Another absolutely smashing video. Symphony of the Night has obviously long since cemented its place in the pantheon of greats but it's good to see Chronicles getting a bit of love. It's such an oddity but I'm glad modern emulation has essentially saved it from obscurity. It's crazy that Konami was putting that level of effort into remaking it's classics back then - such a shame that they weren't rewarded financially for it as we obviously know where they went long term. Looking forward to the next few videos - dare I say the golden age of Castlevania?
Thank you for the long comment. Chronicles is a great game. I've played it and the X68k game through to completion. I prefer the original music, but the redhead Simon is so good. It's a genuine shame this game is so obscure, but it was always going to be. It, along with games like Hellboy all disappeared into a hole because the PS2 was such a mega hit.
@@MattyStoked Well luckily my dude we've got people like yourself flying the flag for it! Long live Castlevania Chronicles (although I have literally never even made it very far into it without the laurels haha)
The best part about the switch in style was the series never lost itself: combat based on placements, patterns, and combining a main attack with various secondary weapons.
Super agreed with this. And also, I want to tell you how much I appreciate you having been a subscriber all these years. It really means a lot to me to feel like I've built a long-term audience who've been here for a long time. So thank you!
As someone who weirdly enough has never played Symphony of the night (partly due to the whole when too many people say somethings amazing your brain rejects it thing) this video has made me really want to give it a go. I'm loving all your Castlevania videos you've done so far as you've actually taken a look at these games in a really refreshing way, even giving the motorcycle skeletons a good showing 💀really looking forward to what else you put out
Symphony has so much hype around it, I can really see your point. The hype does more harm than good because it's just a nice, fun game. Definitely worth giving it a go for a few hours and seeing how you get on. As for the motorcycle skeletons. They're the single greatest gift Castlevania ever gave us. If we don't get them in something animated, there's no justice in this world.
Red head Simon was canon. The chronicles design was the default for Simon in crossover media in the 00s and was used for his profile art in Harmony of Despair as well as being the basis for his Judgement art. Also the hair being a red colour comes from the original game, people act as if the blonde Simon was official but in all the official art (for example in the manual) which also reflects the in game sprites Simon has red hair (which Kojima even said she based her design on), whilst in castlevania 2 the colour was changed to a more natural ginger (brownish ginger in manual art and a bright orange in the in game ending), Castlevania 4 went for a more brown colour but with a slight red tint and in the ending was given a brighter colour vaguely reminiscent of the CV2 art. It was only the X68k game that gave him blonde hair and a design based on the CV1 box art, that art really resembles Christopher belmont with his brown armour and longer blonde hair but for whatever reasons (probably just that the box arts often gave Simon blonde hair and subsequently so did some promotional artworks) the X68k design became people’s misinformed idea of what “classic Simon” was. But no, he was always a bit smaller in size than Trevor/Christopher and he always had slightly shorter red hair - this technically continuing into the 00s since in Harmony of Dissonance he reused his original sprites (although the colours were edited and he now had a very light brown hair colour in game) and in Harmony of Despair it remained red, of course Mirror of Fate also retained the red hair and even draw it in the same style as the original 1986 design as well as incorporating various design elements from chronicles. Also SotN wasn’t just intended to be a spin off, it is one. It only became considered “main series” when HoD came out in 2002, that game was a soft reboot that introduced the timeline that IGA decided upon (a timeline that totally contradicted much of the original series spin off media and that also contradicted its central idea of these films within games - castlevania quite intentionally played fast and loose with canon before this and this along with the Japan only info contained in interviews and spin offs from the 80s has led to *a lot* of very inaccurate info becoming revisionist history for the series, for example “super castlevania 4 was a remake” - this along with many other things has never been true and has even been directly denied by the games director and yet it persists to this day). Rondo, Dracula X, Sotn and by association Legends were never canon to the core series, these were the Dracula x line and were designed from day one to be spin offs (rondo itself is in a far different tone and style to the corse series and really takes the piss to an almost parody level at times, Maria being the obvious example made better once you realise she’s based on the girl Maria from Frankenstein, but even Richter and Annette are just Simon and Selena made 100 times more Saturday morning cartoon, or well anime). Equally Bloodlines was a spin off intended to have its own similar line, but the planned trilogy never came to anything. Ironically the n64 games most fans today claim were “gaiden games” (just because Iga said so) were considered by Konami to be the revival of the core series after SCV4, so yeah the IGA version of the series really doesn’t reflect the actual state of the original series before it (which is one reason amongst many that fans claiming LoS is castlevania in name only just because it wasn’t like IGA’s takes are a bit out of order, besides LoS1 was of course meant to be a Simon era remake and it picks up on Selena being the mysterious woman from CV2 (in the Marie character) whereas most fans still don’t realise this, it retained design elements such as the shorter hair CV2 based armour and small hood from original Simon art for the renamed Gabriel, it repurposed the growing placement of Simon within the monsters around him (CV2 having him cursed and decaying talking with a ghost and carrying around the body parts of Dracula in bags, then SCV4 having him become a Dhampir which was followed up on in a serialised novel where he is now a kresnik are mirrored in Gabriel’s “descent into darkness” becoming Dracula) and so on. It’s still a rather faithful remake of the overall narrative of the original Simon media but it does away with the cinema aspects (as did IGA) and renames the characters and so on. I’d argue it still has more to do with the original games than say the Sorrow duo do.
Amazing retrospective, there is some true documentary-level quality here! This was my first Castlevania game and I'm so glad that was the case, it can't be understated how good this game is and how influential it was for its successors. May it forever be remembered as one of the greatest games of all time.
I just recently got into Castlevania .. as a hardcore metroid fan who wanted more metroidvania goodness. I think i almost watched every castlevania retrospective on youtube now. I wonder why no one acknowledges metroids influence when discussing the birth of symhony of the night. It's Metroidvania .. not Vaniavania :/ ... Nice Video regardless, as always
Thanks for the comment. You said it yourself, there's an actual word which explicitly acknowledges Metroid as an influence on the genre, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say nobody acknowledges it. I've always thought that was very common association. Igarashi has explicitly said that Super Metroid _didn't_ inspire SotN. He says his biggest influence was Maze of Galius. This might be a lie. Japanese games companies do tend to play it close to the chest with this stuff, especially when talking about competitors. But to say Super Metroid inspired SotN would be pure conjecture. I have a section in the video about this so I guess it's disappointing that I didn't get that across clearly enough. Thanks for the comment though! How are you enjoying your Castlevania journey?
@@MattyStoked thanks for your insight! i didnt know that SotN wasnt influenced by super metroid yet! certainly felt like it while playing .. i guess i am just too much influenced by metroid :D I am loving every second of it! Just finished Symphony of the Night and started playing the GBA collection on switch yesterday. Here and there a bit of Richter in Smash and OH MY GOD THE ANIME. I love Castlevania
The biggest thing I'm sad about SotN is that they didn't add the Garden area present in the Saturn version for the Requiem bundle, even though they let you play as Maria. I'm also curious if we'll ever get a definitive version of Castlevania 1 or Simon's Quest that combines all the unique elements present in each version. Also personally, I don't much care for red head Simon or some of the early HD 3D games' art style before the more recent stuff like Harmony of Despair and Grimoire of Souls. Post SotN 3D games feel too over designed for me, not just in terms of relating to Castlevania but just in general. Like some of them feel too JRPG to me. Like Castlevania Judgement, like good lord it feels like Nomura during his earlier KH phase just went mental with the belts and straps and needles. Honestly the Lord of Shadow games have some of my favorite character designs, like Gabriel's armor in LoS1 and the Brotherhood Clerics in LoS2 are the sickest things ever. Plus it was the first instance of the Vampire Killer (called the Combat Cross) felt unique to me rather than just "it's a magic whip" where it's designed to look like it makes sense mechanically, plus it's used as a general design base for the Smash Bros version of the whip and hope that it's used as the staple whip design going forwards.
