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Symphony of the Night is Overrated

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An interesting point is raised by this "overrated " stuff. I have played games since the mid 80's.

Op mentioned playing the game back in the day, but it doesn't hold up. Fair. A lot of these legendary games for whatever reason, may not stand today in the minds of the masses. I could take a game like say, OoT. It is lauded as the best Zelda and perhaps the best game ever. I wonder how many people , having never played either, would take the Pepsi challenge and rank it higher than BoTW.

I am driving at two things. Firstly, games that make a big splash at their moment of release may not hold up graphically/stylistically over time, but attain legendary "you know you are suppose to revere it" status in the enthusiast community. This gets perpetuated by newer generations looking to play the "best". You know you are supposed to like it and if you don't appreciate it, something might be wrong with your taste. Communities will flame you. You have confirmation bias.

As an example, I fucking love FF6. Easily the goat FF. A lot of folks feel that way about 7. You know you are supposed to love one of them. If you hadn't ever played either, are like say 15 right now and play them...do you still feel the same way? You may prefer 10 or I mean..in some bizarro world 15. You could think the old ones are garbage based on your experience. You may just go along to get along though and find reason to love them because that is the norm. This leads to the overated and confusion threads.

Secondly, nostalgia bias. FF6 I played at release, in Japanese ...twice. It was especially..I was a little kid and the game was magical, A lot of folks, FF7 was their first and it was the first 3D one. It was epic. Some lunatics really like 8, I can't see nostalgia bias not kicking in there:) Golden Eye was also epic, but would it stand without nostalgia bias today against a COD?

So I guess I am overarchingly bring up the question, in a vacuum, no community to belong to and no nostalgia how do the legendary games stand the test of time and are they really legendary or just epic because of their contribution to the medium and impact at that moment of time. Would a person today ,at day one of video games prefer Super Mario 3 over New Super Mario U?
 
Edgy as fuck

Game is €250,- atm for a pal version on ebay ;)
The xbla version is butchered btw
 
Sizzel said:
So I guess I am overarchingly bring up the question, in a vacuum, no community to belong to and no nostalgia how do the legendary games stand the test of time and are they really legendary or just epic because of their contribution to the medium and impact at that moment of time. Would a person today ,at day one of video games prefer Super Mario 3 over New Super Mario U?
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The thing is, of ALL the classic games, Symphony of the Night is one of the few that is just as enjoyable today. Like, literally, it has aged better than the Zeldas or Marios or Final Fantasies or whatever populates the top 10 lists. The controls are still good, the music is probably the best ever, the art directions is still elegant and classic, it just works.

In fact no metroidvania has ever been touted as the SOTN killer. Maybe Ecclesia (for fans) but that's on it being a the 6th iteration of its formula.

It hasn't been surpassed by fucking Guacamelee.

Jesus Christ.
 
SteveWD40 said:
Aria of Sorrow is a much (much) better game, but SOTN is still solid, dat soundtrack.
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Aria is mechanically superior but unfortunately is also greatly held back by the GBA hardware. Soundtrack is fairly bland for Castlevania standards and the visuals aren't nearly as good.
 
OrbitalBeard said:
I'm not a huge fan of it either and prefer a number of Iga's later Castlevania games over it.

I definitely will take it over something like Guacamelee! though.
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Now, Guacamelee was really over rated.

It was a very safe game with few challenges.

Rosolink said:
IMO Aria of Sorrow is the best of the Metroidvanias, character progression is awesome.
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Yeah, buy I couldn't say SotN is overrated, it like comparing Mario games.
My IGA Castlevania rank is :
Aria
Order
Symphony
Circle.
 
Whenever i wanted to play a metroidvania game i always went to SOTN and always had fun. Game still does it right after all these years. Not overrated at all.
 
Arkanius said:
What is with all these threads lately trying to shit on Gaming classics that are still, great?

Half Life 2
Metroid Prime
Now SOTN

The fuck guys.
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Presumably the posters of those threads don't think those games are still great.
 
Ive played through SOTN in its entirety probably a half dozen times spread out over the last however many years it's been around. Last time was maybe 2 years ago, and I still loved every bit of it. Nostalgia can only take you so far. The vast majority of games I grew up playing are better left in my memories, but SOTN endures.
 
I've played through SotN in excess of a hundred times. In case it wasn't readily apparent, SotN also happens to be my all-time favorite game. I admit that some aspects of the game haven't aged particularly well (although I think that my issues with the game could easily be remedied with a proper re-release), but there's absolutely no other video game in the same genre as SotN that manages to be so impressive as a whole. Sure, Aria of Sorrow is probably a better game in some respects, as are some other installments in the series, but SotN's special in that there's such an incredible attention to detail. I can still play the game to this day and notice something new. SotN's team had so much creative freedom in developing the game, and I think it really shows in the final product. While the OP argues that SotN is overrated, I'd actually argue that SotN isn't appreciated for the right reasons. That said, aside from some weird usability issues and less-than-ideal relic placement, I honestly still think that SotN holds up really well.
 
Time to dust this off again...

SOTN.png
 
Ahasverus said:
The thing is, of ALL the classic games, Symphony of the Night is one of the few that is just as enjoyable today. Like, literally, it has aged better than the Zeldas or Marios or Final Fantasies or whatever populates the top 10 lists. The controls are still good, the music is probably the best ever, the art directions is still elegant and classic, it just works.

