Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

I like this game. I as not a fan of the original Castlevania, it was ok but Simon Belmont handled like a pickup truck full of bricks. He was slow, his jump was not very high, and his whip attack left much to be desired. When I saw that the first level of this game is the boss fright from the previous game I thought it was a cool idea, but I didn't want to start out with an ass kicking right off the bat. I have to assume they made it a bit easier because once I figured out Draculas' pattern I was almost never getting hit and I though it was going to be boring working my way through his TWO huge bars of health. That was until I discovered that if you hold down the attack key Siomn keeps his whip out. Instead of striking out in a straight line and pulling back, he doesn't pull back and the whip rests limply on the ground. Then, this is the good part, if you move the D-pad around he whips it around in a circle. After that I made short work of Dracula and the rest of the intro sequence. Enter Alucard. You get to navigate him through a few rooms before Death himself shows up and steals all your shit, presumably because he wants you to die. I really appreciated this simple plot device, instead of showing up to Dracula castle woefully unprepared, he comes heave, packing heat and armed to the teeth. Getting magically pick-pocketed by the reaper makes a good excuse for the RPG style weapon acquisition and leveling up instead of just giving you the impression he is a jackass who shows up for his quests woefully unprepared.

Game play video

In a five star ranking system,
I give this game 4