Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997): what it changed

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is the game that took a series of straight-line whip platformers and turned it into one castle you explore, level up inside, and then explore again upside down. This page is for someone who has heard the word "Metroidvania", knows this game is half of it, and wants the facts before starting: who made it, when and where it shipped, what the design actually did, which of the many versions to play today, and what nobody could confirm from a publisher page. Every date and price below is in the Sources list, and where Konami's own pages and the archived MobyGames record disagree, both are given.

Who made it

The PlayStation credits, as recorded on MobyGames (Wayback Machine capture of 23 July 2018), close with the line "© 1997 Konami Development by KCET". KCET is Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, which MobyGames lists as developer, with Konami Co., Ltd. as the Japanese publisher, Konami of America for the United States release and Konami Deutschland GmbH for the United Kingdom disc. The same credits name Toru Hagihara as producer and director, Koji Igarashi as assistant director and one of four programmers, Michiru Yamane for music and sound effects, Ayami Kojima for character design and illustrations, and Kazumi Kitaue as executive producer.

Konami's own history pages do not list staff, with one exception: the Japanese page for the game credits the imagery to 小島文美, Ayami Kojima, by name. That is the only individual a publisher page names, so the dataset row records the studio and this article leans on the archived credits for the rest.

When and where it shipped

Version	Region	Date	Source
PlayStation (悪魔城ドラキュラX 月下の夜想曲)	Japan	20 March 1997	Konami JP history page; MobyGames (SLPM-86023)
PlayStation	United States	2 October 1997	Konami US history page; MobyGames (SLUS-00067)
PlayStation	Europe	1 November 1997	Konami EU history page ("1 Nov. 1997"); MobyGames gives "Nov, 1997" for the UK disc SLES-00524
Sega Saturn	Japan only	25 June 1998	Konami JP history page; MobyGames (T-9527G, ported by Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya)
Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade	Worldwide	21 March 2007	MobyGames; Time Extension game profile (port by Backbone)
PlayStation Portable, inside Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles	United States	23 October 2007	Konami US history page for Dracula X Chronicles
PlayStation 4, inside Castlevania Requiem	Worldwide, PlayStation Store only	26 October 2018	Konami US and EU releases; PlayStation Store US
iOS and Android	Worldwide	4 March 2020	Konami EU release; App Store version 1.0.0; MobyGames

The Japanese title, Akumajo Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku, is the one MobyGames records; its trivia page notes that "Symphony of the Night" is not a translation of it. Konami's Japanese page lists both the PlayStation and Saturn dates on one line, so the 1998 Saturn date is publisher-confirmed, not just database-confirmed. MobyGames also lists PlayStation Network downloads of the PlayStation version for PS3, PSP and Vita between 2009 and 2012; those are not in the table because no Konami page we could reach carries them.

What the game does

Konami's Japanese page describes the game as the series' first exploration-type side-scrolling action game, in which the player crosses a vast castle freely, earns experience to raise levels, and improves abilities with equipment, and it files the result under action RPG. It also notes that attacks moved from the traditional whip to swords, axes and blunt weapons. The archived MobyGames description fills in the rest of the loop: the castle can be explored along many paths, but items found in some areas are needed to pass into others; enemies give experience points; money appears and buys accessories; a separate screen equips weapons, shields and other items; and there are spells, secondary weapons and a set of special moves entered with fighting-game inputs.

Konami's US page adds three specifics from the original marketing: more than 140 different enemies, bosses and creatures; spells that turn Alucard into a bat, a wolf or mist; and hidden weapons, secrets and characters, with the page calling it the largest Castlevania to that point. Read those three forms against the MobyGames line about items found in some areas being needed to pass into others: the transformations are the most important of those items, and the map opens as you earn them, which is the same shape of progression Super Metroid uses.

You do not start as Alucard. Hardcore Gaming 101's archived page describes the opening as a playable replay of Richter Belmont's fight with Dracula from the end of the previous game, after which the story jumps ahead, Richter has vanished, and the castle has reappeared. Konami's US story text puts the gap at four years and has Maria Renard setting out to find him while Alucard wakes from a self-imposed sleep.

The inverted castle

The thing people remember is the second half. MobyGames' trivia page, in the archived capture, describes it plainly: there is a second castle in the game which is a vertically mirrored copy of the first, reached by meeting Maria inside the main clock room, where she tells you the truth about Richter; the enemies and items there are much harder, and some first-castle bosses return as ordinary monsters. The same page records that mapping both castles fully reaches 200.6 percent, which is why the game's completion counter runs past 100, and that there are five endings: two decided by whether you fight Richter with or without a particular item, two by whether Dracula falls before or after the 200 percent mark, and one belonging to the separate Richter mode.

