My first foray into Castlevania. (Spoilers: Long)

Castlevania is a series for one reason or another, i never really had any interaction with outside of very obvious stuff like the Belmonts making the jump to Smash and various memes. After finishing Cuphead for the first time, i was in the mood for something a little more actiony. From a combination of watching an awful streamer who will go unnamed for making the game look brutal by dying before reaching the first save room and Civve11's video (i had already seen before) i decided "y'know, maybe this is the time." And on a stroke of luck, the requiem collection was on sale on PS4.

Symphony of the Night

I don't have to tell you all how highly regarded this game is. The ying to Super Metroid's yang that helped build the subgenre and stil regarded as one of the best Metroidvanias ever. As an already big fan of the Metroid franchise, i love how distinct SOTN is.

What i liked:

• Metroid has never really been lauded for its combat outside of maybe the newer MercurySteam entries, which is fine. Nintendo has always kinda used combat as a secondary thing rather than primary focus. Symphony of the Night in my opinion is the opposite. Most enemies have a lot more going on than require a bit more than "point at them and shoot." Bosses especially. I love that.

• To further this, i think exploration is a lot more rewarding here because of it. In Metroid, you're kept to a pretty basic arsenal of weapons. Bombs, missiles, maybe charge beam. The former two serve more as exploration tools really. Not here. Tons of different weapons, pieces of armor and other tools to play around with. Next room might just have a life upgrade, or it might have this cool ass new weapon. I ended up close to 200% map completion because of it

• Love the expressiveness of the enemies. Some of the reactions to getting killed actually made me laugh. The smasher knights making a sound that i can best describe as what sounds like a stereotypical asian man getting kicked in the nuts while exploding. The Lion Knights taking a minute to reflect then facepalming before exploding into 6 pieces. That odd set piece where the group of enemies are stuck in an hole in the floor so they can drown and...catch on fire afterwards? My headcanon is now this game is the reason why the "everything explodes to remove it from the scene" gag exists in Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

• The power fantasy potential: There's so many tools in this game that just turn you into a walking nuclear bomb and i always love when that option is given to you. Early Jewel Knuckle, the wind sword or the "turns out i win everything forever" combo of the Alucard shield and shield rod. You certainly don't need those tools but it's nice they're there.

• The 3D skulls that serve no purpose other than the devs to go "look at how cool this shit is!" I'm sure it was in 1997 but now it kinda makes me chuckle. Reminds me of Mega Man X2 stuffing wire frames in to it. Does it tank the frame rate? Yup. Still cool tho.

• Game as a whole looks fantastic even nearly 30 years after release. Fantastic sprite work, animations, pixel art.

What i wasn't super big on

• The whole idea of the Inverted Castle. I didn't hate it by any means but it felt kinda strange. Getting to it was fairly easy but i feel like being so open ended works against it compared to the normal one where you had what in my opinion was a bit more freedom than something like Super Metroid, but were still relatively contained. Here i ended up wandering around and went into places i clearly wasn't supposed to be yet. Probably would have helped if my dumb ass didn't take so long to realize "oh wait the map is just upside down, so i should just be able to get a picture of the normal castle map and flip it."

• I think some of the OST is kinda bland. So much of it feels like it blends together outside of a couple standouts; The normal Clock Tower, Abandoned Pit and Lost Paintings (by far my favorite track from this game.)

Phenomenal game. Rondo of Blood was next and it was...hmmm

I don't want to use the "OMG SOULS BECAUSE HARD" comparison but i noticed pretty quick that Castlevania is pretty unique in it has a very clearly defined set of rules it wants you to play by similar to Dark Souls 1 and 2. (If that makes sense, sometimes my thoughts don't translate well) Don't move too fast, observe what's in front of you and be aware of your surroundings so you can react appropriately.

For example. I got cooked way too many times i want to admit by the stupid crows in stage 2. (how fitting the name of this stage is God, Grant Me Strength btw) But then you kinda start to put the pieces together;

The game gives you a dagger right at the first torch

Crows won't engage until you're far enough on screen to see them fully

The dagger travels in a straight line at a good clip and high enough on a jump where they can hit the crows while they're stationary.

Same with stage 4. The part where you have to jump between blades looks daunting as hell with the skeletons throwing bones but observation reveals that they come towards you AND your axe can hit them while blocking their projectiles. Awesome.

Took my lumps at first but i made it through the first four stages feeling accomplished in doing so...but then it kinda felt like the game took a turn down asshole avenue. Stage 5 felt nightmarish with Richter. So i decided to look into unlocking Maria and the difference is staggering. I'm not going to argue easy mode or git gud or whatever, but my distinct takeaway is this game feels like it is built for her specifically. Like i have no idea how i was supposed to beat Death with Richter given all the shit he throws at you. Maria can just maneuver from end to end of the arena to give herself breathing room. Cruised through the rest of the game with her to the point i 100 percented it.

So first of all, thanks for reading since i just wanted to share. Secondly, i am now 50 bucks poorer because after this? I want more and the Nintendo eShop had all 3 collections on sale. So there's that.