History YMMV / CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight

** Not being able to sell off the many, many items you'll accrue on your quest as they become obsolete is quite an annoyance. Only gemstone rings are salable, making money grinding a very slow and tedious process unless you're aware of a certain exploitable bug, meanwhile your inventory will become progressively more cluttered with weapons, armor and accessories that don't longer serve any practical use once better replacements are found.

** Not being able to sell off the many, many items you'll accrue on your quest as they become obsolete is quite an annoyance. Only gemstone rings can be sold off, making money grinding a very slow and tedious process unless you're aware of a certain exploitable bug, while your inventory becomes progressively more cluttered with weapons, armor and accessories that don't longer serve any practical use once better replacements are found.

* {{Narm}}: When you fight Dracula as the FinalBoss, he summons a winged demon, only to crush it in his claws; but the sound effect picked for the crushing is a Hanna-Barbera-style squish sound, which makes the whole thing unintentionally hilarious.

** When playing in 99 Luck Mode, Alucard can skip the conversation with Death and keep his equipment: this is thanks to the greatly lowered defense from the Luck Mode combined with the special knockback animation you get if you take half or more of your max HP in damage from a single hit, allowing you to take a hit from one of the Wargs' charge attacks and be sent flying through the room where you encounter Death. It seems that in the PSP version, you can do this simply by leaving the screen before the cutscene starts. You get the Shield Rod reasonably early in the first castle, which means you get to start owning bosses with the Alucard Shield combo early.

* ItsEasySoItSucks: Even without the numerous [[GameBreaker Game-Breakers]], the game is definitely one of the easiest in what was until then a NintendoHard series, annoying many long-term fans.

** Though games design is regarded as overall solid, there are some parts of the game that many feel have not aged so well, including the sometimes obtuse puzzles, annoying item management, and ''especially'' how ridiculously easy it is break the game wide open. While still regarded as one of the best games in the series, a lot of fans also regard ''Symphony Of the Night'' as one of the clunkiest games in the series.
** The Reverse Castle at the time of release was a huge shock, while there were games that surprised the player with more content after the [[DiscOneFinalBoss supposed final boss,]] but hardly any hid half of the game behind it. Playing through a distorted version of everything you had already seen too was a very novel and unique idea. After the Reverse Castle, it pretty much became tradition for Castlevania games to have a fake final boss where you got more game after doing specific and exploring altered versions of places you had been to became common in metrodivanias as a whole. The Reverse Castle is now hardly a surprise and its implementation can seem very clumsy given you have to fly and leap constantly to get anywhere, there are only a handful of new music tracks, and other than new enemies and the upside-down gimmick nothing about the castle is different.

** The famous moment in the above scene where Dracula finishes his wine glass before tossing it to the ground and letting it shatter doesn't originate from this game either. It first appeared in the original UsefulNotes/SharpX68000 version of VideoGame/CastlevaniaChronicles.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Possessed Richter says that he wants to resurrect Dracula so he can fight him for all eternity, because Dracula only respawns every 100 years and Richter has already beaten him. While said under possession and certainly out-of-character for a guy who's not a BloodKnight (by all indications given in the previous game, [[HappilyMarried he was content to hang up the whip and settle down with Maria's big sister, Annette]]), Richter raises an interesting point. What is his worth once he's fulfilled his purpose? At best he can train his heir to take on Dracula, but even then his son/daughter probably won't get to fight Dracula either. Once he's done his part, Richter essentially becomes worthless.

* SoBadItWasBetter: The original game's dub was somewhat ridiculous, [[NarmCharm but people really liked it because of that]]. The PSP version was redubbed to be far more competent, but this also meant that it [[SoOkayItsAverage turned out to be fairly unremarkable]]. [[BrokenBase Not everyone was pleased.]]

* SoBadItWasBetter: The PSP's redubbing changed the NarmCharm to SoOkayItsAverage. [[BrokenBase Not everyone was pleased.]]

* GrowingTheBeard: Following [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaRondoOfBlood its predecessor's example]], the storytelling was revamped and given much more thought. Fully voice acted and with a driving mystery, the game also expanded Dracula's characterisation, distinguishing him from being the generic vampire lord he was prior to creating the TragicVillain that the franchise is so well known for. This helped solidify ''Castlevania'''s own narrative identity, separate from [[Literature/{{Dracula}} the works that inspired it]] while still paying homage.

