Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Let's talk about voice acting again. Steve Blum? Are you reading this? Bruce Willis? Timothy Olyphant? You've all got nothing on Robert Belgrade, the actor credited as Alucard/Adrian Tepes from "Castlevania: SOTN". He's like the Richard Burton of voice acting. A lot of you might think, "Well, voice acting must be a lot easier than regular acting. Actual, true acting." Not so. In fact, it's probably more difficult if only for the fact that you're tasked with conveying so much without the use of your face or body. Only sound. Think about that the next time you're listening to the announcer on Tekken. "Fight!" Robert Belgrade. Who could forget, "I'm interested in this..." from SOTN? Not me. The man is a genius.

I'm being facetious, here. I should quit while I'm ahead. "I'm interested in this..." My man actually overacts the line "I'm interested in this..." when buying from the in-game merchant (yes, gold has a purpose other than points in this version of Castlevania)!!! How is that possible? To top that off, instead of sounding like what you'd think Alucard would sound like (see fig. A), he instead sounds like a cross between James Earl Jones and the lead singer from the Crash Test Dummies. The writing doesn't help, either, I'm sure. With lines like, "What do you here?", that cumbersome inverted speech that only ever seems to work in either Deadwood or Star Wars, you can't expect too much. Have to keep things medieval, I suppose. It is Castlevania we're talking about. Another choice piece of dialogue from the game's prologue:

Belmont: Mankind ill needs a savior such as you...

Dracula: What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!

Pile of secrets? Dracula, what the hell are you talking about? You're acting like you're crazy.




Fig. A: Maybe he sounds a little like Vincent Price? Or Andy Dick?

Can you remember your first tries at Castlevania Proper? How far could you get? Don't answer that. My furthest was always Death. His twirling scythes were too much for my tiny sweaty hands to keep up with. Since the advent of Youtube, I now know to come at him with a III tablet and holy water. The Castlevania franchise is one of the best out there, though, "Simon's Quest" included, I'll stand by that. "Symphony of the Night" represents a peak, I think. You thought the first one was kick butt? Flip these improvements:

1. You can move in mid-air, or mid-jump, but you know what I mean.
2. You level up. Nice move.
3. You can equip knuckles.
4. The gore is fantastic (sometimes). The death of a Bloody Zombie is worth repeating.

I could go on. There's nothing like it. I'm playing through it once again. I'm not sure if I'll ever get tired of it. That's right, never, I said never. None of you (out there) have any excuses anymore. Pick up this game, don't wait another day. It's available for download on the PS network, for the PSP, Xbox Live for heaven's sake.

And the music? Hands down the best neo-classical metal soundtrack I've ever heard (in a video game). Wait 'til you get underground, homes. Find yourself a little smoking spot and prepare to be blown away. Here's a nice loop of one of my favorite tunes from the soundtrack. As a bonus, it's set to a slide show of some of Luis Royo's calendar art. Classy stuff. It's me being facetious again. But, just hearing this song takes me back to lonely high school summer nights. I'll admit it, it scares me a tiny bit:



Anyhow, despite it's stupid, puzzling title (Rondo of Blood, Portrait of Ruin, fucking Movement of my Bowels), Symphony of the Night gets a "Wanger" out of "Doodle".