There are many genres of gaming that I really love. In fact, I don’t think there’s one that I really dislike. But of them all, one that’s near and dear to my heart is the “Metroidvania” game. This is a game that focuses mainly on exploration, giving you an open map, and power-ups that are used to advance to previously inaccessible areas. It’s named after the two games that we’re comparing today: “Super Metroid”, and “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night”. Both of these games helped pioneer the genre, and are incredibly similar. They do have a few differences though; after all, that’s the entire point of this article. So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: which is truly better? Let’s find out.
Obviously, there are spoilers for both games below. If you haven’t played these games yet (and I highly recommend you do), stop reading and do so first.
ROUND ONE: STORY
The story of “Super Metroid” is a simple one: after the events of “Metroid II”, Samus recieves a distress signal from the Ceres Space Colony, where she had previously donated a baby Metroid. Upon arriving, she finds the place in ruins, and just as she sees the baby, it is stolen by her arch-nemesis Ridley. Samus follows Ridley back to Planet Zebes, where she finds that the Space Pirates have recovered from Samus’s previous assault on Zebes.
After much exploration, she finds the baby, but this time he’s grown to an enormous size, and he nearly kills Samus before realizing who he’s attacking, after which he flees. Later, Samus encounters the final boss, Mother Brain, who also nearly kills her, until the baby shows up to drain Mother Brain’s health. After draining Mother Brain and healing Samus (Metroids can do that, apparently), Brain gives the baby the old lethal laser beam, and the baby dies. Having been given the last of the baby’s strength, Samus easily kills Brain and escapes Zebes mere minutes before the planet explodes. The galaxy is at peace. The end.
The story of “Symphony of the Night” is more complex. The actual game picks up a few months after “Rondo of Blood”: Richter Belmont has disappeared mysteriously, and when Maria starts to look for him, Dracula’s Castle inexplicably shows up as if to show the way.
Meanwhile, our hero, Alucard (Dracula’s son), decides that there’s no better time to give his dad a good “F*** you” than now, and storms the place. Just as soon as he enters, though, the Grim Reaper shows up and takes away all of his gear, leaving Alucard in an awkward, “Samus at the beginning of every Metroid game” scenario. After getting better equipment and meeting with Maria a few times, he finds Richter working for the bad guys. Depending on how you choose to go about things, Alucard either kills Richter, or frees him from his mind-controlling curse. If you choose to free him, a dark priest named Shaft clears the way for another variation of the castle (this time upside-down), which Alucard also explores. He soon not only meets with the Reaper to get all his stuff back, but also finally encounters both Shaft and Dracula, and they have a final duel to the death.
The story of “Super Metroid” is very simple and basic, but the story of “Symphony” is far more complex, and has themes such as that of the nature of mankind. So I have to give the nod to “Symphony” for this round.
WINNER: SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT
ROUND 2: PRESENTATION
By presentation, of course, I mean graphics, art direction, and sound.
The presentation of “Super Metroid” is far darker than that of “Symphony”. Instead of a medieval castle, the game takes place on a desolate, mostly isolated planet. Samus is pretty much the only real character, and the game definitely has a sense of isolation and loneliness. The soundtrack adds to this feeling, adding further to the creepiness of the world of Zebes.
The presentation of “Symphony”, however, is much more lively. The setting of a castle allows for much more frivolous environments, characters, and music. Unlike “Super Metroid”, which had darker environments like ruins and caverns, “Symphony” has more areas like libraries, galleries, laboratories, and even a chapel. There were more memorable characters in “Symphony”, too; I’ll never forget the shopkeeper in the library. The areas were more colorful as well. The enemies were quite varied, and looked cooler than the ones in “Super Metroid”. Given the choice between generic-looking aliens and monsters like demons, skeletons, and witches, I think we all know what we would choose. And the music, like any “Castlevania”, is awesome and catchy as hell. Who doesn’t love “Bloody Tears”?
Having read this, it’s obvious who’s going to take this round.
WINNER: SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT
ROUND 3: CONTROLS
I’m not a huge fan of nitpicking on control schemes, based on the fact that I can get used to pretty much any control scheme, no matter how clunky. Nevertheless, these two games control very differently.
In “Super Metroid”, Samus can aim her arm cannon in any direction. She can crouch, go into her Morph Ball, shoot missiles, lay bombs, wall-jump, and even “Shinespark”. (Look it up. It’s awesome.) The SNES controller makes doing all this very easy and natural, and the controls feel perfect, no matter how familiar you are with the series, or the controller.
The controls in “Symphony” are excellent as well, but I have several complaints. First of all, I dislike having to constantly go into the menu screen whenever I want to heal. In “Metroid”, health power-ups just naturally appear whenever an enemy dies. But in “Symphony”, you have to unequip either your sword or your shield, replace it with whatever your healing item is, exit the menu, heal, and then re-equip your sword or shield. That, in my opinion, was a disaster.
Also, Alucard’s sword is difficult to aim at low enemies. Using sub-weapons, while not uncomfortable by any means, is unconventional.
“Super Metroid” takes this round.
WINNER: SUPER METROID
ROUND 4: THE GAME WORLDS
I’ve already lauded the environments of “Symphony” as being graphically and artistically better than those of “Super Metroid”, but aesthetics are never everything.
Both Planet Zebes and Dracula’s Castle are huge game worlds, there’s no denying that. However, when you compare the two side-by-side, there’s no denying that compared to the castle, Zebes is absolutely huge. The size of the world in “Super Metroid” is absolutely humongous. Brinstar, Norfair, and Maridia, when combined, could easily match the size of Dracula’s entire castle. And that’s just half of Zebes.
And then you have the Inverted Castle. Sure, it increases the size of the world of “Symphony”, but it just feels like the developers got lazy. All it is is an upside-down version of Dracula’s Castle.
Bottom line: there’s simply more to do and more to explore in “Super Metroid”. While the world of “Symphony” looks and sounds amazing, in actuality Planet Zebes is much more varied.
WINNER: SUPER METROID
FINAL ROUND: GAMEPLAY
And here we arrive at the most important aspect of any video game: gameplay. The deciding factor in any gaming grudge-match.
The gameplay in “Symphony” is far more complex than that of “Super Metroid”. It borrows a lot from not only “Metroid”, but also from a lot of JRPGs. You have experience points, armor upgrades, a shop, and magic. Hell, if not for the glaring similarities to the “Metroid” franchise, I would’ve mistaken it for yet another action-RPG.
But does this system work well for a Metroidvania style game? Not necessarily. I mean, it works well, but I believe that for this genre of this depth, an RPG-style system only makes it more confusing.
Also, as I previously mentioned, Alucard’s sword(s) are not as fun to use as Samus’s arm cannon. The ability to easily aim, as well as easily hit targets at a distance, is immensely more satisfying than swiping at a nearby enemy.
Another thing to point out: even though “Symphony” tells a better story, and has a better artistic direction, the presentation and story of “Metroid” ties together with the gameplay a bit better. That sense of isolation and loneliness really helps improve the already stellar atmosphere, which in turn helps improve the gameplay.
Just to reiterate: “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night” is a brilliant and amazing game, and is easily my favorite in the “Castlevania” series. But what “Symphony” does really well, “Super Metroid” does far, far better. The gameplay round goes the “Super Metroid”, the superior game.
WINNER: SUPER METROID
