I replayed it through emulation, ( I own and old PS1 and an original copy somewhere, so it isn`t piracy by USA law, emulated because of save states), and my God, I missed those unique features so much! The Art style, the soundtrack, the gameplay, everything is just superb. What I think is the most impressive is that even not having puzzles, the games requires you to think and not believe what you immediatly in front of you. Like, the game requires you to pay attention on the scenario for possible spots that are unreacheable, so it`s up to the PLAYER pay attention and when getting determined ability remembering " in that place there was a grade, i got the fog, now i can get there!" or " I have the double jump now, now I can get to that place in the Library", modern games are too straightforward and exploring became secondary, if the game were made today when seeing thar space in the scenario there would be a message " Need bat transformation to get here" and once you got bat a window would pop-up telling to look at the map because now you could access the marked areas. 

And the twist of Richter, the game makes you think " there`s something strange here", but not telling directly to you, it`s up to the player to problematize the whole Richter situation and keep exploring even being able to go to his place and beat him once you get the bat. And for exploring and getting the rings, you get rewarded with an inverted castle! Wich game has such a huge twist nowadays? One that actually doubles the play value? I believe that the discovery of the inverted castle should be in the lists of most shocking or unexpected gaming moments, the game don`t hint nothing that it will happen.

I love Symphony of The Night because it`s a game the rewards players curiosity, attention and patience to explore the scenarios.

Yes, one of the greatest games ever made. First time I played through it, I had the Japanese version (Sega Saturn) and it was amazing.

Yeah, it's a brilliant game with some great level design. I love most metroidvania games in general and this is definitely one of the best. I really should play it again, it's been too long.

Spectacular game with all that it offers. Only thing I disliked about it was the clunky menu/item system. Regardless, it's easily in my top 10 games of all time.

I disliked the fact that there was plenty of RPG elements, but the game was too short for them. The familiars system for example, there was no need to level them... The spells are really useless too. Still don`t know what Dark Metamorphosis do besides gettind alucard a cool color.

castlevania IV is the perfect castlevania game.. just saying.

best game ever made maybe only bloodborne is better

I love this game. Easily my favorite in the series. Haven't quite beaten it yet XD but I am absolutely in love with it, it's the best in it's genre for sure. Only complaint is that the menu gets all quite so suddenly

Dark Metamorphosis is his worse spell and restores health from blood.  The very few enemies in the game that bleed when you attack them, if the blood animations touches Alucard you gain a little bit of health back.  Not enough to be worth ever using honestly.  

Soul Steal on the other hand is an amazing spell, best spell in the game.  It damages every enemy on the screen multiple times then heals you each time each enemy is damaged.  Very powerful and life restorative spell.  

The spirit souls are alright, Hellfire is pretty useless, and bat charge is good.   

Good game brought down by balance issues like the Shield Rod spells that not only can kill bosses in a few seconds but some of them also make Alucard invincible for a while, like the Dark Shield spell. Or the Combat Knife which has ludicrous DPS (requires holding the shield button while attacking).