Castlevania symphony of the night сюжет

Обновлено: 24.01.2025

This is an incomplete walkthrough for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It is not official, nor endorsed by Konami; it was written by fans for fans.

This page is a table of contents; click on the links to the sub-articles to find the detailed walkthrough of the video game.

Dracula's Castle

Prologue: Richter Belmont

Main article: Walkthrough:Symphony of the Night/Prologue

Defeat Dracula in the game's prologue with Richter Belmont!

Entrance and Alchemy Laboratory

Main article: Walkthrough:Symphony of the Night/Entrance

Take control of Alucard, go through the first levels, and confront the duo of Slogra and Gaibon!

Marble Gallery and Outer Wall

Main article: Walkthrough:Symphony of the Night/Outer Wall

Explore the Marble Gallery, reach the Outer Wall, and battle against the first Doppelganger!

Long Library and Underground Caverns

Main article: Walkthrough:Symphony of the Night/Library

Find the Master Librarian, move through the Underground Caverns, and subdue the monstrous Scylla!

The game was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo and published by Konami for the Sony PlayStation in 1997. It was re-released the following year for the Sega Saturn with additional features exclusively in Japan. In 2007, it was re-released in America for the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade. The original PlayStation release was released for download on the PlayStation 3, playable on both that system and the PlayStation Portable (PSP). A complete port was also included in The Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP, featuring updated dialogues and bug fixes. In 2018, it was included in the Castlevania Requiem collection exclusive for the PlayStation 4. It was released on March 4, 2020 for mobile phones (iOS, Android); unlike previous "metroidvania" Castlevania titles released on mobile platforms, which were simplified versions, this is a direct port of the console game.

Although not very successful during its release in North America and Europe (only 60 thousand copies sold in each continent), Symphony of the Night has become highly sought-after by video game players and is widely considered to be one of the best and a milestone of the series. Almost all of the game's successors have emulated its open-ended gameplay.

The game's story takes place during the year 1797, 5 years after the events of Rondo of Blood and begins with Richter Belmont's defeat of Count Dracula, mirroring the end of the former game. However, despite Dracula being defeated, Richter vanishes without a trace. Castlevania rises again five years later, and while there are no Belmonts to storm the castle, Alucard, the son of Dracula, awakens from his self-induced sleep, and decides to investigate what transpired during his slumber.

Meanwhile, Maria Renard, Richter's sister-in-law, enters Castlevania herself to search for the missing Richter. She assists Alucard multiple times throughout the game.

There are four separate endings to the story. If a certain sequence of events is followed, Richter is revealed to be under the influence of the dark priest Shaft. After the latter is defeated, an upside-down version of Castlevania, the Reverse Castle, appears from the heavens. This castle contains another entire series of adventures, crowned by the ultimate face-off between Alucard and his revived father, Dracula himself.

Characters

Dialogue

Main article: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night/Script

Gameplay

Alucard takes on Slogra and Gaibon in the game's first true boss battle.

Symphony of the Night introduced a more fluid control scheme for its protagonist. Unlike his predecessors, Alucard can back-dash with a single button, and attack with a downward kick while jumping. Alucard can also use Magic Spells learned through incantation scrolls and activated with specific button combinations. Some spells damage enemies, such as Hell Fire, while others heal Alucard, like Soul Steal and Dark Metamorphosis.

As in previous Castlevania titles, Alucard can use a variety of sub-weapons found in various places of the castle, such as the staple knives, axes, and holy water. Like earlier games, sub-weapons are powered by Hearts, which act as an ammunition count global to all sub-weapons, and only one sub-weapon can be equipped at a time.

Alucard will learn skills when he discovers certain relics, a feature reused in later titles. Using these relics, Alucard is able to increase the potency of his jumping skills, gain the ability to open magically-sealed doors, travel painlessly through water and even transform into different animals, as well as an ethereal Mist Form.

Symphony of the Night is the first Castlevania title since Simon's Quest to use RPG-like elements. Alucard can progress in levels, after gaining a specific amount of experience points. Every time Alucard "levels up", statistics such as attack power, defensive strength, and luck will increase. He can also find special items called "Life Max Ups" to increase his maximum hit points, "MP Max Ups" to increase max MP, and "Heart Max Ups" to increase the number of hearts he can carry. Alucard is able to restore his health or normal status using various potions and foodstuffs found in the castle, as well as special rooms that act as save points.

