Has Symphony of the Night ever been surpassed?

@TheEroica: There's a reason both are so worshipped, but Super is just a tighter package overall. Atmosphere second to none. Enjoy.

Ori and the Blind Forest > Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

It's called a joke. Learn to take one.

If that was a joke, my statement still stands.

Whilst I'm looking forward to Bloodstained I don't think it's going to come close to being as good as SOTN.. That 2.5D art direction just kills it for me.

That's not a joke mate.

I can't win for losing around here. Even when I throw The Order under a bus it makes people catch a case of the madbros.

I didn't find SOTN to be that spectacular. I liked Rondo, CV 3 and IV with SOTN being just ok.

Ah yes SOTN... One of my all time favorite games.

Nothing has suprassed it :)

It's a fantastic game to be sure. If I had a flaw with it, I'd say it's way too easy. The lack of challenge is rather disappointing. Order of Ecclesia struck a better Balance in that regard.

I think Bloodborne is a spiritual successor in many ways and does a few things better as well.

Good game but too easy. Especially compared with other classic CV games.

I'm not into Castlevania SOTN or the other CV games similar to it. Just the original games except for Castlevania II. Castlevania IV is my favourite game in the series.

@TheEroica: That's easy. Football manager.

EDIT looked at some videos of castelvania thingy and didn't see a single graph. Not sure how you can consider that fun at all.

It depends. In my opinion Super Castlevania 4 was never surpassed.

My most recent symphony of the night play through reminded me how much better super Metroid is. Don't get me wrong I love it but it doesn't compare to super Metroid

Symphony of the NIght is a cool game, although I didn't play it until I got the dracula X Chronicles game on PSP. Liked the game enough to play through it 2 or 3 times (not including Richter or Maria playthroughs. I would definitely pit Symphony of the Night up there as one of my favorites, but I don't I'd consider it my absolute favorite. Would probably lean more on Order of Ecclesia or even Super Castlevania IV.

Outside of castlevania I'd put my favorite Metroid games above SOTN.

Great game and all and one of my all time favorites on any PlayStation console...but, i still think that this are far better:

• Super Metroid - You can't beat the original, the game still has one of the best atmosphere ever in a 2D game, the claustrophobic feeling when you go deep down in the planet is terrific and the boss battles are challenging and intense...so yeah, i still think this is a better game even if it is shorter.
• Super Castlevania IV - I still consider this to be the best Castlevania ever made, the controllers are superb, the challenge is great, the music...oh god the music, is one of the greatest 2D action games ever made, period.
• Castlevania Order of Ecclesia - Sure, Symphony of the Night is superb...but as the years went by, other games little by little tried to improve the formula, and while Circle of the Moon began to show it, it was until Order of Ecclesia that i truly felt they made a game superior in almost any level.

So yeah, i think it has been surpassed already.

One of my all time favs, and one of the most replayable games around. I lost count of my play throughs years ago.

Super Metroid is the tighter game of the two, easily, but I've gotten much more play out of SotN.

This thread encouraged me to play SotN for the first time. I'm only 25% through, but I can definitely see the close comparisons to Super Metroid and Dark Souls.

Seems pretty great so far, but the atmosphere has nothing on Super Metroid.

Just to be clear, a full completion run on this game is just over 200%. Definitely DON'T go looking that stuff up though, dissecting this game on your own is amazing fun. Just letting you know that that 25% is still just scratching the surface.

No spoilers here, just saying that if you beat the game without something significant happening to the castle, then you haven't truly beaten it.

And the atmosphere does get pretty rad in certain parts of the castle. Personally I prefer it to Super Metroid in that sense, bu... *gets burned alive*

I don't think so. The closest were the ones on the DS. I actually bought a DS for those games, and I don't regret it. I think SotN is better than Super Metroid (one of my favorite games for SNES).

@TheEroica: You're coming to get the wii-u....At the BBQ that you are definitely attending.....

No.

castlevania 3 is better

super metroid is better

the souls games have metroidvania elements and they are better

As fun as it is to sit through Symphony of the Night I was always a lot more fond of Order of Ecclesia myself.

Maybe it's because I like playing as a pixelated hottie who teases me with her bare back every few seconds. And dies after two hits because the game is punishing as all hell even on Normal difficulty.

Either way both games are superb in my book. Toss in Aria of Sorrow and we have quite the trifecta of Metroidvania games.

Simply no, SOTN hasn't based on my well versed and long time gaming experience.

That said, I bought Metroid on NES brand new at launch and enjoyed the hell out of it. I loved and owned the incredible sequel Super Metroid for my SNES the day it released a full generation later. I marveled at the SNES graphics and the gameplay enhancements took Metroid to a whole new level.

