hard about what new ideas they wanted to add. They most likely wanted to place a focus on "exploration" and "freedom", if only because they can be said to be the core of the game. The player's ability to explore in the order they choose was an almost unthought of idea at the time, so the designers took a big risk in using it. Other big ideas the designers probably focused on are "allowing the player to use items whenever they want" and "giving the player the ability to change how they attack", as well as the idea of assigning each monster a certain amount of HP and having each weapon due a different amount of damage. These changes made the game more like an RPG than previous games, with killing monsters to level up and improve Alucard's stats becoming very important.

The thought that the designers of one game taking a risk led to the development of many other games is both strange and humbling. The importance of introducing new ideas into gaming is best shown through examples like Symphony of the Night: even the widest departures from what players consider normal can be great as long as they are implemented well.