The World Design of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night | Boss Keys

Comments · 1.7K

• GM

  @GMTK · 7 years ago · pinned

  If you miss the graphs, I&apos;put a full dependency chart for Symphony of the Night over here - <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/maps-and-graphs-22745831">https://www.patreon.com/posts/maps-and-graphs-22745831</a><br><br>And to answer the mot frequently asked question: yes, of course I&apos;ll be looking at Hollow Knight! I can&apos;t wait to get to it - but I need to lay some more groundwork before then.

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• RO

  @RobotacularRoBob · 7 years ago

  Alucard&apos;s &quot;WHAT?!&quot; when Death takes his weapons is so well punctuated with the pause in the music.

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• XE

  @Xerclipse · 7 years ago

  first dialogue when entering the clock room is: “Wait a minute” by Maria.<br><br>Hhmmm is that a hint??!!

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• JA

  @jacko7755 · 7 years ago

  That photo of Shaft you threw up there nonchalantly totally killed me

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• AN

  @andersdenkend · 7 years ago

  My god, this pixel art. Real art. Gorgeous art.

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• AU

  @aureateseigneur5317 · 7 years ago (edited)

  The room in the center of the Castle with the big clock is actually pretty clever in that the first time you go there and meet Maria the conversation is long enough to guarantee you will see the statue to the upper left shift to the side letting you know you might be able to go up there at a later point. This happens during this cut scene every single time you play the game. <br><br>On the other hand this scene is so early in the game that you may easily have forgotten it by the time you actually have the tools needed to ascend up into Olrox Quarters, and if you aren&apos;t observant or just somehow miss it like you seem to have Mark, then yea you could understandably not know you can even go up there.

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• LO

  @LochNessHamster · 7 years ago (edited)

  Playing this game it always felt like the Castle was a character in and of itself that was actively fighting against you. It makes the wandering feel more meaningful to me. It feels like the Castle is trying to make you think you&apos;re going the right way, only to deceive you and get you lost in a death trap. <br><br>I think that&apos;s one of the things that makes SOTN feel so memorable compared to a lot of the Castlevanias that came out in its wake. The Castle feels like it wasn&apos;t designed for you to get through in a fair and balanced way. It wants to kill you, and you&apos;re only able to beat it with your own wit and perseverance.

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• ZE

  @zetadroid · 7 years ago

  When I was about 17 I bought a used PS1 from a friend with a bunch of games that included SOTN. Some months later I got to actually play SOTN, and since I was sick for a couple of weeks, I discovered the inverted castle all by myself (no internet or friends&apos; suggestions). Then I approached the friend that sold me the PS1 telling him what I found out and he had no idea that he missed half of the game. Poor guy he was so sad.

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• TO

  @tonraqkorr230 · 7 years ago

  15% game design discussion 85% walkthrough

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• EX

  @ExSiegfried · 7 years ago

  I wish i could forget i ever played SotN so i can play it again and have that emotion of the first walk through

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• MO

  @Moonlight-Fox-Stories · 7 years ago

  The other clue that killing Richter is the bad ending is Death&apos;s inclusion at the start of the game - Apparently the reason they made the lose your powers being Death stealing them was to help clue in players that this isn&apos;t the real final boss because they saw a boss that they hadn&apos;t fought yet earlier.<br><br>I like the inverted castle, conceptually - re-contextualizes the level you&apos;ve already explored giving a weird sort of familiarity but new perspective on it, and having five bosses to fight in any order you like is cool and fun. The upgrades you get are just so boring in it, just health and mana upgrades for the most part, compared to what you get in the full castle, meaning it&apos;s missing half the fun of a Metroidvania for me - Finding cool stuff and figuring out where to use it, plus I already know the rough layout of everything it&apos;s just upside down. I think Dandara&apos;s Dreamlands works a lot better for recontextualizing areas you&apos;ve already been in by having it as a region on the critical path, significantly shrunk, and mixed up with rooms you haven&apos;t been in, presented as a really weird puzzle the likes of which I&apos;ve never seen in a metroidvania before, all while giving you an item you need to progress at the end of it.

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• JI

  @JimPanzeeEsq · 7 years ago

  Maybe I&apos;m dreaming, but I feel like your older videos contained far more commentary on exactly how the design of the game worked. This almost just felt like a review &amp; more time was spent just stating what occurs rather than how &amp; why it does or doesn&apos;t work.<br><br>Perhaps it&apos;s because I&apos;ve replayed SotN so often, but I feel like I got a lot more insight from your Zelda series. You would mention mechanics I know, but then explained what that meant for the player &amp; why the designers may have made that decision.

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