Another RPG element in the game is the option to equip armor, accessories, and weapons for Alucard. Some may merely increase his power, while others make him resistant to certain elemental attacks, or immune to specific status effects. Alucard also has a huge variety of one-time use items at his disposal. While some may do damage to one enemy or a small group, others can be used to attack all enemies covering the screen.

Alucard will be able to enlist the help of Familiars, which include the Faerie, Demon, Ghost, Bat, and Sword. All Familiars have the ability to level up as well, and become increasingly intelligent as their levels increase, making them attack or heal faster. Some may gain new abilities or even new appearances.

Graphics

The visuals of Symphony of the Night are a widely praised element of the game. The game's elegant and incredibly detailed look of the castle has been retained in other games developed under Igarashi: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

Environments

Symphony of the Night draws heavily from the Gothic and Renaissance styles of architecture and sculptures. There is a large emphasis on unity with symmetry and elegant flourishes present in places like the Transition Rooms between areas, with the identical, angelic figures facing one another on either side of the top of the arch. The artists spared no expense in details. Slabs of stonework and pillars emulate the texture and intricacies of their ancient, real-life counterparts the design choices of shape, line, and color. Statues are varied in their poses and designs. Bits of bricks and stone can be seen that are chipped away, or incongruous with the general layout, and thus make for interesting contrasts that catch the eye.

The comprehension of the beauty and complexity of classic architecture is also apparent in places such as the Royal Chapel, with its cut-away views of protruding, shingled, outside structures.

Castlevania's areas also demonstrate impressive graphical techniques, such as copious multi-scrolling in areas like the Underground Caverns, with their natural pillars, stalactites, and waterfalls that can be viewed beyond the openings in the rocky walls, and scrolling objects, such as the clouds in the Castle Keep and Royal Chapel.

There also is the utilization of 3D techniques in the backgrounds that create the illusion of shifting perspectives. This is most evident in the famous room in the Royal Chapel with the stained glass windows and large cross in the far background. As the player walks or jumps, the windows, the beams of light coming through them, the walkway between them, and the arching ceiling will transform their shapes to match the player's location.

Enemies

A good amount of enemies were imported directly from Rondo of Blood. Bosses such as Granfaloon and Beelzebub are massive, sprawling creatures. Most distinctive are the new enemies, and the personality expressed in their animations. The enemy Hammer will slam his weapon down, and then slightly stagger back after withdrawing it. The Spectral Sword's weapon-minions will react to where Alucard is, giving qualities to objects we don't usually associate with personality.

Death animations are spectacular and unique; Guardians, the most powerful non-boss enemies in the game, will stagger to their knees when defeated and turn a bright gold, proceeding to be consumed by a small pillar of fire, and shrink into minor specks of light. The Fire Demon's body is consumed by darkness, and the player can view flames inside of its negative space as its form slowly fades into nothingness. The playable characters' death animations, as well as that of their respective boss encounters, also have special effects that are affected by the attack attributes of the killing blow; to name some examples, an Ice elemental attack results in the character being frozen solid before melting into nothingness, whereas if killed while petrified, the character's statue-esque form crumbles apart as it falls to the floor.

Most enemies are taken from folklore, mythology, and literature. For example, Cthulhu from H. P. Lovecraft's stories, also makes an appearance in the game, although his name has become Malachi. There are other references, such as Alastor.

Alucard

Most fans of Symphony of the Night consider Alucard to be one of the most detailed sprites in 2D history.

The artist for his sprite was aware of how every facet of Alucard's design would react to certain movements.

Alucard also displays a surprisingly wide variety of animations (some of which may never even be seen by players, due to their specific nature, in some cases), and a trait that is wholly unique; an "after-image". When Alucard makes a quick, initial movement, a series of bluish illusions of his body will trail behind him. The after-image technique was later reused for main characters Juste in Harmony of Dissonance and Soma in Dawn of Sorrow. It was even copied in games by other companies, such as the Mega Man X games by Capcom.

Weapon effects and spells

Symphony of the Night offers a wide variety of effects for its weapons, such as the curved, multi-colored movement effects of the Masamune and trailing effect of the Heaven Sword, along with intricately detailing the shields with interesting shapes and motifs.