"Newer franchises...were where Konami were going, because those were making money" you really have me dreading your coverage of the Castlevania pachinko machines
I hadn't seen Chronicles before... That looks so sick. And honestly, mad props to them for releasing that game AFTER the PS2 launched. Damn. I agree, the hair is spectacular. Can't wait to play that eventually. SotN as well, but everyone knows about that game. I skipped the spoilers myself.
I'm glad you skipped the spoilers. I think it's important to uphold some reveals, even all these years later. As it will always be someone's first time experiencing these old games. Chronicles is good in the same way the first Castlevania is good. It's extremely hard, taxing but rewarding in the same way. By comparison, Symphony is a game that's long instead of hard. I probably put 15-20 hours into it. Maybe more, I didn't count! Beautiful art and presentation, but a permanent change to how Castlevania games were made and played.
Thank you so much! Absolutely, I'm working my way to Curse of Darkness! Possibly the most interesting game in the entire series! Watch this space my friend, it will be here before you know it.
@@MattyStoked cant wait man! I'm not a longtime fan of castlevania but the ps2 games really interest me. Your series is really educational so I look forward to more!
@@KingLich451 wherever possible, yes. The main advantage is a lot of the LibRetro cores are under active development. There's a few obscure systems which aren't on there, but it's great for like 90% of consoles.
Symphony of the Night is so fucking good. Damn i just completed it for the first time and my jaw hit the floor. Probably one the best games i've ever played in my life.
It really is an exceptional game. It's almost criminal that it wasn't wholly recognised when it originally came out, but it's great that over time it has been entered into the hall of fame.
Castlevania SotN has to be one of my alltime fave games, sadly nothing has come close to it in all this time, I enjoyed the Lords of Shadow games sure and the Classic games are just too hard for me as im uber casual but SotN will stay with me forever.
SotN is a warm comforting blanket. I think if it as a Christmas game, because I can just get real cosy with it and complete it over a couple of days of casual chill vibes.
Presumably because as the thumbnail says These are the ps1 games Plus they show a clear distinction between each other whereas Rondo is really a pseudo IGA style game in the guise of a classicvania
@@MattyStoked But... Rondo ends with the boss fight you play through at the beginning Symphony of the Night. Symphony is a direct sequel to Rondo. I mean, it makes sense to cover Symphony and Chronicles, but not as a duology! Still, at least you provided clarity to why you didn't include Rondo (you already did it, and presumably, the SNES port and Dracula X Chronicles, too).
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Wonderful - this is your best of the Castlevania retrospectives so far. Cheers mate!
What a lovely thing to say. Thank you! I'm really proud of how this one came out 😃
Another absolutely smashing video. Symphony of the Night has obviously long since cemented its place in the pantheon of greats but it's good to see Chronicles getting a bit of love.
It's such an oddity but I'm glad modern emulation has essentially saved it from obscurity. It's crazy that Konami was putting that level of effort into remaking it's classics back then - such a shame that they weren't rewarded financially for it as we obviously know where they went long term.
Looking forward to the next few videos - dare I say the golden age of Castlevania?
It was really good, right? I would have finished it earlier but I had a meeting lol
Thank you for the long comment. Chronicles is a great game. I've played it and the X68k game through to completion. I prefer the original music, but the redhead Simon is so good.
It's a genuine shame this game is so obscure, but it was always going to be. It, along with games like Hellboy all disappeared into a hole because the PS2 was such a mega hit.
@@MattyStoked Well luckily my dude we've got people like yourself flying the flag for it! Long live Castlevania Chronicles (although I have literally never even made it very far into it without the laurels haha)
The best part about the switch in style was the series never lost itself: combat based on placements, patterns, and combining a main attack with various secondary weapons.
