Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood — 26th October 2018 (PS4)

[Julius]

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Yes, PlayStation Blog readers, it’s true. You’ve been asking us, and we’ve listened. Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood is coming exclusively to PlayStation 4 via digital download on 26th October 2018. That’s only one month from today!

As you might’ve guessed already, Requiem will bundle together two classic Castlevania games; Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. Both games are closely related by characters and plot, focusing on the stories of vampire hunter Richter Belmont and Dracula’s son Alucard respectively.

Originally released as a Japanese exclusive in 1993, Rondo of Blood is known as one of the best side-scrolling, action games of its time, picking up plenty of praise for its level design and rewarding difficulty. Both of which still stand the test of time. Just in case you were wondering.

On that subject, Symphony of the Night is quite simply one of the best games ever made. Don’t take our word for it though. The critical praise received at the time of its release and the plaudits it continues to receive speak volumes about its quality. Check any greatest games of all-time list and you’ll find Symphony of the Night up there. A sequel to Rondo of Blood, Symphony follows a similar formula to its predecessor, but expands on things with the introduction of RPG elements and some mind-blowing, genius level design.

Both games are the originals emulated for the PlayStation 4, with several updates that take advantage of the new hardware. This includes 4K/1080p upscaling, multiple high resolution backgrounds, different rendering options such as smoothing and full Trophy support. Word of warning though, that Platinum will be tough to get. Elsewhere, Requiem will make use of the DualShock 4’s vibration, analogue stick and speaker, with the latter meaning you’ll hear a cool little chime when you pick up an item.

Playing these classics is sure to bring back some good memories for Castlevania veterans. On the other hand, if you’re new to the series and fancy some retro goodness, then you can’t go wrong with this amazing bundle. Just be ready for a challenge!

Good news! You can pre-order Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood now on PlayStation Store.

 

Edited January 28, 2019 by Julius

[dwarf]

Rolls off the tongue

[killthenet]

I haven't played either but have them on my list for obvious reasons. At the risk of being criticised for port-begging I think i'll wait and see if they are announced for Switch over the next year or so, I'm in no rush to play them and I've only ever played Castlevania on Nintendo consoles so it'd feel a bit weird playing them on PS4. It's good news that they're getting a re-release though, hopefully it means more Castlevania collections are on the way.

[Ike]

Am I likely to like SoTN if I wasn't a huge fan of the DS Castlevanias?

[drahkon]

Well, here I go bumping this thread  

Bought it this morning and gave Castlevania Rondo of Blood a quick go. It's my second experience with a classic Castlevania game (the first one being the first in the series). Only played Stage 1 and yeah...it's Castlevania  

I have today off so I'll probably switch between this and Crash Team Racing, hoping to get all trophies for Castlevania Rondo of Blood.

[Hero-of-Time]

I'll probably snap it up while it's on sale but I won't be playing it yet. I really want to get Dragon Quest Swords started. This was something I wasn't able to do over the weekend due to Bloodstained sucking away all of my time.

[S.C.G]

I would have picked this up already but I heard that there were elements in both titles which were... less than perfect but the games are still perfectly playable.

Besides, if it's on sale this month... I'm willing to bet that it might be a plus game next month to carry on the Castlevania hype.

It's a shame because I really wanted to buy this but I already have Castlevania Symphony of the Night on disc and Castlevania Rondo of Blood on the Wii VC.

However you choose to play them though, both are fantastic titles worthy of their praise.

[drahkon]

19 minutes ago, S.C.G said:

Besides, if it's on sale this month... I'm willing to bet that it might be a plus game next month to carry on the Castlevania hype.

That's usually not going to happen, if a game is on sale. But then again, I bought it today so...yeah, enjoy this game for free next month.  

 

Hey everbody, it's drahkon. Thank you for tuning in to my first video. Today I'm gonna show you my awesome Castlevania skills in a series I call: "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?"

The following scene depicts how great I am at avoiding the knight's axes. Observe my movements as I meticulously avoid two of them. Not everybody can be as skilled as me, though, so don't be discouraged if at first you fail.

And no, you don't necessarily have to know that you can destroy the axes...Of course, I knew...and of course, it would've been way too easy to advance using that knowledge.......

Now, this next snippet I will put in a spoiler tag because for one, it shows the second boss, but secondly - and most importantly - it will make you feel inferior so don't watch it if you're not prepared.

Spoiler

As you probably may have already noticed...Yes, I am playing as the boss. And to aim this perfectly with the first shot...it may take you YEARS of practice to reach that level.

Anyway, that's it for now and tune in next time for "HOW CAN I BE SO BAD AT THIS GAME?". Thanks for watching and have a wonderful day.

 

Bonus picture:

Ok? So do I really want to continue? 

