Style: VGM
Primary Emotions/Themes: Only one of the single greatest soundtracks ever released on any system for any game ever... the end.
Thoughts: There was once a young man who thought he knew what kinds of games he enjoyed. This strapping young lad enjoyed RPG's and platformers as well as adventure games. He enjoyed a game with a good story and memorable characters. This youth's world was about to be turned upside down.
Castlevania had never been a series that he took too seriously before. The games were difficult and he would always die late in the game and have to start over from the beginning. After a few dozen times of doing so the games became unfun and he cast them by the wayside. Then his room mate came home with Symphony of the Night...
It looked cool enough, the game started with a Dracula fight? That was different. Then all the sudden were playing as someone else? Alucard? Who is that? We just made it into the castle in the brink of time! Look at the size of those dogs! They are huge! What? Death? At the start of the game? Did I just level up... and what is that...? What is that music? Why is it so damn good?
That is an approximation of my first reaction to seeing this game. My room mate did in fact come home with Symphony on a fateful afternoon. We both played it for what seemed like countless hours trying to figure out where to go next. Before we knew it it was way into the night and we had to sleep for the next days activities. I had dreams of vampires and exploration.
One of the lasting impressions that the game gave me was it's soundtrack. It was one of the absolute best I had heard on the PlayStation and I kept coming back to listening to it time and time again. I went out and bought the CD for it to listen to in the car... it was that good.
It combined the best of the previous generation games soundtracks with the expanded capabilities of the PlayStations soundcard/CD music... and it was incredible. For the first time we heard pipe organs, electric guitars, full string ensembles... it was all so epic and captivating. Every song fit the area perfectly... the waltz to start the games introduction to the Castle. The first fight with Dracula as Richter... it was all so immersive. Dammit now I want to go play the game again.
The game redefined several things for me. The first being that now one of my favorite game genres were this thing called Metroidvania's. Secondly this helped solidify my lifelong love of video game music, not just in the games but on their own as well. This is single handedly one of the most important games in my life span, and the fact that I have both this and the Super Metroid soundtrack on vinyl blows my mind.
Written June 4th 2024
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