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Symphony of the Night is Overrated

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You might want to look at the context for those posts (two are LoL esports related).

But I doubt you will and I'm sure it was fun for you to dig them up. :3

eh, fun would be overrating it a bit >:3

why would overrated be dumb and meaningless in this instance, but not in your posts?

and why do certain games getting criticized make people so heated? :o
 
I disagree.

The gameplay is great, art is great, music is great, level design is great.

You're wrong and should feel bad about it.
 
Something can't be overrated if those people rated it as such, those people just really liked it , you can't say that those people's liking that movie a whole lot are wrong for liking it.

You can't say nope to a post that makes the point that it's all subjective.

Like... what?
That rating on IMDb is skewed because a lot of people voted 10/10 before even seeing the film. The rating might've been further skewed by paid voting. In that case it's objectively overrated.

I loved Harmony of Dissonance, but it has to be the easiest of the Metroidvanias. Bosses are all pushovers.
I also liked it a lot but it's certainly no match for Symphony.
 
I also played it later, like you did, around 2012 and actually found it to be amazing. Alucard definately isn't stiff or hard to control, I would actually accept if you said samus on super metroid controls a bit weird but Alucard? No. And exactly why is it bad that is it bad that it doesn't point you on a direction? Because it really isn't and it is a plus for me, it allows you to explore the castle freely. Hollow knight also doesn't point you on a direction and it works wonders. I agree with you on the difficulty issues though, it is pretty easy and that is the only shortcoming I can accept and it definately isn't enough to make it overrated.
 
I don't think the OP is wrong. It's an opinion.

However, he's using overrated incorrectly. X is overrated is usually a poor topic title since you mostly get posts saying "No, you!".

A proper LTTP review would be a bit more discussion worthy. People are just getting hung up on the overrated aspect of the title and topic conceit.
 
Inspired by the forthcoming release of Bloostained, I picked up SOTN in the Xbox sale and replayed it on my One (via BC). I hadn't played the game extensively in well over 10 years. I think closer to 15.

While I appreciate what the game did for the genre, it doesn't really stand up well to the test of time. Certainly not as well as many people think. Reading through GAF, I still see many posters rank it as the best (or second-best) Metroidvania ever made (or, in some rare cases, the best game ever made). I think there have been many Metroidvanias in recent years that have surpassed SOTN in quality. Both Ori and (despite its bugs) Guacamelee come to mind. (Haven't tried Hollow Knight just yet -- it's on my playlist).

To be clear, the game remains incredibly entertaining and I would still recommend it to almost anyone. Especially given the era it came out of: Few games from that time period (late 90s) are still as enjoyable as SOTN is today. The game's presentation notably holds up extremely well. The graphics are great. The music is incredible.The boss battles are memorable -- iconic. The cheesy voice overs and bad writing works so well. All the items and spells -- it's just so charming.

So, it's not overrated?

The gameplay, however, doesn't. The controls are, quite simply, clunky. Controlling Alucard isn't intuitive at all. He doesn't feel tight or responsive. And he's slow. That's an issue because the game -- another gripe I have with it -- forces you to do so much back tracking. You can get around this by back dashing. But that only highlights the issue from a design standpoint. (If I have to hear that brush-on-stone SFX one more time....)

Learn to use the Soul of wolf, backtracking is fun , learn to use bat + special boots.
Movement around the castle gradually becomes faster.


Fighting enemies, more often than not, feels like a chore (haha, no) . And they're everywhere. Most of the challenge they pose comes from annoyance. You better jump or that horse enemy will knock you out of the room! What happens then? You'll have to do this entire segment over again. Oh no, the horror! The clocktower and the Medusa heads, the belltower and the ravens, etc.

Sorry, but a minor annoyances like these are almost based upon your skill alone,not the games fault.



