For me it comes down to two games.......Castlevania II Simon's Quest and Symphony of the Night.

Symphony of the Night was damn near flawless.......great graphics, control, awesome enemies, and of course, Alucard. One of the most interesting things about this game to me was that each enemy had a unique death animation. The music was great as well, and gave a great atmosphere to each level.

Castlevania II, in my opinion and in spite of its age, captured the atmosphere of Transylvania better than any of the other games (of the ones I've played.) The graphics were top-notch for their time, and held up well even against later games in the NES's lifespan. Of particular note was the music......both the daytime and nightime theme songs were perfectly suited to the graphic scheme, and drove the game along. I always liked the sound it made when you'd whip an enemy.

From what I've been told, Castlevania III could also lay claim to the title of best ever, but unfortunately I never got the opporunity to play that one. Perhaps I should download it.

After careful consideration, I've got to say that CII: Simon's Quest is my favorite, narrowly beating out Symphony of the Night. I have two main reasons for my choice:

1. Although Symphony had incredible graphics and interesting levels, I always kind of wished that the entire game wasn't contained within Dracula's castle. I prefer the outdoor environments of CII.

2. While Alucard is certainly one of the coolest characters ever to appear in a videogame, and I particularly love his ability to transform into a bat and a cloud of mist (the wolf form was pretty much useless, IMO), I still have to say that I'd prefer to be a Belmont.

I recently finished playing Castlevania: Lament of Innocence on Playstation 2. It was a decent game. The main character, Leon Belmont, was cool, and had some really cool moves. The voice acting in the game was superb, and while the storyline was easily predicable, it was solid. The biggest problem with the game is that the environments in the game were very bland. Although the graphics were good, they were repetitive and uninteresting for the most part.

It seems that Castlevania has been in a big slump, lately. From what I've read, the most recent game, Curse of Darkness, received lukewarm reviews.....siting some many of the same problems that plagued LOI. You'd think that the series should be one of the heavy hitters in the world of videogames, since Count Dracula and the legacy of the Belmont clan have so much history.

Hopefully they can turn things around in the future.

Murdar Machene wrote:

Aria of Sorrow was the last one I played and I enjoyed it immensely. The silver bullet handgun fucking owns. So, uh, I hate to say this, but I hate Symphony of the Night. I know, I know, it's blasphemy. But seriously, I can't get into it. The GBA game looks like it has better graphics to me, the PSX game was blurry as shit. Also it was impossibly difficult, I couldn't even get past the knight with the bird outside the castle. Freaking IMPOSSIBLE. I tried that part so many times in a row until I finally just gave up on the game and deleted it. Basically, playing Aria of Sorrow first ruined it for me.

For which system was Aria of Sorrow?

I've got to say that I thought Symphony of the Night was actually pretty easy And it actually got easier the further you got, since Alucard gains so many cool weapons and abilities.

Now I know I'm not the only person here who's read this: