I'm interested in this: Let's Play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: Randomizer

Castlevania is a series that is one of my all time favorites. I remember getting my NES copies of Castlevania and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse for my birthday one year, and in particular how much I enjoyed Dracula's Curse and the branching paths. Of course, the NES games are a very good example of the phrase: "NES Hard" with some very difficult platforming and enemy placements.

I played Castlevania Bloodlines on the Genesis and Dracula X on the SNES, but the game that would really blow my mind was the first entry on the PlayStation... Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Here was an oddity... a 2D sprite game, in the heyday of awesome 3D graphics? When Mario and Sonic and Zelda were moving to 3D (and in some cases releasing some of their most beloved games in the process) it sure seemed like an odd choice. But, there is some hidden brilliance here. SotN was not just another 2D game... it had some of the most impressive pixel art ever seen at the time. (There was a bit more under the hood, so this '2D' game had a bit of 3D elements, and I've heard it was even more of a strain on the PlayStation than a 3D game, though I can't confirm that).

But, the real oddity compared to the games that I'd played before? SotN wasn't an action platformer. At least, not the same style. Here was a merging of Castlevania style and gameplay, Metroid exploration, RPG Leveling and Inventory management, and some of the best cheesy voice-acting to ever appear in a video game. (Later versions have replaced the voices and retranslated the text, yet this new version will never have the same admiration as the classic "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!"

Back when I did my Let's Play of Super Metroid, I mentioned that SotN was the game I wish I could go back and play again for the first time. Well, in this heyday of randomizers, in a way I can do so! I'm interested in the concept of stuff like Super Metroid randomizer or Link to the Past randomizer, but I don't know the routes through the games well enough. But SotN? I can handle this one.

The big randomization here is that the Relics are shuffled, and the items enemies drop and any randomly spawned items. As it happens, SotN is a game with A LOT OF ITEMS and A LOT OF WEAPONS so there's potential for all sorts of shenanigans. Just as an example, in a test playthrough, I got the Duplicator accessory early on, which made all my consumable items infinite... but had no cloak or shield for the majority of the castle. Many of the relics determine how you progress through the castle (such as needing the Jewel of Open to access a few areas, or some areas being walled off until you can jump or otherwise navigate higher) so depending on our seed I might be taking a very crazy route through the castle.

Table of Contents:

Seed: 1581297274114 (Safe)
#1: Play Misty for Me
#2: Drawn and Quartered
#3: Mine, All Mine
#4: Nurse Chapel
#5: Belmont Bashers
#6: Like Clockwork
#7: They All Float
#8: Dracula's Curse Reunion
#9: The Entrance is Closed
#10: Learn to Swim
#11: The Super Duper Finale

So, you normally start Symphony of the Night with a recap of the ending of the previous game in the series (but not the previous game that we received in the US!) which was Rondo of Blood. The Final Stage: Bloodlines prologue features Ritcher Belmont and his battle against Dracula. As an easter egg for the main game, Ritcher can find a hidden room with hidden items that only work in the main game. They have no purpose other than to hint at what's to come. The way you perform in the battle with Dracula affects your starting stats and some items in your inventory.

Once Alucard appears, you normally start the game decked out with his finest gear (at the very least, an impressive lot to be sure) and go into the Entrance area. After an encounter with Death early on, you find yourself a bit worse for wear, but with your newfound Cube of Zoe you start gathering subweapons and hearts as you explore the Alchemy Laboratory, Marble Gallery, and Outer Wall. That might seem like a lot of ground to cover at the start, but it's by design. The game leads you from the westmost point to the eastmost point really quickly, to give you a hint of the scale of the game. Because of course you're also moving up and down on the map.

In a normal playthrough, you want to make this trip to get the Jewel of Open, so you can open a few blue doors that lead toward your next major boost for exploration.

With a randomizer though... that first long trek will likely be similar, if only because that's where all the relics are hiding. I can't really see a different route this early unless you were to get the Jewel of Open as your first relic where the Cube of Zoe was. But, once you reach the handful of relics located in the Outer Wall and the Long Library... The castle might just start opening up.


