Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Start overpowered, then strip the powers away to motivate the player. The game opens on a playable Richter versus Dracula fight, then Alucard one-hits most enemies with top-tier gear until Death steals it.

This "abilitease" previews how complex the game will get and gives players a reason to earn the power back. "The game wants to start on an action packed high note."

A linear first hour shows the whole width of the world. The opening trek crosses the entire castle on one axis, and the map then shows the player has covered its full width before real exploration starts.

"In this opening trek, the game has shown you just how big the world is going to be."

Hang most areas off one central pathway, like shops off a mall walkway. Almost all of the castle's main sections connect to the horizontal central path walked at the start, so players always have a reference point.

It mirrors how people navigate real places: a high street or mall walkway that forks into side areas.

Give each area a look nothing else shares so players build a mental map. The royal chapel, the correct route after the first dead end, has a massive staircase, giant bell towers and a stained-glass room unlike anywhere else.

That variety helps players organise the castle's layout in their heads, as Dark Souls does with its areas.

A new power sends players back to go forward. The first dead end is solved by buying the Jewel of Open from the librarian shopkeeper, which opens blue doors and sells a map pointing to two areas.

This is where the game becomes a Metroidvania. The progression order is fixed: Jewel of Open, Leap Stone, Mist, then Bat.

Unlocks were bunched: the Bat alone opens ten relics. Relics available per power-up: 5 at the start, 3 after the Jewel of Open, 2 after the Leap Stone, 1 after Mist, then 10 with the Bat, only the fourth critical power-up.

Mark Brown suggests spreading them out more across the game so progress feels steadier.

A huge open map with only one real path forward leaves players lost. After the Leap Stone, the catacombs need the Bat, the keep can't reach Dracula's room and a grate blocks the library; the true path is a clock room that opens only every other minute or so.

Nothing links double jumping to the clock room, unlike Super Metroid's visible ledge, and Mist has no sign marking where to use it, so players poke at unexplored doors. "You can be wandering around a huge castle for ages, just finding loads of dead ends."

Wrong turns allow free exploration but rarely pay off in an easy game. Players can reach the lower castle early and find health and ammo boosts, an underwater breathing relic and gear there.

Most swords, shields and armour off the main path are worse than what the player already carries, and wandering can leave players unsure whether they are missing something.

Wolf form and fast travel rooms cut the cost of backtracking. Many rooms are dull to cross again, so the wolf power-up, its upgrades and fast travel points scattered around the map reduce the tedium.

A fake bad ending tells players there is more castle to find. Taking the Bat to Dracula's keep and beating Richter triggers an anticlimactic bad ending that prompts a reload and more exploring.

"It makes the game feel mysterious and surprising."

Split a clue across item descriptions in hard-to-reach places. The easy-to-find gold ring reads "Wear... Clock" and the silver ring, behind Echo of Bat, a dark catacomb corridor and the spike breaker, completes "Wear in Clock Tower", opening a new area.

There Maria gives an item revealing Shaft controls Richter; killing Shaft unlocks the upside-down castle.

Reusing the same map flipped drains the surprise out of exploration. The upside-down castle is the same layout with harder enemies, so no room around the corner is a surprise and it feels like an epilogue to get over with.

Traversal is annoying unless the player stays in bat form.

Letting late-game goals be done in any order restores freedom. The two rings and the five pieces of Vlad (ring, eye, tooth, rib, heart) can be collected in any order, unlike the strictly linear start.

Collecting all of Vlad unlocks the real final boss and proper ending. It matches Dark Souls' four Lord Souls.

Igarashi built one giant level to make Castlevania last longer. Koji Igarashi turned a series of distinct levels into one maze-like castle, modelled on The Legend of Zelda rather than Metroid.

Earlier experiments included Rondo of Blood's hidden paths, Belmont's Revenge's level select and Castlevania 2. The new loop: find powers to unlock paths, hunt secret rooms for loot, grow stronger.

Its open castle became the template for a genre and its name. Chasm and Timespinner draw on it, later Castlevanias like Aria of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin adopted its style, and a player's snarky "Castlevanias… and Metroidvanias" became the genre name.

Mark Brown's verdict: "it's a game that is at once both really open, and really closed, and that can lead to some frustration."