Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (XBLA)
 

So awesome that this is out now.

Has anyone been able to beat Dracula at the beginning without getting hit? (achievement) I've been trying, but always get hit when he transforms.

When he transforms.. use the holy water item crush. ;)

Oh shit, I know what I'm doing tonight.

I never played this all the way through - my roommate had the PS1 and for some reason I never really got far.

Looking forward to it.

I've been playing through the PSone version again and I'm at 188% right now. If I owned the 360 this would be a must buy. One of the greatest games in history for $10.

Just got to about 10%. Love it. I've rememebered a bunch of walls to break so far. It'll be hard to get the 200.6%. Highest I ever got was 198%.

I posted this in another thread, but I'll post it here:

SOTN is amazing. I didn't notice much difference with the enhanced graphics until I switched them back to the original - the original graphics look very pixelated, especially on a big tv, and the enhanced graphics smooth everything out and make it look a whole lot better overall. The score is just as amazing as I remembered it - classic Castlevania. Now I remember why I spent so many hours playing this game 10 years ago - this is probably the best Castlevania game to date. Money well spent.

So in the Xbox thread, there was some conversation about how it was stretched out in widescreen mode... how does it look on a widescreen TV?

At the top of the stairs in the beginning jump and whip and there's a secret block that you can destroy that will have a switch that will drop a staircase from the ceiling. Go back and forth between the two screens and heart-farm until you have quite a few hearts. Then when you get to Dracula, quickly grab the Holy Water and use the magic (Y) when Dracula appears. One dose of magic will get him to change forms. Once he changes, use the magic twice more and he's toast. Achievement unlocked!

imo, it looks fine stretched out.. I normally hate stretching stuff, but for some reason this one looks fine *shrug*.

I've never played it, but with all of you talking it up, and with 4000+ points in the XBL bank, why not?

Oh, and you can get 200% in this game? What's that about?

Minor spoiler

FYI - Flay's review is up on the main site now.

O_O

...you get a lot of bang for the buck.

Is there a map of the castle available anywhere? I know I'm going to miss some rooms...

... And again the site is down :(

works for me. Must still be some server quirks to work out. Upgrades.

Slamming the dialogue? Nooo!! HAVE AT YOU!

;)

Yep right here:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox...e/937723/13134

Isn't there also a map in game to compare to? I seem to recall that when I first played it on PS1.

Don't you buy the map from the guy in the library?

Great news on the release of this for play on the 360. The best Castlevania game by far IMHO.

YOU steal men's SOULS! And make them your SLAVES!

Where the hell is the starting point on that map? :lol:

:lol: It's the part with the red box around it in the lower left.

Oops...I thought since it says "Richter PSX Only", you could only get there when the castle was inverted. :blush:

No -- it's pretty confusing and I only figured it out because I've played before.

The part in the red box looks the way it does in the top box on the Playstation (PSX) version. On all other versions , it looks the way it does in the bottom box (keeping in mind that the green portions of the map only exist in the Saturn version -- I told you it was pretty confusing).

You've got me lost. :) This map is VERY confusing, though.

Tell me this...where is the spot on the map where Death appears? (When he takes all of your gear away) I can find my way from there, I think...I'm trying to put an X in all the rooms as I go.

You're taxing my memroy, but I think this is where Death shows up:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...a_full_map.gif

I will add that toward the begining of the game, you really only have one choice as to where to go -- at all the forks in the road, you need to be able to jump higher than you can at the begining of the game, need special equipment to get to certain areas, etc. By the time you get to a point where you've actually got choices to make, it will be apparent where you are on the gamefaqs map.

Even then, my advice is to just play the game through and only use the map at the end to pick up any hidden areas you might have missed in your quest to hit 200.6%.

Awesome...thanks for the help!

I found a couple that are even easier to read:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/4...4c5577c8_b.jpg

and for the inverted castle...

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/184/4...52bd2eed_b.jpg

Holy lord, I forgot how insane that map looked.

Played for a few hours last night and yeah, I do love the game. Took me awhile to get into the swing of things (and I hate that you can't skip cutscenes or easily reload your game when you die) but otherwise it's big fun.

I can't justify $10 for a game I already own (even if it is one of my favorite games ever), but it's cool to read about people playing through the game. I'm in the middle of another playthrough of the PS1 version and it holds up really well. For those who don't own the original, the XBLA version is a great option.

I just finished the first castle and am now onto the second. I still have a couple rooms to explore in the first castle so that I can get the 200.6% achievement, so it'll take me a few more hours to fully explore everything. But man, this game is just as amazing as I remember it - all the secrets and hidden rooms are coming back to me very easily.

How do you play as Richter?

I think that option is available once you beat the game.

Don't you enter "Richter" as the save game name? Maybe it's different in this version.

On the Playstation version you enter Richter, but it only works after beating the game once with Alucard.

What percentage should I have when I beat the first castle to have done everything? I'm 99.9% positive I've gotten every room, and my percentage is 100.2% - I've only been in that very first room in the inverted castle that it automatically takes you to.

What percentage should I have when I drop into the room to face Dracula/the other thing? I've currently got 199.6% with two rooms that I know of that I need to go to first. What should the percentage be BEFORE Dracula, if I want to finish with 200.6%?

Each square on the map represents .1%
You should be at 200.5% before Dracula.