Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: Difference between revisions

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'''''[[Castlevania (Video Game)|Castlevania]]: Symphony of the Night''''' (''Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight'' in Japan) is a [[Play Station]] game released in 1996 (and later re-released in Japan, with extra content, on the [[Sega Saturn]]). ''Symphony of the Night'' is widely regarded as the highpoint of the ''Castlevania'' series: it's responsible for the other half of "[[Metroidvania]]", it's the earliest known entry in the series to avert an [[Excuse Plot]] (well, first [[No Export for You|released outside of Japan]]), and contains a number of [[Memetic Mutation|oft-repeated lines]] about the [[Narm Charm|nature of mankind.]]

The game begins with [[Castlevania Rondo of Blood|Richter Belmont banishing Dracula in 1792]]. Four years later, Richter disappears -- and a year afterward, in 1797, he summons Castlevania in an attempt to resurrect the Dark Lord. Richter's dire actions cause Alucard, [[Half Human Hybrid|Dracula's half-vampire son]], to awaken from his three hundred year slumber and enter Castlevania to figure out what's going on. During his exploration of Dracula's castle, Alucard is joined in his quest to find Richter by Maria Renard, a distant relative of the Belmont clan.

The game begins with [[Castlevania Rondo of Blood|Richter Belmont banishing Dracula in 1792]]. Four years later, Richter disappears -- and a year afterward, in 1797, he summons Castlevania in an attempt to resurrect the Dark Lord. Richter's dire actions cause Alucard, [[Half-Human Hybrid|Dracula's half-vampire son]], to awaken from his three hundred year slumber and enter Castlevania to figure out what's going on. During his exploration of Dracula's castle, Alucard is joined in his quest to find Richter by Maria Renard, a distant relative of the Belmont clan.

Since [[Metroid]] was on hiatus at the time, ''Symphony'' introduced a generation of new gamers to [[Metroidvania|an innovative gameplay style]]: Alucard was free to wander to any point on the map, but had to find specific relics to explore new areas, most of which were guarded by bosses (which forced players to [[Level Grinding|level up]] to increase [[RPG Elements|Alucard's stats]]). Alucard could also find equipment to change his attacks or cast spells. Anyone who's played any Castlevania game after this one will likely find this formula [[Follow the Leader|familiar]] -- but back in 1996, this was a [[Killer App]] for the [[Play Station]] ([[Executive Meddling|whether Sony liked it or not]]).

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* [[Back Tracking]]

* [[Badass Baritone]]: Alucard

* [[Beam Me Up Scotty]]: Whenever Dracula's [[Memetic Mutation|famous question]] is quoted, the word "little" is commonly forgotten.

* [[Beam Me Up, Scotty]]: Whenever Dracula's [[Memetic Mutation|famous question]] is quoted, the word "little" is commonly forgotten.

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]:

** All of the four endings, two of which are particularly depressing. The two bad ones have the legendary Richter killed off tragically, without letting Alucard be able to see the true mastermind behind all the madness. The other two endings, which are good ones, have Alucard break the curse from Richter successfully, thus saving his life, and they also have Alucard confront the true mastermind, Shaft, as well as Dracula. However, even after preventing the disaster from further poisoning the rest of Europe, Alucard chooses to seal himself again, knowing his blood is cursed with darkness.

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* [[Demoted to Extra]]: The Peeping Eye is one of the few enemies from Rondo who does not appear during the game as a fightable enemy, but it sometimes appears as a icon in the File Select screen. However, it does appear in the background, watching you as you trek through the hallway between the Marble Gallery and Outer Wall.

* [[Dhampyr]]: Alucard.

* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: In "Rondo of Blood", Richter killed Shaft twice - once in his human form, and once as a ghost. And yet, five years later he's alive and well, and easily takes control of a Belmont (which begs the question of why he didn't do so the first time), something not even Dracula seemed capable of doing! All because they wanted to have [[White Haired Pretty Boy]] Alucard as the hero of the game.

* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: In "Rondo of Blood", Richter killed Shaft twice - once in his human form, and once as a ghost. And yet, five years later he's alive and well, and easily takes control of a Belmont (which begs the question of why he didn't do so the first time), something not even Dracula seemed capable of doing! All because they wanted to have [[White-Haired Pretty Boy]] Alucard as the hero of the game.

** He's still a ghost. If you look closely during the dialogue before you fight him, you can see that he's translucent.

* [[Did Not Do the Research]]:

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** The mercury in the blade of [[Book of the New Sun (Literature)|Terminus Est]] was to shift its balance when striking from above, not to poison the blade.

