107 Castlevania: Symphony of The Night Facts YOU Should Know! 🤔 | The Leaderboard

it's been 20 years since Castlevania Symphony of the night took the gaming world by surprise with its fresh take on the vampire hunting franchise and turned the world of the Belmont clan upside down literally in some cases hi I'm Brendan with the leaderboard and this is a hundred and seven facts about Castlevania Symphony of the Night let's get started [Music] Castlevania Symphony of the Night starts off with the ending battle of the game that came before it in Castlevania Rondo of blood the boss battle is between Dracula and Richter Velma who goes missing after he defeats Dracula well the opening battle was from the previous game Rondo of blood was actually only released in Japan in October 1993 it was finally released for American audiences in March 2010 the original working title for Symphony of the Night with Castlevania the bloodletting many believe that Koji Igarashi was the primary director on Symphony of the Night however it was Toto Hagee Hara hada is also responsible for Rondo of blood as well Egon Asha was the assistant director for Symphony of the Night and went on to be producer of the entire franchise when Igarashi started at Konami his first big hit was a game called tokimeki memorial a high school dating simulation it did so well that Konami originally wanted him to direct a sequel but he refused Konami came to Igarashi and told him that since tokimeki memorial had received great ratings but since he did not want to work on a sequel game he could then pick from the list of games that the company was going to start working on Symphony of the Night immediately caught his eye Castlevania Symphony of the Night was merely seen as a spin-off game to the original Castlevania titles and because of this Igarashi and hada were able to experiment with the game as much as they wanted with little or no protest from Konami Igarashi stated in an interview that he quote wish to create a game which could be enjoyed for a long time many action games at the time could be taken and played rather quickly and he wanted symphony of the night to have a story and gameplay that were memorable Igarashi chose to have players experience this Castlevania game as a loo card rather than another member of the Belmont clan allowing the player to see the new Alucard who has grown into his powers Igarashi was concerned about making Alucard the lead character because although he enjoys him he was worried longtime fans would be angered since it was the first time for the series to have a non whip using character as the hero the game adopted the idea of experience points players levelling up their character and have the ability to heal with potions or food had never been done in one of these titles before and Igarashi wanted the game to seem less intimidating to newcomers one of the more important and bold features added the Symphony of the Night was the new mapping system well it was extremely similar to that of the metroid maps it tweaked itself just enough to be different every room Alucard entered would have a map found by pressing the select button that would show the player where he or she hasn't visited yet again ah she stated that maps should promote exploration but also have limits he wanted players to revisit certain maps and when they did they'd be rewarded with new items which would help to keep the players attention because the development team wanted to make a larger map to explore they opted to make the game in 2d instead of 3d they had many different items and settings that they wanted to program into the game that would be too difficult to render in 3d and so they had a very experienced team of 2d renderers Symphony of the Night was slated to debut on the PlayStation and it was a risk to render the game in 2d at that point due to the fact that Playstations 2d picture quality wasn't too solid Igarashi sat down to the translator and castlevania speedrunner to figure out if there were any bugs in the game at one point Igarashi and his team realized that if they were to flip the castle upside down and add new enemies for certain parts of it that they would be creating twice the content which only added to the success and doubled the size of the game seems like Castlevania found the upside down decades before will buyers stumbled into it ha jihad I mentioned that in early stages of development he and the team originally planned for an alignment system for weapons if the player ended up using more sub weapons Alucard would end up with a holy alignment whereas Alucard was using more magic and magic based weapons he would end up with a dark align hada and Igarashi had also intended on creating two different endings based on whether or not Alucard ended up with a holy or dark alignment while retouching the series for Symphony of the Night it Rashi decided to do away with the instant deaths that came from misjudging a jump and falling to the floor instead he decided to reward the players by having Alucard land in a new space for them to explore and then backtrack to the original goal at hand the team behind Symphony of the Night wanted to revamp get it the art direction for this game and in doing so they brought out a talented illustrator who had little to no experience in the video game world Ayane Kojima they felt that Kojima's work had a rich aesthetic and could make the game series fresh again something to really sink our teeth in Kojima took inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola Dracula film adaptation for her character designs for Symphony of the Night Maria's green jumper shows similarities to Winona Ryder's dresses throughout the film while the priest chapt wears deep red robes marrying that of Gary Oldman's character Kojima's art style also leaned more towards the character designs that the video game players were seeing in games like Final Fantasy which helps symphony of the night to stand out amongst its peers with the change in art style Igarashi was also able to change the sizes of the characters but this did