SOTN has a weird challenge curve. It starts off somewhat difficult (might just be the learning curve with the controls), but somewhere around the second boss, becomes insanely easy. The second half of the first castle, and even most of the inverted castle, do not present a challenge whatsoever, even if you ignore the game's RPG elements (ie, finding the right special weapon for the right boss, or the right resistance armor, or the spells, etc). But then there are those rare times when the game is brutally difficult seemingly out of nowhere. Galamoth is almost impossible to beat unless you know to get the Beryl Circlet. Then he's really easy. But it's hidden in such a bizarre place you'd basically never find it without a guide.

I never had to get any sorta item to beat Galamoth, I have no idea what you're even talking about, like I said you cant blame the game for your lack of skills here.

The inverted castle itself is a cool concept, but really only works about half the time. The other half the time, it feels like you're playing some sort of strange ROM hack, duct taped together with Alucard's flying skills.

Again, I don't agree at all - it was original in it's own way, and provided extra length to game, plus it had all new bosses and some enemies.


Lastly, the game offers absolutely no suggestions about what you're supposed to do next. No hints. No tips. Nothing. Combined with the annoying combat and the need to back track so often, SOTN is a bit of a confusing slog if you don't have a guide of some sort to work with. I'm aware that blind wandering is, to some extent, fundamental to the Metroidvania genre, but SOTN seems especially egregious.


Non-sense, item descriptions were enough to get you by, and obvious stuff the librarian guy sold you.

Bait thread title - trust me I know


^
 
What the hell? This is one of the best controlling games ever made, he'll it's just straight up one of the best games ever made. OP, are you huffing up some of Mr. Wizard's butthash?
 
"Well, that's just like, your opinion, man" the thread.
SotN is a classic and rightfully so, still holds up great.
 
Why are people so allergic to the word 'overrated'?

The inherent subjectivity in opinions is a given. That applies to interpretation of mass opinion, as well. The claim that something is overrated just means someone has interpreted popular opinion to be distorted in the direction of viewing something in too positive a light. Maybe SotN's faults have been underemphasized, maybe reverence for it hasn't allowed people to reconsider it in light of all the time that has passed, or whatever else.

Words like 'overrated' just frame a person's argument to let people know they're engaging with mass opinion. So long as it's not used in a lazy way (and the OP definitely put effort into his argument), I don't see a problem.
 
eh, fun would be overrating it a bit >:3

why would overrated be dumb and meaningless in this instance, but not in your posts?

and why do certain games getting criticized make people so heated? :o

You don't see the difference between calling a player overated in the context of a tournament where there are both official and unofficial power rankings or finding a game overated vs. their metacritic score at a personal level (where the topic invites you to do that comparison) compared to:

Starting a discussion topic by calling a game overated and referencing only general talk in regards as a basis for your own critisms to it.

To me, that context seems like a pretty big difference in usage and the latter usage basically underminee the conversation.
 
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The controls are, quite simply, clunky. Controlling Alucard isn't intuitive at all. He doesn't feel tight or responsive. And he's slow.

I don't agree with any of your gripes about this game, but this one really confuses me. Nothing I have played feels more tight or responsive than Symphony of the Night, and that's a huge part of why it remains my favorite game of all time.
 
I don't agree with any of your gripes about this game, but this one really confuses me. Nothing I have played feels more tight or responsive than Symphony of the Night, and that's a huge part of why it remains my favorite game of all time.
Indeed. That's where I knew this was just edgelord bullshit.
 
I wouldn't call it overrated, but I also don't think it's miles better than some of the other handled titles.
 
Oh look it is another, this classic isn't as good 20 years later thread. Next tell us how SF2 pales in comparison to recent fighters...

Not like the medium evolves at all.
 
While I appreciate what the game did for the genre, it doesn't really stand up well to the test of time. Certainly not as well as many people think. Reading through GAF, I still see many posters rank it as the best (or second-best) Metroidvania ever made (or, in some rare cases, the best game ever made). I think there have been many Metroidvanias in recent years that have surpassed SOTN in quality. Both Ori and (despite its bugs) Guacamelee come to mind. (Haven't tried Hollow Knight just yet -- it's on my playlist).

While I've not played Ori, Guacamelee is NOT a Metroidvania. It's more Zelda II/ Castlevania II than it is Metroid.
 
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