** The English manual of the game refers to Maria as "Richter's sister-in-law", despite the fact that Marian was only related to Annette in the SNES version while ''Symphony'' is a sequel to the PC Engine version. Granted, it's possible the translator deliberately made that change to reference the version of ''Dracula X'' that most people outside Japan were familiar at the time.

* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu]]: Yup, and he gave me a Bat Pentagram! FUN FACT: The "Cthulhu" monster was supposed to be the tentacle-faced thing in the inverted castle, but his name got switched around with the demon in the Marble Gallery, which was supposed to be called "Malachi."

* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: Yup, and he gave me a Bat Pentagram! FUN FACT: The "Cthulhu" monster was supposed to be the tentacle-faced thing in the inverted castle, but his name got switched around with the demon in the Marble Gallery, which was supposed to be called "Malachi."

* [[Difficulty Spike]]: The {{spoiler|Inverted Castle}} has one when you first get there, which sticks for most of it. New enemies suddenly do significantly more damage and are more annoying placed, as well as the level design being a bit against you at times.

* [[Disc One Nuke]]:

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** The Holy Sword is also really good, because of its decent power and more importantly the holy elemental which so many enemies are owned by.

*** Many people overlook the Holy ''Rod''. It is found fairly early in the first castle, does Holy-Type damage that most monsters in the ''evil'' castle are weak to, but it also does ''blunt'' damage that most skeletons are weak against. Only a handful of enemies are strong against blunt. Also, the rod itself has a small area of effect around the rod tip itself, especially if you do a turn attack, which makes sure that you will almost always hit your target, which is a lot more forgiving than most swords tend to be. It is a very nice weapon until/unless you get the Sword of Dawn, Terminus Est, Crissaegrim, or perhaps Alucard's sword back. Not to mention, Richter is immune to it, and it is very easy to hit Shaft's sphere with it, so you don't have to worry about accidentally killing Richter, or wounding him, causing him to [[Turn Red]].

* [[Does This Remind You of Anything]]: The end of the Succubus fight, at least in the original version. The ''Dracula X Chronicles'' port made her final cry sound a lot more like a death cry.

* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: The end of the Succubus fight, at least in the original version. The ''Dracula X Chronicles'' port made her final cry sound a lot more like a death cry.

* [[Doppelganger Spin]]: The Succubus

* [[Double Jump]]: Thanks to the Leap Stone.

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** While not a weapon, the Walk Armor's defense power increases as you explore more map regions.

* [[Fake Ultimate Mook]]: Wargs look menacing, but die in a single hit just like other early-game enemies.

* [[Fire Ice Lightning]]: Three Brands, sold by the Librarian or found elsewhere.

* [[Fire, Ice, Lightning]]: Three Brands, sold by the Librarian or found elsewhere.

* [[Flash of Pain]]

* [[Foreshadowing]]: Way before you reach the core area of the castle, you might notice that some things in certain rooms' backgrounds are clearly upside-down...

** Also, the Cat-Eye Circlet. It gives you a huge HP recharge...if you get hit by a cat, of which there are ''none'' to be found in the castle...

* [[Frothy Mugs of Water]]: In the Royal Chapel you can go to the Confession Room and sit at a chair, and at one time a blue-robed ghostly figure will hear your confession and give you... sparkling grape juice! Grape juice in a confession booth? That may have been the result of the drink being modified from wine in the Japanese version. Hmmm... [[Does This Remind You of Anything]]

* [[Frothy Mugs of Water]]: In the Royal Chapel you can go to the Confession Room and sit at a chair, and at one time a blue-robed ghostly figure will hear your confession and give you... sparkling grape juice! Grape juice in a confession booth? That may have been the result of the drink being modified from wine in the Japanese version. Hmmm... [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]

** Also, the Green Tea was originally sake, and the Barley Tea was beer.

* [[Gravity Screw]]: {{spoiler|The Inverted Castle}}.

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* [[Have a Nice Death]]: "Let us go out this evening for pleasure. The night is still young."

* [[Heroic Albino]]: Some say Alucard is responsible for the recent surge.

* [[High Pressure Blood]]: The aptly named blood zombies.

* [[High-Pressure Blood]]: The aptly named blood zombies.

* [[Holy Hand Grenade]]: The holy water, holy sword, holy rod, and holy ash.

