Buy Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood

The Castlevania franchise has been rather dormant in recent years. Aside from the Netflix series and the upcoming appearance of Richter and Simon Belmont in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the last we saw of Castlevania was 2014's rather lackluster Lords of Shadow 2. The classics were excellent games, and the two Castlevania titles that best embody the spirit of Castlevania are Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. While both games have been ported before, Castlevania Requiem marks the first time they're available on a modern console. Unfortunately, while the games are as good as ever, the port is rather lackluster.

The first game in the collection is Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood. Originally a Japanese-only game released for the PC Engine in Japan, Castlevania X is considered the epitome of the classic franchise. For those who've never played, Castlevania games are old-school platformers with a focus on precision platforming and fighting enemies, and Rondo of Blood is near-perfection of that genre. Its only close competition is the SNES's Castlevania IV.

Rondo of Blood stars Richter Belmont, and the clan is known as a group of magically enchanted heroes who battle the dark vampire lord, Dracula. Richter is the latest to take up the legendary whip (Vampire Killer) to rescue his lost fiancée Annette from Dracula's evil clutches. Along the way, he'll be helped by Maria Renard, a young girl with immense magical powers.

The basic gameplay in Rondo of Blood is Castlevania at its finest. Richter is equipped with the Vampire Killer, a powerful whip that can strike a long distance in front of him. Attacking enemies involves careful positioning to best utilize the whip's long-but-narrow horizontal reach. Richter also can use subweapons, which allow him to attack above or below him, or more powerful attacks, but each strike uses up Hearts, which are collected throughout the game. Richter can also use an extremely powered-up subweapon at the cost of a significant amount of hearts.

The other playable character, Maria, must be unlocked by rescuing her, but she effectively represents the game's easy difficulty level. Maria has less health than Richter but makes up for it with a variety of other advantages. She is smaller and harder to hit, can double-jump, and has an exclusive set of attacks and subweapons that do a boatload of damage. She's a good playable character for players who find the original Richter gameplay too challenging.

Rondo of Blood can be a nasty game for people who are used to more modern platformers. It's far more forgiving than the NES classics, but it still involves a lot of precision platforming, nasty traps, hard-hitting enemies, and various other mainstays of the classic era of video games. It's an extremely well-designed and rewarding game, and you're encouraged to find and explore hidden paths. In fact, you'll need to explore in order to experience the best ending.

Overall, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is an excellent game if you enjoy old-school, 16-bit-era platformers. It's the last of the old-school Castlevania titles and a fantastic note to go out on. It's fun and has an incredible soundtrack, but it's not a game for everyone, especially compared to its direct sequel.

The second part of the collection, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, is a rare, genre-defining game. The "vania" portion of Metroidvania comes from this game. While it recycles a fair bit of sprites from Rondo of Blood, it completely changes up the context. Rather than being a semi-linear platformer, Symphony of the Night takes the franchise into what will eventually become its defining feature: free exploration of a large castle with a heavy emphasis on finding new gear and abilities to progress.

Players control Alucard, the son of Dracula and one of the four playable characters in Castlevania III. Alucard awakes from his seemingly eternal slumber to discover that his father's castle has suddenly returned and legendary hero Richter Belmont has disappeared. Alucard sets out alone to solve the mystery of Castlevania and slay his father once and for all.

The core gameplay in Symphony of the Night is more RPG than pure action. Alucard can level up by defeating enemies and find a huge variety of new equipment throughout the game. This includes weapons of all types, countless usable items, and special relics that do everything from letting you see enemy names to turning into a bat so you can fly around. While the game requires some twitch skill, it's far more beginner-friendly than Rondo of Blood and offers players more flexibility in how they approach things.

Symphony of the Night was considered a large game when it came out, but like most Metroidvania games, it seems a lot smaller once you know where to go and what to do. It's a fairly beefy game with a lot of areas to explore, bosses to fight, and secrets to discover. Once you've finished the game, there are even bonus playable characters. Longtime fans can blow through it in a couple of hours, but newcomers will probably take more time.

Symphony of the Night encourages and rewards players for exploration. It has a lot of little bonuses that exist only so it's fun to poke in every nook and cranny. For example, there is a cloak that you can purchase, and its only purpose is for you to customize the color. There are countless food items that are more for fun than function, hidden bosses and special moves, and even a second Reverse Castle, which contains a second version of the castle, complete with new enemies and bosses to explore.

Most importantly, Symphony of the Night is just fun. It's a charming game with a lot of heart, and that matters a lot. It's fun to see what is around the next corner. It's not a super difficult game even if you choose to limit yourself, and there are ways to shatter the difficulty curve. (Several weapons, when used properly, can kill any boss in seconds.) The title is a delight to play, and it's easy to see why it became the model for Castlevania games from that point onward.

Unfortunately, the collection is bare-bones although it includes two excellent games. As far as I can tell, both games are almost direct ports of their versions in the PSP Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles, all the way down to the smaller details. For example, in Symphony of the Night, you can't rebind the shoulder buttons properly because it only recognizes L and R — since the PSP only has two shoulder buttons instead of the PS4 controller's four shoulder buttons. The title even includes a quick-save feature, which was needed for the PSP but is practically unnecessary on a console. This offering also includes the redubbed voice work for Symphony of the Night, which was a mixed bag. The updated script and voices are technically more proficient, but the quote, "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" has a special place in the heart of many a gamer.

The lack of bells and whistles makes it tough to call this a good port. The games play as well as they did on the PSP, but their heavily pixelated graphics look worse on modern TVs than they did on a handheld console. I love the two games included in the collection, and they're absolutely worth playing on their own merits, but compared to any recent modern collection, this port is found lacking. For instance, the recent Mega Man Legacy Collection includes more games with more features for the same price.

In essence, Castlevania Requiem is a mediocre port of two extremely good games. Fans will enjoy the chance to play them again — if they haven't already purchased copies for other consoles — but it's far from the definitive version of the games. This collection offers two excellent games for $20, which isn't a bad deal as long as players only expect what it says on the package: two Castlevania titles that they've probably played before.

Score: 7.0/10