not come without some complications alder card ended up taking up more space on screen and because of this the sizes of his weapons also needed to change to be in proportion with him since they ended up being comically large and hard to play with materia mana the composer for the Symphony of the Night soundtrack was about to go into a fourth year of college when she was hired by Konami to create gothic Victorian style soundtracks well Yamada is big break with Symphony of the Night she had worked on Rondo of blood and several other non Castlevania games before that yamani had some influence for the direction of Symphony of the Night based on sound though at times she needed to change some of her vision so that she and Igarashi would be more on the same page Yamada took components from rock classical music and jazz to compose the soundtrack that fans adore even today Egan ah she's favorite song in the game is Castle Dracula he mentioned that he may be biased seeing as it appears in the part of the game that he programmed himself it cannot she mentioned that the key to success with a Metroidvania type game is to relieve the player of any major stress they might feel in symphony of the night this was done by making the character fun to play while having the option to switch and apply different moves and items Metroidvania is a term that comes from the combination of the words Metroid and Castlevania and it is now a common term in the video game world to describe any game that borrows from the to Symphony of the night took gameplay elements from the Metroid games such as side-scrolling platformer exploration along with a nonlinear set of labyrinths and catacombs to unlock whereas Metroid kept his combat simple Symphony of the Night was able to upgrade to a more complex weapon play that added more weapons to the game overall Symphony of the Night rewards players for exploring the castles many halls and dungeons instead of relying on different levels to change the scenery and set the story Castlevania Symphony of the Night was released in March of 1997 in Japan and October of 1997 in the United States the Japanese titled four Symphony of the Night is a Komodo dragon gekkan oh yeah so chill coupe which translates to Diamond Castle Dracula X Nocturne in the moonlight Igarashi originally used X in the Japanese title for the game to show that it was part of the main game series and was satisfied to see that it has now become commonplace for the newer Castlevania games there was a manga titled Nocturne in the moonlight that came with the Japanese released the game this manga first appeared in Konami magazine in 1997 it was only one page of the manga and was a tease for Symphony of the Night the introduction to Symphony of the Night was narrated in Japanese while the American release only had word scrolling down the screen for players to read in this game players follow a Luo card a damn fear or half-human half-vampire who is the son of Dracula as he explores Dracula's castle and tries to destroy him Alucard once served his father but was convinced that spreading his evil was wrong and chose to work alongside Trevor Belmont to kill him a Liu card had been asleep since the end of Castlevania 3 but has been awoken to help solve the mystery reappearance of Dracula's castle and to find Richter Belmont not the best way to wake up from a now Dracula's castle is said to appear every 100 years but for some unknown reason it has returned only five years after Richter fought and supposedly killed Dracula himself Alucard is the first main playable character in the Castlevania series who is not a part of the Belmont clan this started a number of changes for the future of the series including player characters and art style Alucard also appears in other Castlevania games such as Castlevania legends Dracula's curse aria of sorrow and dawn of sorrow he is a playable character in each of those games except for legends and aria of sorrow Maria Renard is the other main character in Symphony of the Night however she is not a playable character Maria also made appearances in Rondo of blood and Dracula X before this in the Japanese Castlevania Dracula ex Manuel it states that Maria Renard is a distant relative of the Belmonts but in the American Symphony of the Night player Manuel it states that she is not related to the Belmonts by blood within the first stage of the game Alucard runs into Maria who is in search of Richter Belmont Elizabeth Bellary and Gael DeRay were supposed to appear as characters in Symphony of the Night but unfortunately ended up in the cutting room floor instead of keeping the traditional whip that the Past Castlevania games had at the main characters weapon of choice Ekadashi thought that Alucard would play with the slew of different weapons that were hidden in different rooms throughout the castle the variety of weapons in the game is also due to many of the staff members liking different types of blades unfortunately no one realized too later that nobody really loved shield and food Okawa said that that became a bit of a blind spot for them there are several items that never made it into the game one of which was the flashing treasure chest that gave the player $5,000 when picked up after slashing candles and destroying a room much like Zelda it was intended to give more money than any other item in the game Symphony of the Night was initially planned to have much more dialogue but a garage she felt as though the deep backstory would get in the way of the game's progression so it was taken out when characters died in game the voice actors recorded lines that would break the music as the screen loaded to start the game up again these lines were translated and recorded in English but never actually made it into the game it could actually say vert line in the game is a low cards final line when battling dracula travel the soul of my mother no more he claims that Ally cards dialogue is empty or emotionless true out the rest of the game but he gives us that peek into his human side at the very end the original ending was