[Happenstance]

Bought this myself while it was on sale. Always wanted to play Rondo of Blood as I heard it’s one of, if not the best Castlevania,

[Sméagol]

I played a little bit of Rondo of Blood on my Wii recently, so I can relate to @drahkon. That first Axe Knight is a bitch, and I don't think I've defeated that Wolf dude yet.

[drahkon]

Got all trophies for Rondo of Blood. I took my time with it. Probably could've done it in 1-2 hours but stretched it out over the entire day  

Now on to Symphony of the Night.  

[drahkon]

Should I break the game and keep the starting equipment to make the first part of the playthrough easy as fuck or should I play it regularly? I like breaking games, but I also enjoy playing things normally  

[Hero-of-Time]

Another day, another Castlevania game complete. I started Rondo of Blood this morning and the credits have just rolled.

What a great game! It's another Castlevania game that I never got around to playing before and it's one I'm happy to have got to experience.

The soundrack is absolutely fantastic but I suppose this is standard for most Castlevania games.

I enjoyed playing as Maria more than Richter. I always enjoy playing as characters who can double jump. Plus, it's quite funny running around a dark and creepy castle as a little kid who has animal friends. It completely changes the time of the game and even her ending is very jolly.  

The anime cutscenes and voice work is VERY 90s. It did bring a smile on my face due to how rough some of the voice acting was.

I'm not done with the game yet as I've still got some trophies to mop up. Time to revisit the castle...

[Hero-of-Time]

I mopped up the remaining trophies I needed on Rondo of Blood and then cracked straight on with Symphony of the Night.

Having played Bloodstained before I played this, it's crazy just how many callbacks I've already seen after a couple of hours play.  Enemies, power ups, the Librarian...the list goes on. IGA new exactly what he was doing with Bloodstained.  

It's early on but there are a couple of things I'm not keen on in Symphony of the Night.

I find it jarring when you open up your menu and the music just stops. It really should keep playing, even if it's at a lower volume. My biggest gripe is the levelling system. It seems that you get a smaller amount of exp from enemies as you level up. I hate it when systems like this are in place to prevent grinding. It still hasn't stopped me from trying though. I'm only an hour it so and I've already hit level 20.  

The footy is about to start so it's time from a break. Just as well as my controller needs a good charging.

[Hero-of-Time]

It seems this is a repeat of last weekend. Bloodstained dominated all my time last Saturday and Sunday and now Symphony of the Night is doing the same this weekend.

I've been on it most of the day and I've just cleared the normal castle 100%. The inverted castle layout is really messing with my head.  

I hadn't really messed around with using the familiars until late into my session. Like Bloodstained, I'm using the flying sword familiar and it seems to be working out well.

I would say that this would be a good time to call it a day but the game really has its hooks into me and I'll probably be still playing the thing at stupid o' clock in the morning.  

 

[Ike]

On 29/06/2019 at 9:22 AM, Hero-of-Time said:

The anime cutscenes and voice work is VERY 90s. It did bring a smile on my face due to how rough some of the voice acting was.

They're great. You can tell instantly it's a PC Engine game.

On 24/06/2019 at 11:34 AM, drahkon said:

The following scene depicts how great I am at avoiding the knight's axes. Observe my movements as I meticulously avoid two of them. Not everybody can be as skilled as me, though, so don't be discouraged if at first you fail.

I died at him as well despite your warnings. Richter isn't as responsive as I thought. I lost my axe and I was doing so well until that point. 

I'm stuck on the Minotaur boss at the moment.

[Hero-of-Time]

On June 29, 2019 at 9:22 AM, Hero-of-Time said:

Another day, another Castlevania game complete.

And another.  Yup, the credits have just rolled for Symphony of the Night. I also managed to beat it with the full 200.6% map completion. 

Fantastic game and one worthy of the praise it's recieved for all of these years.

I needed to pick up the Crissaegrim sword for a trophy so I ended up grinding for it for a while. Wow! That thing is stupidly overpowered! It slices through every enemy, including bosses with zero effort. 

I've still got a 3 trophies to unlock, one of which is playing through the game as Richter. I may give it a rest before I tackle that challenge.

Again, brilliant game and yet another well regarded title than I can final say I've played and cross off my gaming bucket list.

[Hero-of-Time]

Well, I ended up just cracking on with the game. Turns out that with a bit of planning the Richter playthrough only takes around half an hour. It was quite weird playing as him after using Alucard for so long. He's really fragile though and once you hit the inverted castle area he can only take a couple of hits before dying. Luckily bosses are a joke using the holy water item break move. Even the last boss gets wrecked off of it.

The last trophy took a fair bit of grinding as you need 500,000 cash to buy a new item that appears after completing the game. I just stuck on a podcast and set about grabbing the cash over the space of an hour.

With those done and dusted the platinum was unlocked. Truly a game worthy of being my 300th platinum milestone. 

[Ike]

Beat the Minotaur! I swear he cheats.