It was years and a generation later when Konami released Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for PS1, which I also got at launch as a Castlevania fan from the NES days (three on NES, Genesis, and Super Castlevania 4 on SNES). I was surprised by the protagonist and gameplay changes, but I loved SOTN and view it as the pinnacle. So many secrets in SOTN...I played these games in order and all when they were new games. I didn't play them with "retro goggles", but rather when these games were relevant in their time, unlike those that try and go back and play them today, the impact isn't the same because so many games have aped aspects of SOTN, S.Metroid, etc.

You need to play Super Metroid, @TheEroica

Does this not excite you though?

@mems_1224: For once, hes correct about something. Symphony of the Night is incredible, no doubt about it, but it aint no Super Metroid. No game is

@ConanTheStoner said:

@blue_hazy_basic said:

@TheEroica: That's easy. Football manager.

EDIT looked at some videos of castelvania thingy and didn't see a single graph. Not sure how you can consider that fun at all.

Does this not excite you though?

Not gonna lie, I spooged a little ....

This thread also inspired me to give SoTN another whirl. I'm deep into the inverted castle, and one thing I feel gets overlooked is how thoughtful the castle's grand design truly is. Even though it has some fat that can be trimmed (at least compared to Super Metroid's world design, which is beautifully compact), I think it's an incredible achievement as to how these areas can carry a nice flow to them even upon being flipped entirely upside down.

@blue_hazy_basic: you should name your next kid Alucard in celebration this recent spooging...

I can barely cope with one kid! :P

@blue_hazy_basic: I hear you man... But happy wife, happy life... If she wants another one, you get to do it all over again!

2 kids is like insanity mode on demon souls. Enjoy.

LOL

I finished SotN.

I'm a little conflicted about it. On the one hand, it is a great tribute to Super Metroid. The first half is really solid, there are secrets galore, and I like how the sections interconnect.

On the other hand...the inverted castle is a cool concept that completely falls apart after a few minutes play. You've got all of your abilities, you've got awesome equipment, and you know the layout - so the second half of the game is really just a boring slog of easy fights with zero structure or plot progression.

Also, the game's combat kinda sucks. I won most fights by crouching and spamming the attack button. I didn't think much of the atmosphere or music either.

All-up, I thought it was a great game, but one that only really excelled in its level design (and even then, mainly for the first half of the game).

Depends, have you ever played it on weed?

@Planeforger: the combat is so much more fun when you are actively using your Holy water/knife items etc... And your transformations. Gas cloud, bat with fireballs, he'll even the wold is fun to switch between when you know you have a long run.... You can absolutely spam attack, but there is more going on there.

I always considered the first half to be the exploration part and the second half to be combat heavy, enjoying all of the tools at your disposal type stuff. I like the change of pace, especially since the game is packed with far more cool shit than you could even really use on a single play through

@Planeforger:

If you ever do go back to it, make sure to equip and test every weapon you pick up. Don't just go off of what it says in the stats screen because you'll usually get stuck using something boring. And I don't just mean test the weapon by doing some slashes. Try doing half circle and fireball motions like you would in a fighting game, sometimes these weapons have cool hidden skills (shooting projectiles, rapid fire attacks, deflection attacks, etc..)

I've done well to never look up this games secrets online, so I still find something new every time I play. I remember during one playthrough I found a sword that looked like garbage, but if I did fireball motions I'd start summoning up zombie minions lol.

I also had a big issue with this upon replaying it. You'll make these huge treks to one part of the map, only to get a piece of armor or a weapon that's completely useless to you. It's like the game is deliberately wasting your time. Not to mention the difficulty is literally all over the place in the inverted castle as you'll be an in area with a bunch of easy regular enemies, but a supremely difficult boss fight (mainly directing this towards the Floating Catacombs).

This game has too much fat that needs to be trimmed. It comes to a point where this it just feels like work, and as a result I don't believe it's a good game anymore. There are way too many glaring issues that prevent it from standing tall on its own, let alone when it's being compared to Super Metroid.

SotN is in my top 5 games of all time. There really isn't a game that has come close to it as far as the 2D platforms goes. Shadow Complex is a game that has come the closest to me.

@dalger21: loved shadow complex..

Order of Ecclasia is a damn good game, and I think the beastiary and loot hunt in it run circles around SotN. But I think Alucard is still the boss.

Yup. Eager for it to come to PS4 in May.

Yeah, by Super Castlevania 4 lol. Super Metroid would be the epitome of that whole genre though.

I love Sotn but there's much more intricate metroidvania's out there if you look hard enough these days.

La-Mu-Lana is pretty much the pinnacle of the genre if you can deal with some pretty severe difficulty.

@ReadingRainbow4: I'm enjoying LA mulana, it's a great little vita game on the go.... I get the sense it's pull your hair put maddening to discover all it has to offer.

@dalger21: I think I'll pass on ps4 considering I have it on my 360, but it's definitely a game I'd like to play through again.

The amount of secrets in that game is absolutely maddening. finding them and completing them is a game in itself. I've never seen a metroidvania with so much content, let alone from an indie developer. And it's all good content too, nothings just filler.

Damn, makes me want to play it again but my backlog is already huge enough.

Super Metroid