Castlevania: Symphony of The Night - Development

Development

It is rumored that the canceled Castlevania game, The Bloodletting, eventually became Symphony of the Night. With the cancellation of the Sega 32X as a viable development platform, the team was tasked with developing a new game, so what was usable from The Bloodletting was absorbed into the Symphony of the Night project.

Symphony of the Night marks the first appearance of artist Ayami Kojima in the video game industry. Kojima's role in the game's production was that of character designer, specifically tasked with conceptualizing the game's main and supporting cast in a unique way. Her designs for Symphony of the Night borrow heavily from bishōnen-style art. These illustrations proved popular amongst the Castlevania fan base, which prompted similar designs to be done by Kojima for later titles.

Symphony of the Night is presented via 2D visuals, mainly sprites animated over scrolling backgrounds, with effects such as rotation and scaling being used liberally. Sprites range in size, from quite small to filling an entire screen (primarily bosses such as Galamoth). For backgrounds, parallax effects attempt to simulate depth, and can be observed in many areas throughout the game.

Occasionally, the 3D capabilities of the PlayStation attempt to embellish the largely 2D world. For example, cloudy skies in the Holy Chapel area are rendered as 3D textures moving towards the player's perspective, and a polygonal clock tower visible from the Castle Keep rotates as the player moves. Enemies and spells also sometimes render 3D elements as part of their special animations. As was popular at the time (1997), the game contains some short full motion video (FMV) sequences that mostly showcase the castle from different angles. These FMVs do not appear in the Xbox Live Arcade version of the game.

According to Koji Igarashi, Symphony of the Night started out as "...something of a side story for the series, we were able to break alot of Castlevania conventions and introduce a lot of new elements that we still use today."

Released first, the Japanese release of Symphony of the Night was packaged with an artbook (which also contains a small manga based on the game), and a soundtrack compiled of most of the Castlevania games released before Symphony of the Night. It contained two more familiars than the subsequent English-language release. The English release mistakingly titled the prologue sequence with Richter as "Bloodlines", in reference to the wrong Castlevania game. Symphony of the Night was released in Japan on March 20, 1997, in North America on October 2, 1997, and in Europe in November 1997. It was re-released in Japan under the "PlayStation the Best" label on March 19, 1998, and in North America under "Greatest Hits" in 1998.

In 1998, Symphony of the Night was ported to the Sega Saturn for a Japan-only release. It includes various new features: Maria Renard becomes a fully playable character, and along with Richter, is available to play as for the start of the game. When playing as Alucard, a "third hand" is available to store food or medicine. Alucard can also use exclusive items in the port, such as the "Alucard Boots". An exclusive new boss, the Skeleton King, was added to the castle, as well as two new areas: the Cursed Prison and the Underground Garden. The game also contains remixes of previous Castlevania songs.

Unfortunately, due to poor coding, there are more and longer load times in the Saturn version. However, in most cases, slowdowns were noticed after the player has occupied more than three save slots, so these issues can be avoided by careful walk through and save progress planning. Since the Saturn has limited hardware transparency support, transparency effects, such as the mists and the waterfall, were replaced with dithering effects. Also, rather than take advantage of the Saturn's increased resolution, the graphics are stretched to fill the screen, which causes some sprites to be distorted. The overall quality is said to be lower than the PlayStation version due to it being a simple port handled by another team, and not being recoded to take advantage of the Saturn's technically superior 2D capabilities. Igarashi has expressed his disdain for the Sega Saturn version.

In 2006, Konami announced an Xbox 360 port of the PlayStation version of the game to be distributed via Xbox Live Arcade. It was the first Xbox Live Arcade title to exceed the 50 MB restriction placed upon Xbox Live Arcade games (The limit has since been increased to 2 GB). The exception was made for Symphony of the Night to "ensure that the gameplay experience is the best it can be". Symphony of the Night for Xbox Live Arcade was released on Wednesday, March 21, 2007. With most Xbox Arcade games, it features Leader boards that track players progress throughout the castle and features 12 achievements worth 200 points.

To save on space, all FMV sequences were removed from the North American version of the game. They have been added back to the Japanese version, which is approximately 25 megabytes larger. When the unpatched version still features "I Am The Wind" as the ending music, a later patch replaced it with "Admiration Towards the Clan," the ending song from Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.

In 2009, Konami released Symphony of the Night alongside Super Contra and Frogger on the Konami Classics Vol. 1 for Xbox 360.

The PlayStation Network version, which is identical to the PS1 version and is compatible with the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Sony PSP, was released on July 19, 2007 and to date is only available to US customers. No European release on this format has been announced.

In 2007, Konami announced a port of Symphony of the Night would be included in Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the Sony PlayStation Portable. The game was released on October 23, 2007 in North America. The English translations outside of the Japanese release features a redone (not quite re-translated) script and new voice acting.

The PlayStation Portable version of the game, as an unlockable part of The Dracula X Chronicles, is generally a port of the PlayStation version, but contains some additions and changes. As in the Sega Saturn version, Maria Renard is also a playable character and a boss in the PSP version. In contrast from her Sega Saturn appearance, her gameplay style is closer to her Rondo of Blood counterpart. She uses doves as her primary means of attack and her four animal friends as subweapons. Her sprites are also redrawn, though her original sprites are still used during cutscenes. She was even given some new moves such as the ability to dash (which can also be done in mid-air), drop-kick and superjump with one of her owls.

The Nose Devil and Sprite familiars from the Japanese versions return, titled "N Demon" and "Fairy" respectively. The first Fairy familiar is renamed "Faerie." Like the Xbox 360 version, "I Am The Wind" is not played over the credits. A new song, "Moonlight Serenade", is used instead. Some sound effects have also been altered.

The port features redone sound effects. Also, the English script has been reworked: not quite re-translated, as the basis is very much the first English translation, instead of the original Japanese script. The dialogue has also been re-recorded with new voice acting. The prologue text is slightly altered and is narrated by a voice over. The game has the option of using the original Japanese voices. Some enemy voices, such as Axe Lord and Medusa, were not redubbed and retain their original Japanese voices on both language settings. There are also some subtle changes to item and enemy descriptions, and the Librarian's bestiary has been reorganized.

A version for the Game.com was cancelled.

In 2010, a puzzle game for the iOS was released titled Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night. It retells the story of Symphony of the Night.