That structure is the answer to "what changed". A castle you can cross freely is the Metroid idea; a level counter and an equipment screen are RPG ideas; the inverted castle is the game's own, a way to double the map without drawing a new one and to hide the real ending behind a puzzle rather than a difficulty setting. The trivia's ending list says as much: defeat Richter without that item and the game ends there, with the second castle never seen. Konami's European history page for the 2018 collection calls this "the game that first introduced RPG exploration into the series" and credits its non-linear play with helping to define a new genre; Time Extension, in Damien McFerran's 2022 piece, says it "took the Castlevania template and fused it with Super Metroid, creating the 'Metroidvania' genre in the process". The label is theirs; the mechanics above are what the label refers to.

The Saturn port and why it stayed in Japan

The Saturn version, per MobyGames, adds two new areas (the Underground Garden and the Haunted Path), a third playable character in Maria, and some remixed music, but gives up graphical effects from the PlayStation version, particularly true transparencies. Time Extension's piece attributes the port to Konami's Nagoya studio, describes slowdown and missing visual elements, and quotes Koji Igarashi telling Play Magazine that he understood why fans who had never played the Saturn version were interested in its features but did not feel good about them. That version never left Japan; Time Extension puts the reason on the Saturn's commercial performance in the West. Its extra content did travel, though: MobyGames notes that the iOS and Android release is based on the version inside The Dracula X Chronicles, which carries the Saturn familiars and items.

Playing it today

There is no Steam release; a search of Steam's store for the title on 11 September 2026 returned nothing. The two current routes are both Konami's.

Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood (PlayStation 4, download only). Konami announced it on 26 September 2018 for release on 26 October 2018 at a suggested price of $19.99, crediting the ports to a partnership with SIE Worldwide Studios; the release-day notice lists 4K and 1080p upscaling, multiple high-resolution backgrounds, different rendering options, Trophies, and, for the first time in Symphony of the Night, a choice of English or Japanese voices. The US PlayStation Store showed $19.99 and a 10/26/2018 date on the day of writing, with an ESRB Teen rating for Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity and Violence; Konami's European notice gave £15.99 and its European history page gives €19.99. PlayStation.com lists it as a PS4 title playable on PS5, with a note that some PS4 features may be absent.

Castlevania: SotN (iOS and Android). Konami's European release of 4 March 2020 priced it at £2.99 / €3.49, described it as a direct emulation by DotEmu, and listed full controller support, multiple save states, achievements, and six languages. On the day of writing the US App Store showed $2.99, seller Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd., a 341.7 MB download, iOS 9.0 or later, and no in-app purchases; Google Play showed $2.99, a Teen rating for Blood and Gore and Violence, more than 500,000 downloads, and a last update of 27 October 2025. One discrepancy to flag: Konami's own US history page for this release prints a price of $3.49, which matches neither store; we report the store figures and the publisher's figure and do not pick between them.

The Xbox 360 version is a historical footnote with a number attached: MobyGames' trivia records it as the first Xbox Live Arcade game to exceed Microsoft's 50 MB limit, at 95.32 MB. Whether it can still be bought on an Xbox today is something we could not check from here, so this article does not say.

What to know before starting

If the credits roll after you beat Richter and the map counter has not passed 100 percent, you have seen the early ending. The main clock room is where the game tells you what you missed; the MobyGames trivia page spells out the trigger if you want it.
The equipment screen is half of the progression. MobyGames' description lists weapons, shields and other items equipped on a separate screen, plus money and accessories to buy; ten minutes learning that screen early on saves hours later.
The inverted castle's enemies are, in MobyGames' words, much harder than the first castle's, so time spent levelling and collecting in the first castle is not wasted.
On a phone, use a controller. Konami built the port around controller support, and the fighting-game inputs for special moves are hard on glass.
The PlayStation 4 collection is the version with the English and Japanese voice choice; the mobile version is the one with the Saturn-era familiars and items. Neither is the 1997 disc exactly, and neither is worse for it.

Honest gaps

Konami's pages name one person, the illustrator, and no sales figures anywhere; this article reports none. The European date rests on Konami's own history page saying "1 Nov. 1997" while the archived MobyGames record gives only the month. MobyGames itself returned HTTP 403 to every direct request today, so every MobyGames fact here is from a dated Wayback Machine capture, cited with its timestamp. Konami's press portal (assets.konami.com, run on the Indigo Pearl PressXtra system) presents only a login and registration path with no assets visible to the public, so this article carries no official image, in keeping with this site's press-kit-only rule.

The row in the dataset

The dataset records Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo as developer and Konami as publisher, a first release of 20 March 1997 on PlayStation (with the Saturn, Xbox 360, PSP, PS4 and mobile versions listed under platforms), the genre action RPG and the era retro, sourced to Konami's Japanese history page, which is the single page that carries both the 1997 and 1998 dates. It is the first PlayStation game in the set and the first whose developer credit comes from a copyright line rather than a store field.