#1: Play Misty for Me
Wherein Red burns through all of some guy's hearts, ponders the disappearance of Maria, and marvels at how lightning works.

Heh, heh. Thank you!

The game audio is a little loud relative to your voice. If you've already recorded the full series, then this is less helpful

Thanks, I'll adjust that.

Though I'll note that this video was recorded before Mogri's post!

So at the start of this video, we have a few options for exploration and I think out loud about what different relics could mean for our route of progression and how it'll differ from the vanilla game.

Then the game said "Screw that" and decided to open all the routes anyway.

But just because the game gave us the means to explore the Chapel and the Clock Tower doesn't mean we need to head there first, right?


#2: Drawn and Quartered
Wherein Red remembers the miss-able enemy, gets silly with bosses, and struggles with Soul Steal.

We've got a few places to look into now. There is the Chapel < Keep > Clock Tower route which will have a handful of relics, and there's also the Underground Caverns route leading to the Abandoned Mine and the Catacombs. There's a lot to find, but at this moment in time there's one relic that we absolutely require.

Those mounted skeletons were sure clowning on you.

The special attack of the thunderbrand (and many other weapons) is done by performing a fireball motion and the attack button for the weapon.

"Okay Red, you've played around for long enough, go do the Chapel." ...no.

So it should be said that I'm not trying to optimize my route so much as I am just having fun with the game, Certainly the fun part for me is messing with items I might never think to use in a normal playthrough, but things that the game just feels like sharing with me.

I've played a couple of seeds by this point, and it's certainly been fun in general. One benefit to that is i've now learned my favorite way to deal with Granfaloon/Legion ever.

Of course, sometimes the Randomizer gives you one of those 'gotcha' moments.


#3: Mine, All Mine
Wherein Red's mother never said such a thing, he risks his life for a piece of cloth, and shows off those pro Legion strats.

Pretty sure I know where we'll be at by the end of the next video...

Argh... Red, don't you know that you can hurt enemies with the medusa shield?

Seeing you leave rooms unexplored when they're right there hurts my OCD (as well as the comment of not going for 200.6%)

Here's an interesting challenge I just came up with if you wanna make things more interesting and the randomizer's effects even more relevant: always equip whatever latest piece of equipment you find and use that until you find the next one (exceptions being allowed if a specific combination makes things just too hard, or boring to go through because everything takes too many hits).

What say you?

Also yes, as Torzelbaum said, different weapons have different special attacks using the hadouken motion, be sure to try it!

So we avoided the very top of the castle for long enough. Despite having never met Maria she's still waiting to chew us out for not believing in Richter. So it's time to grab the last few things we can in this area before the final showdown? I listened to the feedback as well!

Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!


#4: Nurse Chapel
Wherein Red rises to the challenge, forgives you for forgetting the boss, and ponders the incubating turkey.

Bad timing with the ending of the last video, but at least that means you know how this one is gonna start off! Ending the first castle and moving on to the inverted castle.

So, I love this game, but I still get lost in the inverted castle, a lot.


#5: Belmont Bashers
Wherein Red battles OCD, recaps the original Castlevania and finds that one song.. .

Early in the video: Awesome, now he won't have to use the slow and extremely expensive mist transformation!

The rest of the video: *the slow and extremely expensive mist transformation*

Or are those Alucard Annihilators?

I think there was a real missed opportunity with Capcom not referring to the Reverse Clock Tower as the Counter Clock Tower.

I wonder if Red knows the other way to modify Alucard's Hellfire Teleport...

To do the big fireballs instead? That's what I was trying, but I messed it up.

Yes, that's what I meant.

What type of controller are you using? It doesn't seem to be cooperating all that well. (The motion for soul steal is still ridiculuous no matter what.)

It's an 8bitdo SNpro+. I'm not entirely sure if the controller is to blame, I typically mess up at fighting game style combo moves like Soul Steal.

Also the term Belmont Bashers came from Captain N.

With the second castle basically fully open to us, there's not a lot of places we can't go, and we could go right for the final boss, but where's the fun in that, when there's a lot of places we can look into.

This game loves to give me something after I talk about it, if that makes any sense. It amuses me to see when some items will suddenly drop.


