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When Konami released Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night for the PlayStation back in 1997, Castlevania fans everywhere were thrilled. Combining classic Castlevania action with the setup of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, enemies from throughout the series, a dash of Nintendo's Super Metroid and several RPG attributes, Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night (herafter referred to as SotN) became one of the best Castlevanias released, and for many, the reason to own a PlayStation. N64 and Saturn owners, on the other hand, were left out in the cold.

While the N64 ended up getting two Castlevanias later on, they were both in 3-D and lacked everything that made SotN special. In fact, they're considered by a lot of Castlevania fans to be two of the worst games in the series. The Saturn, on the other hand, did get a port of SotN that had a host of new features that were not in the PSX game. The downside was that the game was only released in Japan. While many hoped for a SotN Special Edition for the PSX that would incorporate all of the new features (hey, Konami did it for Metal Gear Solid in Japan), it was simply not to be.

On the surface, the Saturn port had a lot going for it. You get the same game that you played on the PSX, but with lots of new stuff. There are now two new areas to explore, the Cursed Prison and the Underground Garden. There are new weapons scattered throughout the game - the Alucard Spear, the Running Boots and the Lyric Card (which enables the Fairy familiar to sing Alucard a song), among others. Three classic pieces of music from the earlier games in the series (Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears and Beginning) have been brought back, in a move which made a lot of die-hard Castlevania fans happy as these three pieces were missing from the PSX game. Most importantly, you now have the ability to play as both Maria and Richter right from the start of the game (there's even a code that allows you to play Richter in his Ayami Kojima-designed outfit). Actually, since Maria was unplayable in the PSX version, that was another added bonus.

Now comes the downside. While everything plays and controls just as well as it did in the original PSX game, the game doesn't look quite as good as it did before. A lot of the transparencies from the PSX game are missing, and a lot of the colors look a bit washed out. Both Richter and Maria have no new stories added. You just play through the game until you're finished, like the earlier games in the series - and at no point do you fight Dracula with either character. You defeat Shaft, and the game is over. The two new areas, while fairly cool, don't add anything at all to the game. The Cursed Prison does serve as a shortcut between the Marble Gallery and the Ground Water Vein, but that's about it. The Underground Garden is completely out of the way and not really connected to anything else. Sure, you get some new enemies and a new boss (in the Underground Garden), but on a whole it's like the new areas were just thrown into the game for the hell of it. And worst of all, there are additional load times! After going through one of the loading hallways, the game has to pause and load again after you exit it, and there's a lot more slowdown than was present in the PSX version. This is simply inexcusable. The PSX version didn't have these extra load times, and it's notorious for having them in 2-D games (look at Metal Slug, for instance). The Saturn is known for being a much better machine when it comes to 2-D games, so why the extra load times and additional slowdown? My guess is laziness on the programmer's parts, but I could be wrong.

Despite the flaws I mentioned, Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku is a solid game. It's still SotN, and the additions do make it worth a look to most Castlevania fans. However, unless you're insistent on having every Castlevania released (like myself) or just want a good 2-D game for your Saturn, it's not worth shelling out the extra cash for. If you can get it for a really good price, I wouldn't recommend passing it up, but if you don't get it, you're not missing out on a whole lot.

- Rob

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For more info on Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku, visit The Castlevania Dungeon