* [[I Am X Son of Y]]:

* [[I Am X, Son of Y]]:

** In the ''Dracula X Chronicles'' version of the opening, Dracula refers to Richter as "Belmont, [[Captain Obvious|son of Belmont]]".

** He has another line in ''[[Castlevania (Video Game)|Castlevania]]: The Adventure Rebirth'': "As ever, the ally of worthless humans." This implies that he really doesn't care which Belmont it is; they're all interchangeable to him, making his ''Dracula X Chronicles'' line make a bit more sense.

* [[I Hate You Vampire Dad]]: A literal vampire dad. The reason Alucard changed his name from Adrian was to spite his father.

* [[I Hate You, Vampire Dad]]: A literal vampire dad. The reason Alucard changed his name from Adrian was to spite his father.

{{quote| ''Playtime's over! [[One Winged Angel|GRANT... ME... POWERRRR!]]''}}

{{quote| ''Playtime's over! [[One-Winged Angel|GRANT... ME... POWERRRR!]]''}}

* [[Infinity ~~Plus One~~ Sword]]:

* [[Infinity+1 Sword]]:

** The Crissaegrim. This obscene weapon makes pretty much everything else in the game obsolete, due to:

*** Being able to attack while moving.

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** The Red Rust, a two-handed sword which deals less damage than the first shortsword you pick up at the same time that randomly causes Alucard to freeze in place when he tries to swing it but which can be invaluable against both Doppelganger bosses since it curses them on hit, basically making them helpless and unable to attack.

** Using the Alucart equipment while playing in Luck Mode (gives 99 Luck but sets all other stats to 1 or 0, with 35 HP and 5 MP - far below usual starting stats) will allow him to attack extremely fast and do crit damage high enough to kill many bosses in a few hits.

* [[Load Bearing Boss]]: Dracula, as usual.

* [[Load-Bearing Boss]]: Dracula, as usual.

* [[A Load of Bull]]: Minotaur is a [[Dual Boss]] with Werewolf in the Colosseum, then reappears as a [[Degraded Boss]] in the inverted castle.

* [[Looks Like Orlok]]: Olrox.

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* [[Oh Crap]]: When Alucard enters the Coliseum, and the Lord of the Castle makes an appearance:

{{quote| '''Alucard:''' Your blood... The scent of your blood... {{spoiler|YOU'RE A ''BELMONT!''}}}}

* [[One Winged Angel]]: "Behold my true form and '''DESPAIR!!!!'''"

* [[One-Winged Angel]]: "Behold my true form and '''DESPAIR!!!!'''"

** Death has one too.

** In the final boss fight, Dracula doesn't even bother with the first form (after all, we already had it at the beginning of the game).

** Olrox goes from humanoid into some weird green dinosaur thing. He is more dangerous in this form, as you'd expect.

* [[Our Fairies Are Different]]: The [[Spell My Name With an S|faerie]] familiar.

* [[Our Fairies Are Different]]: The [[Spell My Name With an "S"|faerie]] familiar.

* [[Previously On]]: The prologue, which remakes the final battle of ''[[Castlevania Rondo of Blood]]''.

* [[Post End Game Content]]: The Duplicator Item and various cheats become available in a new game if you have a Clear or Replay save.

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** The Shield Rod can create the Shield powerups from ''[[Gradius]]''.

*** The bat familiar, when leveled up enough, can summon more bats when you take bat form. These bats move much like Options.

* [[Shut Up Kirk]]: Dracula's last line in the prologue.

* [[Shut Up, Kirk]]: Dracula's last line in the prologue.

* [[Skippable Boss]]: In the first castle, there's Scylla, Granfaloon, and Karasuman. In the inverted castle, there's Beelzebub, Doppelganger40, and the Fake Hunters (not counting [[Bonus Boss]] Galamoth).

* [[Solemn Ending Theme]]: "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FsFiBXOVK0 I Am the Wind]"

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* [[Special Attack]]: Several weapons have alternate attacks, either activated with back-forward-attack or down-down/forward-forward attack, such as the Shield Rod's powers and the Fist of Tulkas' special moves. Sometimes they're simply more powerful, other times they have interesting or useful side effects.

* [[Speed Run]]: It's quite possible to finish Richter mode in ''less than ten minutes.'' After the game is beaten once with Alucard, a Time Attack section appears in his menu, allowing the player to see how long it took them to reach the final save room and clear the game.