#6: Like Clockwork
Wherein Red gives some familiars a chance, has issues with spike traps, and goes hunting for turkeys.

I like Final Toccata. The problem is the distribution, not the song itself.

I do think a music randomizer might help in that regard.

Hey, been disconnected for a bit, but cool to see you're doing the "you found it, you equip it" challenge (I did mean all equipment, though, not just weapons ).

Some stuff I've wanted to comment watching these last two videos:
There was one weapon you missed in the ferryman section were you fell into the water, all the way to the right, at the bottom of the water.

The other relic you're missing is the one that tells you the names of enemies.

And finally, the lightning effect of the thunder sword that came out while you fought the first doppelganger and tried to replicate against the 2nd is unrelated to the enemy, it's the weapon's critical art: all weapons have a special attack that is activated by doing the fireball motion (down - down-forward - forward + arttack).
If you know about the shield rod, (or, IIRC, the fire bat and the wolf dash, it's been a whiel) it's that. Try it out!

And yeah, I agree with Mogri that the inverted castle's problem with the music is not the quality of the songs, but the quantity: there are just too few, so they get repetitive/tiresome fast.

As always I love your feedback and suggestions.

This time we kinda run around a lot before getting back on track, and you get to see me completely forget where one of the relics was all along. Also, silliest and worst boss strategy ever!


#7: They All Float
Wherein Red enjoys a gourmet meal, is confused by the ice motif, and wants to show off that one screen apparently.

That one sub-weapon is called the Rebound Stone in SotN but in later games it's called the Ricochet Rock. (It also appeared on Simon's Quest but was only referred to as the Diamond.) It's fun if not particularly powerful.

Agunea (the lightning one) is the sub-weapon I like using in SotN especially to cheese Legion / Granfaloon but it sure burns through hearts like nobody's business.

Uh, Red have you not noticed that the Ring of Ares tanks your defense?

Galamoth "guards" the acid mist in the normal / vanilla game.

I think Zoe is pronounced "Zo�" (as the name, sometimes spelled Zoey).

I thought the Spike Breaker was just really weak, but -24 def is more than practically every piece of armour. Yikes.


I got real excited when he was surrounded by those witches and had low hp. Too bad the Power of Sire saved him, I was really hoping for a surprise cat-heal! "Oh man, my hp is getting pretty low. *140HP heal* Wait what was that?"


Throwing steaks down and then getting knocked into them by lightning was way more fun than it sounds like

Yeah. is that the one named after a developer/translator's daughter?

You are correct about the Cube of Zoe, it's named for the daughter of the localizer.

So I do look into stuff after the fact, so in the video I mention not knowing the origin of the Schmoo which is from Lil'Abner and finding that the sword called Gram is just the sword called Gram which is actually the weapon also known as Balmung from Norse mythology. I mean, this game is just full of fun stuff to learn. There's all sorts of references and such. Some were in the original Japanese, some were added and removed in localization... I wouldn't be surprised if the version of SOTN on the PSP changed some names somewhere too, but I haven't played it so who knows.

I haven't been as big into the whole randomizer scene as some folks, but the appeal that people see in them certainly clicks with me and this randomizer has been a good way to help really make that connection for me. It probably fits that role better than my previous favorite, Super Mario Bros 3 Rando.

Anyway, this video amuses me because if only we'd come here before the last video... Well, you'll see.


#8: Dracula's Curse Reunion
Wherein Red meets a friendly cat, doesn't know all the references, and still gets the name of Death Wing wrong.

Well, this got me replaying SotN for the first time in seven years...

There really isn't higher praise than this, is there?

So, I was all set to post this earlier, and then the earthquake here in Utah freaked me out, so this got delayed a bit. That means I have the next video recorded as well, exciting times.

So starting out my goal is to fill in the rest of the Colosseum and then finally return to long neglected Anti-Chapel, and head to some of the other 'first' areas of the castle in inverted form. Making a pit stop to fail at swimming. So, being short on time and having not played for a bit, I forgot how you make the wolf swim, but I figured it out after recording.


#9: The Entrance is Closed
Wherein Red doesn't want to get kicked out of the room, doesn't feel bad about poison mist, and forgot how to swim.