<\/p>\n

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve always enjoyed Castlevania games, and Symphony of the Night is the best game in the series. You can buy it now as a downloadable “classic” version, but I’ve still got my Playstation 1 disc, which I kept even when it was going for upwards of $100 on EBay.<\/p>\n

The game is just phenomenal. It set a precedent that changed the basic formula of the Castlevania series from then on. RPG elements in additon to the platforming allowed you to equip different weapons and armor, buy better gear, and even cast spells by performing Street-Fighter-like joystick motions. You could summon familiars, turn into a bat or a wolf, and find dozens of hidden passageways.<\/p>\n

On top of all of this, the orchestral score for the game isn’t synthesized: it’s a real orchestra, and the music is fantastic. I’m actually listening to the Symphony of the Night soundtrack as I type this.<\/p>\n

But probably my favorite part of the game is all the special abilities that aren’t documented anywhere. For example, I found that if you equip a specific rod with a shield and press two buttons together, you cast a unique spell. And with that rod, there’s a different spell for each shield, which makes previously worthless shields suddenly useful. There are many items like this, and the only way to find their abilities was to stumble onto them. I know that you can likely find a list online somewhere now, but back then if there were online walkthroughs, I wasn’t reading them.<\/p>\n

I have very fond memories of watching my completion percentage approach 100% and growing a bit sad. Then I found that there was a second upside-down castle atop the first and that the percentage actually went up to 200%! Glee!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,16,21],"tags":[156],"class_list":["post-1102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-keepers","category-platform","category-rpg","tag-castlevania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1286,"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions\/1286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}