Weeks after a version based on the Xbox 360 port was released, a PC recompilation of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on PS1 has been released.
Konami has been pretty good to PC users over the years, with official ports of Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill games reaching the platform in the '90s and 2000s. And in the time since, Konami has been very good at bringing back classic games, with Castlevania, Metal Gear, and Contra getting massive collections over the last decade or so.
And yet, Castlevania's crown jewel has been kept away, with Symphony of the Night's only modern port being as a part of the PS4-exclusive Castlevania Requiem collection, while pretty much every non-3D entry of the series was made available on other platforms, including PC.
Thankfully, a few weeks back PC players finally got an unofficial port of the all-time classic (ignoring that PS1 games are fairly easy to emulate), with NocturneRecomp, which brought the 2007 Xbox 360 port of the game over to PC. However, weeks later, SymphonyRecomp has been released by BlackLabelHQ. The 360 port is a solid way to play, but it is missing features like the FMV cutscenes and credits song by singer Cynthia Harrell – best known for the title track of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater.
So what does this mean? First off, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night's PS1 version can be played natively on PC. Which alone is a great thing, but as we've seen with recompilation efforts over the years, this also opens the game up to mods and updates. As of right now it features widescreen resolutions and a built-in randomizer.
However, the potential for this to become the definitive version of Symphony of the Night is the real exciting part. Symphony of the Night's Japan-only Sega Saturn release featured an updated version of the game which included new areas, which had remixes of classic Castlevania music, and a playable version of Maria Renard. And yes, Maria is playable in the PS4 release (which itself is based on the PSP release), but that version was more akin to her Rondo of Blood playable appearance than the Saturn edition.
While there's no mention of whether Maria or the Saturn content is in the works for this port, the potential is exciting at the very least. And it's nice to have a PC version that doesn't remove the extremely '90s credits theme.
