Castlevania: Symphony of the Fright
Hello. I am just your average gamer. You may not know me or my story, but it might be one you will not forget. I enjoy a vast variety of games ranging from Halo to Put-Put Saves the Zoo but one series that really stands out is the Castlevania series. This series is not my favorite game franchise by far but it is one I enjoy and see myself accidentally starting to play constantly. My favorite of the franchise has to be "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" since it has such nostalgic value to me and the story is fun to play.
One day, my original copy of the game broke at the same time of my PS2 breaking since I was playing it in my PS2. I was greatly saddened, but I didn't have anything to fear since I knew my local game store has several copies of the game and a few PS2s I can buy, both very cheep. I went on to my store and saw all 6 copies of Symphony of the Night and picked one of them at random. I then went to the counter and told the clerk at the counter that I wanted to also buy a PS2. He went into the back room that had all of the console systems in it and brought out the PS2.
I went on home, eager to play the game. When I got back, I hooked in my PS2 to see if it worked. It started up fine and normal but I wanted to see how well it would run games. I went and grabbed 2 of my favorite games, "Breath of Fire 3" and "Ratchet and Clank". They both ran just as they did on my previous system and I was ecstatic. I finally decided to put in Symphony of the Night. The game didn't appear to have any scratches on it which made me feel slightly uneasy since a game this old should have at least a few scratches and smudges but there weren't any.
I started up the game and the title screen opened normally. When I started the prologue of the game though, the background was fully black and there was only the sound of lightning playing, a sound you would only hear later in the game. When I got to the Dracula fight as Richter, I was immediately shocked to see that the dialogue Dracula gave out was utterly different from what I remember the opening conversation to be.
He said, "Please help me. Set me free," then the fight against him immediately started except he didn't move. He just stood there and took the hits. When he was eventually defeated, Dracula spoke through sound as the game did the animation of the picture of that scene being burned.
But instead of saying, "No, this cannot be," he said, "Do not give in."
Next, I switch over to paying as Alucard the background again was black and I didn't have the sound playing and the owls didn't fly, but it did play the thunder sound effect and as he ran down the path, you saw several crucifixes in the ground and many tombstones that all read, "R.I.P. Fear."
This began to scare me as I entered the castle and the game reverted to normal, until I met Death for the first time and instead of taking my stuff he just said, "Your father is dead. '
The Belmonts have once again murdered him. Do you have no love for your father at all?" And he left.
The game didn't have any enemies in it except for the bosses. There was still no sound at all except for Alucards grunts when he swings his weapons. But whenever Alucard was hit, his scream sounded like that of a little boy that just got hit in the gut very forcefully. It became more realistic the more he got hit and it became more mature horific sounding with every hit.
Eventually, however, I made it to where the Hypogryph boss was and instead of the Hypogryph, it was Richter. There was dialogue too and it said, "Why do you continue to fight against what you fear most?"
After this line Alucard spoke his first words of the game but when he did, the background image immediately changed to that of red and the mural looked completely burnt black. Alucard spoke, his sprite no longer there, nor Richter's and he said in a creepy distorted voice, "Yami."
I was frightened because I knew the definition of the word and for a game to say this with the background this way, I became scared but also curious as to what he meant by this. I decided to try and continue the game but it just showed the game over screen after the line of dialogue and it showed what looked like the image of a young child, gut sliced open, intestines out all gory and showed Alucard beside the child.
It appeared that Alucard had mixed emotions with his fist clenched, a complete grimace from ear-to-ear and tears running down his face. He also didn't have the same skin tone either because it was black as night. I restarted the console and the game was completely normal with none of my saves on it at all.
This was a scary experience for me. I looked behind me and thankfully nothing was there but my kitchen. I was extremely tired after the experience, so I headed to my room and slept but I always had 4 emotions in me at once every night afterwords: anger, happiness, depression, and fear.
Credited to Theblackmage98
Originally uploaded on November 28, 2012
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