Super agreed with this. And also, I want to tell you how much I appreciate you having been a subscriber all these years. It really means a lot to me to feel like I've built a long-term audience who've been here for a long time. So thank you!
As someone who weirdly enough has never played Symphony of the night (partly due to the whole when too many people say somethings amazing your brain rejects it thing) this video has made me really want to give it a go. I'm loving all your Castlevania videos you've done so far as you've actually taken a look at these games in a really refreshing way, even giving the motorcycle skeletons a good showing 💀really looking forward to what else you put out
Symphony has so much hype around it, I can really see your point. The hype does more harm than good because it's just a nice, fun game. Definitely worth giving it a go for a few hours and seeing how you get on.
As for the motorcycle skeletons. They're the single greatest gift Castlevania ever gave us. If we don't get them in something animated, there's no justice in this world.
Red head Simon was canon. The chronicles design was the default for Simon in crossover media in the 00s and was used for his profile art in Harmony of Despair as well as being the basis for his Judgement art. Also the hair being a red colour comes from the original game, people act as if the blonde Simon was official but in all the official art (for example in the manual) which also reflects the in game sprites Simon has red hair (which Kojima even said she based her design on), whilst in castlevania 2 the colour was changed to a more natural ginger (brownish ginger in manual art and a bright orange in the in game ending), Castlevania 4 went for a more brown colour but with a slight red tint and in the ending was given a brighter colour vaguely reminiscent of the CV2 art.
It was only the X68k game that gave him blonde hair and a design based on the CV1 box art, that art really resembles Christopher belmont with his brown armour and longer blonde hair but for whatever reasons (probably just that the box arts often gave Simon blonde hair and subsequently so did some promotional artworks) the X68k design became people’s misinformed idea of what “classic Simon” was. But no, he was always a bit smaller in size than Trevor/Christopher and he always had slightly shorter red hair - this technically continuing into the 00s since in Harmony of Dissonance he reused his original sprites (although the colours were edited and he now had a very light brown hair colour in game) and in Harmony of Despair it remained red, of course Mirror of Fate also retained the red hair and even draw it in the same style as the original 1986 design as well as incorporating various design elements from chronicles.
Also SotN wasn’t just intended to be a spin off, it is one. It only became considered “main series” when HoD came out in 2002, that game was a soft reboot that introduced the timeline that IGA decided upon (a timeline that totally contradicted much of the original series spin off media and that also contradicted its central idea of these films within games - castlevania quite intentionally played fast and loose with canon before this and this along with the Japan only info contained in interviews and spin offs from the 80s has led to *a lot* of very inaccurate info becoming revisionist history for the series, for example “super castlevania 4 was a remake” - this along with many other things has never been true and has even been directly denied by the games director and yet it persists to this day). Rondo, Dracula X, Sotn and by association Legends were never canon to the core series, these were the Dracula x line and were designed from day one to be spin offs (rondo itself is in a far different tone and style to the corse series and really takes the piss to an almost parody level at times, Maria being the obvious example made better once you realise she’s based on the girl Maria from Frankenstein, but even Richter and Annette are just Simon and Selena made 100 times more Saturday morning cartoon, or well anime). Equally Bloodlines was a spin off intended to have its own similar line, but the planned trilogy never came to anything. Ironically the n64 games most fans today claim were “gaiden games” (just because Iga said so) were considered by Konami to be the revival of the core series after SCV4, so yeah the IGA version of the series really doesn’t reflect the actual state of the original series before it (which is one reason amongst many that fans claiming LoS is castlevania in name only just because it wasn’t like IGA’s takes are a bit out of order, besides LoS1 was of course meant to be a Simon era remake and it picks up on Selena being the mysterious woman from CV2 (in the Marie character) whereas most fans still don’t realise this, it retained design elements such as the shorter hair CV2 based armour and small hood from original Simon art for the renamed Gabriel, it repurposed the growing placement of Simon within the monsters around him (CV2 having him cursed and decaying talking with a ghost and carrying around the body parts of Dracula in bags, then SCV4 having him become a Dhampir which was followed up on in a serialised novel where he is now a kresnik are mirrored in Gabriel’s “descent into darkness” becoming Dracula) and so on. It’s still a rather faithful remake of the overall narrative of the original Simon media but it does away with the cinema aspects (as did IGA) and renames the characters and so on. I’d argue it still has more to do with the original games than say the Sorrow duo do.
