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Symphony of the Night, by far. Aria of Sorrow is pretty damn cool though, and it would have been even better if it was made for superior hardware.

Symphony of the Night.
The inverted castle was brilliant.

I always sort of felt partial towards Dracula X for the Super Nintendo (and whatever name it goes by on the other systems - you know, it's the one with Richter Belmont in it, with Dance of Illusions playing as the theme for the final battle) but Symphony of the Night blows it away by a wide margin: it was beutifully designed and programmed, and is probably the greatest of any two-dimensional platformer game. The only things that irked me about it was the mediocre voice acting and the lack of an automatic/manual sorting system for items and magic.

Of the available options, Symphony of the Night / Moonlight Nocturne. I actually played through the Japanese version of this game (with its two extra familiars, far superior voice acting, and the Music Card bonus), though never got the chance to try the Saturn version (in which Maria is playable and Richter's sprite matches his portrait). Like Sharpshooter, I've always liked the Turbo CD's Rondo of Blood (the Super Famicom version, Dracula X / Vampire's Kiss / Dracula XX, is a pale reflection of the original). Aria of Sorrow / Minuet of Dawn is also up there as one of the better games in the series.

Come to think of it, has there been any Castlevania game in the U.S. that hasn't been retitled?

Symphony of the Night.

No Castlevania has begun to even top that game...dammit I wish they would do a major game like that and not give us these GBA version. I love the GBA ones but it doesn't top what SoTN was, nor does it have as much as SoTN was.

This list is incomplete, by the way. No CVIII or Super Castlevania?

Definitely check out Aria of Sorrow. It's so good it makes you mad to realize how great it would have been on the PS2 or Gamecube.

Joe wrote:This list is incomplete, by the way. No CVIII or Super Castlevania?

there's also no mention of castlevania: bloodlines on the genesis. symphony of the night was great, but bloodlines was roughly on par imo.

I'd vote for Super Castlevania IV, but since you left that out I'll abstain.

You left out Vampire's Kiss, too.

Executor32 wrote:I'd vote for Super Castlevania IV, but since you left that out I'll abstain.

You left out Vampire's Kiss, too.

vampire's kiss was shite. it needs not be mentioned.

Joe wrote:This list is incomplete, by the way. No CVIII or Super Castlevania?

CVIII is on the list, Dracula's Curse

I'd like to say Symphony of the Night / Nocturne in the Moonlight, but unfortunately I never got to play the whole game... It was very cool though. CVIII is a very good game, arguably one the best "old style"-Castlevanias (Rondo of Blood could be better, but I never played that one, just the watered down SNES version Dracula X/Dracula XX/Vampire's Kiss). I never really liked CV4 that much. CV:Legends is cool too, though a bit short. Of the GBA ones, I'd say CotM is the best one. HoD is not that good and the music there just plain sucks. AoS is a lot better, but I found the whole soul collecting thing annoying (gotta catch 'em all). It was cool at first but then... meh. The DSS in CotM system was better.