where Ally card battles and defeats Richter Belmont but many players desire to go back and explore all the rooms they may have missed once certain items have been found players can unlock a secret level that doubles the game size and is now more challenging than the game that came before it developers decided to hide a secret ending into sympathy of the night where players can explore a mirrored version of Dracula's castle Igarashi said that gala moth is the toughest animated bead and was designed so that if you tried just to fight him normally you couldn't win in the game Alucard has a secret boots item which says increases height discreetly and when attached it actually does make Alucard a couple pixels taller Alucard can be hurt by water but there's an item in the game known simply as the holy symbol that allows him to go underwater without taking any damage it's just a snorkel guys the grandfa lune and enemy found within Dracula's castle also found in harmony of dissonance and area sorrow was actually known as Legion in Japan while exploring the castle Alucard can peer through a telescope and see a man roaming a small boat out on the lake in front of the castle if the player does not find this room and look through the scope then a loo card cannot be ferried across the water when the need arises later in the game at the bottom of the outer wall beneath the telescope room you will see a small bird's nest if you wait a bit you'll see a bird arrive and perch in the nest keep exiting and re-entering the room and you will see that the bird has laid eggs which then hatch grow up and start a nest of their own Ekadashi and how to both decided that within there headcanon even though Alucard is Dracula's son he has the ability to use holy weapons through his mother's lineage she must have been descended from a holy bloodline they also said that Alucard has both the powers of light and dark the song Nocturne was supposed to be sung by the sprite or fairy familiar but never actually made its way into the game in Japan or America the only way to have been able to get the sprite to sing was to use gameshark codes the fairy and demon familiars were actually changed to the sprite and nose demon familiars for the American release of the game on a rare occasion instead of turning into his natural petrified form Alucard will instead shape-shift into a gargoyle statue and is invulnerable to any enemy attacks both Alucard and dracula shared the surname of Tempest which comes from Bram Stoker's original inspiration for Dracula and his novel the name comes from real-life Romanian Prince Vlad Tepes also known as Vlad the Impaler an homage to real-life cafes can be found in the game though it's pretty subtle when using the magic spell power of sire which does massive damage to all enemies on screen players can see a portrait of Vlad appear behind a loo card until the spell ends there's a set of armor that players can get known as the ax armor once players obtained this set they have the ability to start the game over with the armor and do a second playthrough in it the image of Dracula's castle that's depicted on the cover of Symphony of the Night was inspired by the Mount Saint Michelle Abbey which is built on a rocky hillside and Normandy France can you imagine a French Dracula it was just the red y another lung there's a room in Dracula's castle where Alucard can sit and speak with the ghost of a priest after they sit at a table together weapons come from behind a curtain and stab a low card the players can then go to the other side of the table and the ghost of a crying woman appears but nothing happens beyond that this is the only room in the castle where characters like those appear and is never discussed as to why they show up there in the first place players will meet a good priest who does not hurt Alucard although he will occasionally leave grape juice behind on the other side of the table alder card can occasionally meet the ghost of The Crying woman who stabs him instead if the player summons Alec cards bat familiar and then has Alucard turned into a bat himself the familiar will fall in love with Alec card players see little hearts come out from the familiar but a ballot card changes form again a question mark will appear about the bats head if Alec card stands still for an extended period of time his familiar will perch on his shoulder once he starts moving she will fall and Yelp and surprise in the reversed Coliseum of the mirrored version of Dracula's castle a loo card must fight Trevor Belmont Sofia Belle na days and grant van Asti who were all his party members in Castlevania three Dracula's cursed the Coliseum in Dracula's castle was decorated with the carcass of the behemoth who chases after Richter Belmont in brawn duel of blood it players that Alucard down in a chair and leave him for a minute or two he will drift off to sleep with little v images appearing above his head until he gets moving again don't forget even half vampires got asleep when Alucard had shifted into an animal form he has the potential to get stuck in small corners instead of the game simply glitching and having to start over retreat to a save point it acknowledges the mix-up and has him Yelp in confusion the stone mask I didn't that debuts in Symphony of the Night is an homage to the manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure where it turns Dio Brando into a vampire after finding it in joestar's library the library in Dracula's castle has audio clips from the voice cast in Japan while in America it was dubbed over with more of the game's soundtrack there are several healing items in the game one notably being peanut what's weird about this is that due to the way Alucard attaches items he has to throw them before he can use slash eat them this particular instance leads to the player having to throw the peanuts so that as a card can catch them in his mouth but not before striking a pose carrot Suman is a recurring boss character in Castlevania that is from Japanese and Christian mythology it comes from the Japanese word karatsu