* PortingDisaster: The Japan-only Saturn port. While it adds some extras to the game such as a playable Maria (and boss), two new areas and additional items, the novelty is unfortunately soon canceled out by the actual quality of the port itself: the game suffers from constant slowdown when the screen is filled with enemies, most of the graphical transparency effects are lost, and the game loads before and after entering the transition rooms between areas (you know, those rooms that were there to ''lessen'' the loading times in the first place). It also loads when entering or exiting the main menu and due to the fact that the Saturn controller doesn't have as many buttons as the [=PS1=] one, there's no dedicated button to open the map: as a result, you need to enter the main menu every time you want to check the map, meaning a process that took a second on a [=PS1=] now takes around 30 seconds. This is because the game was originally built on a 3D engine (only noticeable in a few places like the FinalBoss), and the Saturn had trouble handling 3D games.

* JustHereForGodzilla: Many people bought ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaTheDraculaXChronicles Dracula X Chronicles]]'' just for the port of ''Symphony of the Night''.

* DifficultySpike:
** The [[spoiler:Inverted Castle]] has one when you first get there, which sticks for most of it. New enemies suddenly do significantly more damage and have more annoying placements, as well as the level design being a bit against you at times.
** Luck Mode initially has one from a NumericalHard standpoint. The much weaker initial stats aside from the maxed Luck make a big difference at the early levels of the game, to the point the first few bosses can easily kill Alucard in a few hits and can take a beating before going down, and the only ways to do good damage for a while are either spells (which can't be used as often due to the lowered MP) or the random critical hits. It takes several levels for Alucard to get good enough stats to mitigate this, but once he does that and gets some decent gear, the difficulty goes back down, with the added benefit of a ''much'' higher drop rate thanks to the extra Luck.

* SoBadItsGood: The original voice acting had this going for it for quite a good chunk of the fans. IGA saw to this being averted in the PSP version. In an interview, he admitted that though he may not know English, even he could tell that the dub was horribly awkward. The main exception is Robert Belgrade as Alucard, whom most seem to consider pretty good in the role (it's seemingly [[VocalDissonance incongruous]] with the character's {{bishonen}} looks, but Belgrade's very deep, commanding voice definitely makes Alucard sound like the supreme {{badass}} that he is).

* SoBadItsGood: The original voice acting had this going for it for quite a good chunk of the fans. IGA saw to this being averted in the PSP version. In an interview, he admitted that though he may not know English, even he could tell that the dub was horribly awkward. The main exception is Robert Belgrade as Alucard, whom most seem to consider pretty good in the role (it's seemingly incongruous with the character's {{bishonen}} looks, but Belgrade's very deep, commanding voice makes Alucard sound like the ''major'' {{badass}} that he is).

* SelfImposedChallenge:

* SoBadItsGood: The original voice acting had this going for it for quite a good chunk of the fans. IGA saw to this being averted in the PSP version. In an interview, he admitted that though he may not know English, even he could tell that the dub was horribly awkward. The main exception is Robert Belgrade as Alucard, whom most seem to consider pretty good in the role.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Possessed Richter says that he wants to resurrect Dracula so he can fight him for all eternity, because Dracula only respawns every 100 years and Richter has already beaten him. While said under possession and certainly out-of-character for a guy who's not a BloodKnight (by all indications given in the previous game, [[HappilyMarried he had contentedly settled down with Maria's big sister, Annette]]), Richter raises an interesting point. What is his worth once he's fulfilled his purpose? At best he can train his heir to take on Dracula, but even then his son/daughter probably won't get to fight Dracula either. Once he's done his part, Richter essentially becomes worthless.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Possessed Richter says that he wants to resurrect Dracula so he can fight him for all eternity, because Dracula only respawns every 100 years and Richter has already beaten him. While said under possession and certainly out-of-character for a guy who's not a BloodKnight, Richter raises an interesting point. What is his worth once he's fulfilled his purpose? At best he can train his heir to take on Dracula, but even then his son/daughter probably won't get to fight Dracula either. Once he's done his part, Richter essentially becomes worthless.

** ''Symphony'' might have popularized the "upside-down castle" gimmick to the point where it is referenced in other Metroidvania games like ''Bloodstained''. However, it isn't the first to do so. In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaBloodlines'', a room in Castle Proserperina [[https://youtu.be/wPOLwiF15e4?t=95 inverts the castle's interior]], but to a limited extent.

* SoBadItsGood: The original voice acting had this going for it for quite a good chunk of the fans. IGA saw to this being averted in the PSP version. In an interview, he admitted that though he may not know English, even he could tell that the dub was horribly awkward.

** In Richter Mode, the Holy Water's Item Crash, Hydro Storm, inflicts massive damage to everything on the screen. Deploying it in boss fights ensures that they're over in about five seconds each.