Thanks for the high effort comment. I don't know what else to say to that! 😅
@@MattyStoked haha no problem, I’m just being a pedantic nerd! Enjoyed the video as always.
Amazing retrospective, there is some true documentary-level quality here! This was my first Castlevania game and I'm so glad that was the case, it can't be understated how good this game is and how influential it was for its successors. May it forever be remembered as one of the greatest games of all time.
Thank you so much for you comment. I'm glad you enjoyed the video. And thanks for the sub! More Castlevania coming all the time :D
I just recently got into Castlevania .. as a hardcore metroid fan who wanted more metroidvania goodness. I think i almost watched every castlevania retrospective on youtube now. I wonder why no one acknowledges metroids influence when discussing the birth of symhony of the night. It's Metroidvania .. not Vaniavania :/ ... Nice Video regardless, as always
Thanks for the comment. You said it yourself, there's an actual word which explicitly acknowledges Metroid as an influence on the genre, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say nobody acknowledges it. I've always thought that was very common association.
Igarashi has explicitly said that Super Metroid _didn't_ inspire SotN. He says his biggest influence was Maze of Galius. This might be a lie. Japanese games companies do tend to play it close to the chest with this stuff, especially when talking about competitors. But to say Super Metroid inspired SotN would be pure conjecture. I have a section in the video about this so I guess it's disappointing that I didn't get that across clearly enough.
Thanks for the comment though! How are you enjoying your Castlevania journey?
@@MattyStoked thanks for your insight! i didnt know that SotN wasnt influenced by super metroid yet! certainly felt like it while playing .. i guess i am just too much influenced by metroid :D
I am loving every second of it! Just finished Symphony of the Night and started playing the GBA collection on switch yesterday. Here and there a bit of Richter in Smash and OH MY GOD THE ANIME. I love Castlevania
I haven’t finished the video yet but I’m happy with what you put out and don’t have any complaints.
New year, more Castlevania content from Matty! Hell yes!
It's a good idea to start the year with a crowd pleaser! x
your videos are amazing. You should get more comments and views. Amazing!!
Thanks so much. I'm trying!
Well, shit! (Trevor Belmont). Fab video, I love that you look at the artist work behind the game, provides such a great insight.
The biggest thing I'm sad about SotN is that they didn't add the Garden area present in the Saturn version for the Requiem bundle, even though they let you play as Maria.
I'm also curious if we'll ever get a definitive version of Castlevania 1 or Simon's Quest that combines all the unique elements present in each version.
Also personally, I don't much care for red head Simon or some of the early HD 3D games' art style before the more recent stuff like Harmony of Despair and Grimoire of Souls. Post SotN 3D games feel too over designed for me, not just in terms of relating to Castlevania but just in general. Like some of them feel too JRPG to me. Like Castlevania Judgement, like good lord it feels like Nomura during his earlier KH phase just went mental with the belts and straps and needles.
Honestly the Lord of Shadow games have some of my favorite character designs, like Gabriel's armor in LoS1 and the Brotherhood Clerics in LoS2 are the sickest things ever. Plus it was the first instance of the Vampire Killer (called the Combat Cross) felt unique to me rather than just "it's a magic whip" where it's designed to look like it makes sense mechanically, plus it's used as a general design base for the Smash Bros version of the whip and hope that it's used as the staple whip design going forwards.