* [[Spell My Name With an S]]: the game can't quite decide between American 's' and British 'c' spellings in some areas, leading to the spelling "Reverce" in some cases.

* [[Spell My Name With an "S"]]: the game can't quite decide between American 's' and British 'c' spellings in some areas, leading to the spelling "Reverce" in some cases.

* [[Spikes of Doom]]: But with the Spike Breaker armor, you can render them harmless by destroying any spikes you touch. This is necessary to complete the entire game. {{spoiler|With some glitches, it is possible to skip the spike breaker entirely.}}

* [[Super Drowning Skills]]: Alucard, being half-vampire and all, until he obtains the Holy <ref> [[Fan Nickname|Snorkel]]</ref>. After which, in a series' first, [[Super Not Drowning Skills|the player character can freely explore water without sustaining any damage.]]

* [[Super Drowning Skills]]: Alucard, being half-vampire and all, until he obtains the Holy <ref> [[Fan Nickname|Snorkel]]</ref>. After which, in a series' first, [[Super Not-Drowning Skills|the player character can freely explore water without sustaining any damage.]]

** Note that in this particular game water doesn't kill you outright, even if you don't have the symbol - you will [[Grimy Water|take a lot of damage]] but it's still possible to jump out.

** One of the lesser used tropes of vampire weaknesses is their inability to cross running water under their own power, which this weakness is a reference to, though the Holy Symbol being a snorkel is a fun sight gag.

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** ...unless you deliberately glitch the cutscene to keep your equipment (which is possible on some platforms). This is almost universally considered a [[Good Bad Bug]] by the player community.

* [[Teleporters and Transporters]]: Five of them in each castle. You can 'port to the second on finding the first (per castle), but the rest can only be accessed after you've reached them normally.

* [[This Cannot Be]]: Said by Dracula himself, word for word.

* [[This Cannot Be!]]: Said by Dracula himself, word for word.

* [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works]]: The Runesword and the Heaven Sword.

* [[Time Stands Still]]: The Stopwatch subweapon. It's oddly selective, though -- some enemies will be frozen, some will merely slow down and some (including most bosses) are entirely unaffected.

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* [[Voluntary Shapeshifting]]: Alucard can turn into a bat, a wolf and mist. The Axe Armor transformation seems to be unexpected, though.

* [[Wasted Song]]: The most notable example is Prologue, only played during the intro stage, which has no enemies aside from Dracula and consists of a walk up a staircase and down a hallway, and when you fight Dracula, his own theme plays. Another example could The Door to the Abyss, arguably the most scary song in the soundtrack, only plays in the centre of the castle which again, features no enemies {{spoiler|except for Shaft and Dracula in the inverted castle version (and Maria, on Sega Saturn's first castle)}} and is extremely short.

* [[Weaksauce Weakness]]: If Alucard can reach the high platform on the wall behind Galamoth quickly enough, he can easily [[Not in The Face|punch him in the face]] [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu|until he dies]].

* [[Weaksauce Weakness]]: If Alucard can reach the high platform on the wall behind Galamoth quickly enough, he can easily [[Not in The Face|punch him in the face]] [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|until he dies]].

* [[Weapon As Familiar]]: The Sword Familiar, a creature that fights for you that you can equip as a weapon.

* [[What Does This Button Do]]: In one area of the castle there's a room with a switch that's out of reach. Once you obtain the Demon familiar, head back to that room. The Demon is curious:

* [[What Does This Button Do?]]: In one area of the castle there's a room with a switch that's out of reach. Once you obtain the Demon familiar, head back to that room. The Demon is curious:

{{quote| '''Demon:''' Hmmm...a switch! Why don't I press it and see...}}

* [[White Haired Pretty Boy]]: Alucard.

* [[White-Haired Pretty Boy]]: Alucard.

* [[Woobie Destroyer of Worlds]]: Dracula is turned into one by this game, showing he wasn't always evil and even realizes how hopeless his life is.

* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]: Dracula is turned into one by this game, showing he wasn't always evil and even realizes how hopeless his life is.

* [[World of Ham]]: There's maybe one scene in the entire game where the characters aren't [[Chewing the Scenery|taking a bite out of Castlevania.]] Richter is incapable of even thinking to himself without hamming it up. And then, there's Dracula. There's a reason he has a [[Large Ham]] entry to himself on this page, even when this is a [[World of Ham]].

----

''No, [[This Cannot Be]]! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!''

''No, [[This Cannot Be!]]! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!''

''Impossible! Not this time! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!''