meaning crow if the game CD were to be played as an audio track it revealed a hidden song and has a recording of Alucard warning the owner of the disk not to put it into an audio player as you can see this is a PlayStation black disc cut number one contains computer data so please don't play it but you probably won't listen to me anyway whoo whoops while players loved symphony of the night in Japan European and American sales were so low that many retailers had to discount the game to get it off the shelves the English dialogue is well known for its cheesy delivery and somewhat off sound but certain lines have now become popular catchphrases that fans can identify with in seconds the opening of Symphony of the Night starts off with Dracula over dramatically asking Richter Belmont what is man a miserable little pile of secrets but enough talk how about you developers for Symphony of the Night we're getting initial feedback from players stating that they felt the game was too easy to get through because of the newly added RPG elements that made gameplay different from Castlevania that came before many female fans had positive reactions to the game partially because of its play style and also because of the shift in art direction the character being a suave tall half vampire as opposed to one of the beefy whip-wielding Belmonts definitely helped to bring in the new crop of players as well and this was nearly a decade before the Twilight craze team Alucard all the way many players who had never played the original Castlevania games were intrigued and eventually sucked into the beautiful new setting that Igarashi and hada had created others were thrown off and even disappointed at first by the more retro look and feel of the 2d platformer but once they started playing and really exploring the true depth of the games they came to realize what a treasure it actually is it's been the perfect example of don't judge a book by it's cover Ekadashi didn't want to fall more into the trap of creating a game for mature and experienced players quote it's vital to place importance on the experience of first-time players many fans we're wishing for an updated remake of Symphony of the Night with fully orchestrated versions of the soundtrack updated dialogue and beautiful renderings that could be released on the newest PlayStation system because the PlayStation was moving towards 3d polygonal characters and environments the 2d to look did not help sell symphony of the night but due to the critical praise and word of mouth from diehard Castlevania fans it ended up doing well in sales despite this fact fans have expressed that they prefer the silly somewhat corny dialogue of the original release as opposed to the cleaner updated version that was retranslated in Dracula X chronicles fans loved the twist ending where it turns out that Richter has been while under the control of shaft behind the reappearance of Dracula's castle and the fact that you can save and redeem him while going on to fight Dracula and the mere version of the castle as of May 2017 Symphony of the Night has sold more than 1.2 7 million units worldwide IDW comics ran a castlevania title in 2005 called castlevania the Belmont legacy and followed the player character Christopher Belmont in the Game Boy games IGN rated symphony of the night 9 out of 10 while metacritic gave it a 93 out of a hundred and many if not most players who've completed the game consider it to be one of the best games to be released on the original PlayStation Symphony of the night proved to the world that 2d gaming while thought to be dead at that point was not even close to being over with as long as detail and inventive gameplay are incorporated in May 2015 youtuber Eagle Raptor did a playthrough of Symphony of the Night on his channel game grumps to help give notice and fund a garage whose newest Castlevania inspired game Igarashi announced in 2017 that he is leaving Konami to create more independent games on his own which saddened fans a bit to know that the co-creator of one of their favorite games would no longer be with the company who may continue to release more titles based on the series Igarashi and Machida yamada are currently working on a garages new project ritual of the night that launched on Kickstarter back in 2015 on July 7th 2017 Netflix released an original animated Castlevania series co-produced by our very own Frederator studios with the first teaser trailer having been released in May of this year if you want to know more about that though you should check out cartoon hangover 7 facts about the Castlevania series producer adi shankara's says that the TV series it's the Castlevania story very much done in the vein of Game of Thrones in the game Metal Gear Solid released by Konami in 1998 the boss Psycho Mantis will read the players mind by parsing through their memory card if the game reads that there is a symphony as a knight save file on the card mantis will taunt you you like Castlevania don't you Symphony and the night celebrated its 20th anniversary on March 20th 2017 well there you have it once again I'm Brendan and thanks for watching 107 facts about Castlevania Symphony of the Night what's your favorite part of the game did we miss any Easter eggs comment below and let us know don't forget to click the bell icon to become part of the notification squad and if you like getting more from your games subscribe to the leader board where we help you game smarter

Channel: The Leaderboard

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Keywords: castlevania, castlevania symphony of the night, castlevania video game, alucard, symphony, dracula, 107 castlevania facts, ps1, vampire hunter, metroid, metroidvania, action-adventure game, konami, platformer, side scroller, gameplay, easter eggs, walkthrough, castlevania:lord of shadow, castlevania music, netflix, secrets, lore, video game facts, video games, the leaderboard, leaderboard, castlevania 2, belmont, guide

Id: cRqyeX21gzs

Length: 19min 15sec (1155 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 07 2017