I am not particulary found of "Metroidvania" kind of game, but nonetheless I've played a lot of them. Yesterday I finally finished Castlevania Symphony of the night (And by finished it, I mean really finished it), a game considered one of the best game ever made by a lot of players around the net. If you doubt it, just look at the top 20 best game ever and there's strong chance SOTN will be among them. I read a lot of thread about Guacamelee vs SOTN, and the consensus is SOTN is the better game. To me, it's mainly because of nostalgia or the old "old is always better than new" type of thinking. I am well known to be quite harsh to many games, and that won't change with Symphony of the night. 

Is Symphony of the night the best Castlevania 2D game ? To me, yes it is. Does that make the game one of the best game ever ? Not at all. Does that make it the best 2D "metroidvania" type game of all time ? Well, in my opinion, no either.  

- SOTN's Story : There is almost no story to tell in this game. Alucard want to get his father's head, his father being the well known Dracula.
I thought SOTN was epic with some twists and some... intersting quest and some quality story telling. I don't know, we're speaking about Dracula and his sons. We are speaking about vampire, revenge, Belmont's clan, a Dark castle. Poor me, the game is basically pure arcade with really light events to make you think it's not.  

- I've read a lot about the technical prowess of SOTN and the quality of sprite. Probably people who never played Third strike, Garou Mark of the wolves and such... Techincal wise, SOTN is quite ugly for the time. 1997 is FF7, Gran Turismo, Tekken 3's year. 

- Is the game fun ? : To me, it's not. Alucard is kind of slow and rigid, even equiped with the fastest sword. His moves are slow, there's no combo it's basically an hit and run game. You can reverse dash to make Alucard move quicker, but it's all about it. Plateform are simple to me and I'm not an expert at all. The game is quite simple, there's almost nothing challenging. You can transform into an ugly wolf, wich must be the worst drawn wolf ever created in video game.  

So why all this love for this title ?

 IMO, it has a lot to do with the art direction of the game. The atmosphere is alright. The tone is dark, the castle is vast and the environement are quite different from each other. Ayami Kojima's character design is really one of the best to me with Yoji Shinkawa and Yusuke Murata. It perfectly fits the dark and gothic tone of the universe of Castlevania. And finally, Alucard's cool as an anti hero. He has a cool background, cool design and somewhat cool powers for a Castlevania character. To me, it explains a lot why people love SOTN. It's because from far away, the game looks like a great piece of art. If you add the fact that a lot of players heard for 15 years that the game is the most well designed game ever made, that can explain the status of the game nowaday. 

So, why I'm speaking about Guacamelee in the title of the thread. Well, to me Guacamelee stole a lot of things from SOTN. Does that mean that SOTN is better ? Nope, to me Guacamelee is the best of the two. It's much fast paced, much challenging and much more intersting to play. Aside from the art direction, Guacamelee is pretty much SOTN with combo, fast paced action, much cooler power, challenging plateform, much harder boss and neat graphic technical wise. 

I've played both a lot, hands down, guacamelee is the best of the two games. 

It's the only game in the series that I ever played and I think it's the best 2D side scroller of all time,bar none. It's the only game that I bought and beat multiple times. never played guacamelee,but I would if it came on the ps4. I love SOTN so much,that your comparison made me srry that I did'nt give guacamelee a try,when I had a ps3.

I have good news for you then

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2014/03/06/guacamelee-super-turbo-championship-edition-coming-to-ps4-2/

thanks for the link. I'll have to give this game a try,when it comes out on the ps4. 

Overrated? Nope. Its definitely one of the best side scrolling action rpgs out there though. I can't honestly think of another side scrolling game that has matched its scope till date. There are a lot of side scrollers that have equally good or even better gameplay mechanics thats been released in recent years, but none has the scale of SOTN.

Dracula X was superior in literally every way.

Castlevania ds is better

I'm sorry it didn't hook you like most of us, but that's life. I also don't get the hype for certain games either.

It was pretty decent graphically for the time, but it doesn't look that great on HD screens. You really need to play it on an old tube TV.

I believe it is one of the best 2D scrollers (if not the best) ever. Everything about this game grabbed me immediately except for the awful voice acting and horrible dialogue. The action, exploration, ability to change into bat, fog and wolf all added to a great experience. Tons of items, granted some useless, but some rare items such as the Crissagrim were awesome.

SOTN also has one of the best soundtracks for any game ever. (in my opinion)

I never tried Guacamelee, but now you have my curiosity piqued. I guess I've got to try that one now.

I'm sorry you weren't all that impressed. I guess it had to be a bit of a let down. But I did notice it kept your attention long enough for you to finish both castles.

It is not overrated, it was the perfect game, it was perfect in each one of its aspects namely graphics, gameplay, music, even depth and lenght when it came out, it's just the same as TLOZ a link to the past, TLOZ Ocarina of time, GTA San Andreas, Red Dead Redemption, The Last of Us, Halo 3... it's one of those games where devs reach the point of ''I really have no idea how to make this game even better'', where you max out the resources you have (include things like money and imagination) and you just can't do more even if you try, because you already did it all, you can't add anything else not because is not possible but because you reached the limit and no matter what you do it just won't get better than that, you are exhausted and have reached a dead end, you've reached (a certain definition of) perfection, now you can go home.

IMO SOTN is right where it deserves to be as one of the best games ever.

I don't see how anyone couldn't like this game unless you just hate 2D action platformers.  It's not the best platformer in my opinion, that's debatable, but it's definitely one of  the best.

Best version of SotN btw is part of Dracula X Chronicles.  New better voiced dialogue, a few new pieces of equipment. and Maria is playable like Richter, and unlike NitM on Saturn, she plays like Rondo of Blood Maria.