Alucard also has a large amount of spells at his disposal, some of them concerning usage of the shields and Shield Rod and the explosive items, and they're represented in a way that most fans have praised. The effects are stunningly colored and animated. Spiritual helpers are crisply detailed and sometimes downright weird, and animations such as fire and glowing qualities are convincing.

Level layout

Due to its revolutionary exploration aspect for the series, Symphony of the Night opted for a more free and coherent layout. Thus, objects such as moving platforms and pits, staples of the stage-based games, were removed, and the castle's areas functioned more similarly to how a Metroid game would.

SotN remains unique, though, even with its general core layout being duplicated in Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow, because it features the most interactive areas. Bridges can collapse, gears can be hit to open doors, obstacles are destroyed in a wide variety of ways, and more.

HoD is the most similar to SotN's layout, in that it employs a lot of hallways with little platforming in them, along the rooms that have been described by players as "Zig-Zag Rooms", which are vertical rooms that have the player alternately move left and right, up or down a series of structures, to reach the next destination. Both games' castles overall layouts also function circularly.

However, classic elements, such as spikes, have been left in the game to add more challenge to its layout, along with several traps, such as spikes strapped to motion-detecting, rolling contraptions.

The game also houses myriad hidden rooms (which are usually accessed by attacking certain parts of a wall, floor, or ceiling) that contain more enemies and items, along with some of the game's biggest secrets.

As mentioned, the castle's layout follows the traditional formula, set by the Metroid series, where the player must gain new powers by exploring unknown regions to bypass certain obstacles. Alucard will utilize shapes such as the Form of Mist to travel through thin spaces, or the Form of the Bat, to gain access to higher areas.

Castle areas

Trivia

If the entirety of the prologue is finished in less than 1 minute, Alucard earns +5 HP, +5 Max Hearts, and +5 STR, CON, INT, and LCK. It should be noted, however, that such a feat is legitimately impossible until the player completes the whole game, as the "Die, monster" cutscene is unskippable otherwise.
If Richter manages to kill Dracula without receiving any damage, Alucard earns +5 HP.
If Dracula is defeated without having a sub-weapon in Richter's possession and without using the Flame Whip, Alucard earns +5 HP, +1 STR, CON, INT, and +5 LCK.
If Richter finishes the prologue with the Holy Water equipped, Alucard starts with +5 MP and +5 Hearts.
If Richter finishes the prologue with the Cross equipped, Alucard starts with +10 MP and +5 Hearts.
If Richter collects more than 40 Hearts, Alucard starts the game with a Neutron Bomb in his inventory.
If Richter loses all of his HP, Maria will make him invincible for the rest of the battle. Alucard then starts with a Potion in his inventory, but won't receive any other bonuses.
If Richter finishes the prologue with no Hearts, Alucard starts the game with a Heart Refresh.
- Combining the best of the best of these bonuses legitimately possible in playthroughs after beating the game, Alucard can start the game with 85 HP, 55 Hearts, 14 STR, 13 INT, 13 CON, 17 LCK, and 25 MP. All bonuses pertaining to sub-weaponry and items are not included, however, as very few –if any at all– are legitimately possible.
- This is similar to the warning track in Lunar, both testimonies of misuse prevention methods taken during early data disc based gaming.
- This Half-Faerie Familiar can sing a song. The Saturn version includes an exclusive item called the Song Lyrics Card which causes the Fairy familiar to sing more often.
- This can also be done in other Castlevania games that use Symphony of the Night's map system, such as Aria of Sorrow.
- In addition, both the Gold and Silver Rings may be a reference to the animated movie The Castle of Cagliostro. In the film, both rings allow to discover a hidden place on the clock tower, like their joint use at the same place in the game.
- In the Sega Saturn (with the Lyric Card equipped) and The Dracula X Chronicles versions, if Alucard sits in a chair long enough with the Fairy familiar active, she will eventually sing a lullaby. The Sega Saturn version, however, has been confirmed to require a level 12+ Fairy.
- In addition, Alucard's quote "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." comes from the Irish philosopher Edmund Burke. Coincidentally, the latter died in 1797, the year in which the game takes place.