"Newer franchises...were where Konami were going, because those were making money" you really have me dreading your coverage of the Castlevania pachinko machines
You're the first one to mention it, but I've been thinking about exactly how I'm going to do that.
@@MattyStoked hear me out. you. me. a 60 year old Japanese pro-pachinko player. a trip to japan.
Dude, I'm so in. Wouldn't that be the wildest collab?
I hadn't seen Chronicles before... That looks so sick. And honestly, mad props to them for releasing that game AFTER the PS2 launched. Damn. I agree, the hair is spectacular. Can't wait to play that eventually. SotN as well, but everyone knows about that game. I skipped the spoilers myself.
I'm glad you skipped the spoilers. I think it's important to uphold some reveals, even all these years later. As it will always be someone's first time experiencing these old games.
Chronicles is good in the same way the first Castlevania is good. It's extremely hard, taxing but rewarding in the same way.
By comparison, Symphony is a game that's long instead of hard. I probably put 15-20 hours into it. Maybe more, I didn't count! Beautiful art and presentation, but a permanent change to how Castlevania games were made and played.
Dude love your channel! Can you cover castlevania curse of darkness? Love your reviews!
Thank you so much! Absolutely, I'm working my way to Curse of Darkness! Possibly the most interesting game in the entire series! Watch this space my friend, it will be here before you know it.
@@MattyStoked cant wait man! I'm not a longtime fan of castlevania but the ps2 games really interest me. Your series is really educational so I look forward to more!
what emulators do you use, the quality look fantastic seriousley
For these I am running in RetroArch, using the Beetle PSX core. I like how it keeps everything sharp but you still get the classic PS1 dithering.
@@MattyStoked Very nice, do you also use RetroArch on the other console emulations?
@@KingLich451 wherever possible, yes. The main advantage is a lot of the LibRetro cores are under active development. There's a few obscure systems which aren't on there, but it's great for like 90% of consoles.
Loved this video mate. As a redhead myself, I will always have a soft spot for the Chronicles version of Simon!
Thanks man! More redheads in media, please!
Amazing as always!
Thank you so much 🥰
Symphony of the Night is so fucking good. Damn i just completed it for the first time and my jaw hit the floor.
Probably one the best games i've ever played in my life.
It really is an exceptional game. It's almost criminal that it wasn't wholly recognised when it originally came out, but it's great that over time it has been entered into the hall of fame.
i just played chronicles recently and thought it was fantastic, makes me wish for more games like the first two games
Yeah honestly, Castlevania would work so well as shorter, more focused action games.
Why is the framerate 30? Please fix
Hmmm. The render output I use is 60fps. If the option isn't available for you, perhaps YT didn't encode a 60fps version of the video 🥺
@@MattyStoked oh, weird, did you check your file is 60? You should contact youtube if youre sure its their error
Let's goooo
Castlevania SotN has to be one of my alltime fave games, sadly nothing has come close to it in all this time, I enjoyed the Lords of Shadow games sure and the Classic games are just too hard for me as im uber casual but SotN will stay with me forever.
SotN is a warm comforting blanket. I think if it as a Christmas game, because I can just get real cosy with it and complete it over a couple of days of casual chill vibes.
😢 P*R*O*M*O*S*M!!
Um... why Symphony and Chronicles and not, you know, RONDO OF BLOOD and Symphony?
Presumably because as the thumbnail says
These are the ps1 games
Plus they show a clear distinction between each other whereas Rondo is really a pseudo IGA style game in the guise of a classicvania
Exactly as about. I covered Rondo when I spoke about the 16-bit Castlevania games. These two games deserved to be spoken about as a duology.
@@MattyStoked But... Rondo ends with the boss fight you play through at the beginning Symphony of the Night. Symphony is a direct sequel to Rondo. I mean, it makes sense to cover Symphony and Chronicles, but not as a duology!
Still, at least you provided clarity to why you didn't include Rondo (you already did it, and presumably, the SNES port and Dracula X Chronicles, too).