In fact no metroidvania has ever been touted as the SOTN killer. Maybe Ecclesia (for fans) but that's on it being a the 6th iteration of its formula.

It hasn't been surpassed by fucking Guacamelee.

Jesus Christ.
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In your opinion.

Most mainline Mario games have aged extremely well. All the 2D main line platformers still play like a dream, and Mario 64 is easily the oldest fully 3D game that is still so playable. Same with most 2D Zeldas, and 3D ones too, Wind Waker (a game 75% of the age of SoTN) looks better now than almost anything else that generation.

SoTN hasn't aged much at all. If anything, time has been very kind to it, because it was peak-pixel-art, with an obviously decent budget and long development time, on a hardware generation where it was rare to do a 2D game with such funding and effort. The parts that were more 'cutting edge' tech like the bits of 3D and the CGI castle cutscenes are the parts that have aged the worst. It has aged well ironically because it had good funding but was technically unambitious.

My contention is that it was never particularly good actual game. It espescially has extremely poor level design, map progression design, and the thing the OP has noted is it also has bad control design and combat design. It's not anywhere near the top of the Metroid-a-like genre for those things. But it has great graphics and sound and atmosphere, and that's enough for some people to consider it a classic despite the design flaws.
 
Arkanius said:
What is with all these threads lately trying to shit on Gaming classics that are still, great?

Half Life 2
Metroid Prime
Now SOTN

The fuck guys.
Click to expand...

This thread inspired me to buy SOTN, so I guess something good came out of it
 
If there is anyone in here defending this game but were down on Half-Life 2 in the recent Half-Life 2 thread: suffer like I suffered.
 
D.Lo said:
My contention is that it was never particularly good actual game. It espescially has extremely poor level design, map progression design, and the thing the OP has noted is it also has bad control design and combat design. It's not anywhere near the top of the Metroid-a-like genre for those things. But it has great graphics and sound and atmosphere, and that's enough for some people to consider it a classic despite the design flaws.
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As I said before, you're completely in the right to dislike it for reasons, but don't expect to change the vast, vast, vast, vast majority's opinions.

Symphont of the Night is a classic and it's gonna remain a classic, whether you like it or not.
 
Main problem is with the difficulty level.

You become an unstoppable death machine in just a pair of hours. The game had little challenge other than pure exploration.
 
I agree with the OP.

What I look for in a Castlevania game is a high level of challenge, tightly designed levels and tough but fair boss encounters where quick reactions and recognizing attack patterns are required to be victorious.

SOTN has neither of those things. The map is large and open, but contains far too many superfluous corridors and rooms which are just mindlessly sprinkled with enemies. The constant backtracking doesn't add much challenge. It's for the most part a nuisance and results in a game that feels artificially padded. Also, the constant fiddling with items and menus messes with the pacing of an already bloated-feeling game.

Levelling up all the time and eventually becoming omnipotent means any semblance of challenge is obliterated. Observing enemy behaviour in boss encounters used to be essential to overcoming these foes, but it's hardly necessary in SOTN. Just keep levelling up and/or stock up on items and nearly all bosses can be beaten to a pulp without the player having to actually master a competent strategy.

While I eventually played SOTN to completion, I was getting bored of it even far before the halfway point because of the reasons I just mentioned.

I hope I haven't offended anyone with this post. This is just the way I feel about this game. I'm sure the things I disliked about it are exactly the things which caused other people to fall in love with this game. And that's perfectly fine.
 
retroman said:
I agree with the OP.

...

I hope I haven't offended anyone with this post. This is just the way I feel about this game. I'm sure the things I disliked about it are exactly the things which caused other people to fall in love with this game. And that's perfectly fine
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This is a good, articulate and objective personal criticism that applies to the game design as it is I can agree with.
Taliban Stan said:
Controversial statement: None of the Castelvania games were ever good.
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Now this is low quality bait.
 
One thing I'll say about the game that diminished my fun with it is that it's too damn easy. I didn't look at guides even once and I just cheesed my way through it. And no I could not do it as easily in the other igavanias. Hell, even the basic throwing knife is really good when you have like 200 of them because Alucard lobs them so fast.
 
Arkanius said:
What is with all these threads lately trying to shit on Gaming classics that are still, great?

Half Life 2
Metroid Prime
Now SOTN

The fuck guys.
Click to expand...

I'm waiting for the thread about how overrated BG2 is. The current one gives it props still, so it hasn't yet succumbed to the GAF cycle.
 
Wait, a complaint is that it isn't holding your hand enough? Wow.

Exploring is what makes it such a legendary game, you stumble upon your progress items, you make discoveries.
 
Still haven't played SOTN even though I bought it several years ago. But I'm surprised when you say the game doesn't hold up very well and the controls are not good. Because Super Castlevania IV on the SNES and Dracula X on the PC Engine both still hold up and the gameplay and combat are still good today.
 
No miserable piece of secrets.
It's still the best Metroidvania game ever. And the best Castlevania too.
 
I came to it late, and whether or not it's "over-rated" I don't know, but I sure didn't like it. Tried for a couple of hours and got so bored of it.
 
Yep, I played it last year for the first time and found it really underwhelming. I imagine it would've blown minds back in the day, but I just found it really dull and surprisingly easy. Super Metroid on the other hand held up much better. I played that a few years ago and loved it.
 
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