Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of the greatest games ever


Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of the greatest games ever, and almost certainly the best Metroid-style platformer not called Metroid. But the American version suffers from a lethal one-two punch of bad translations, and amateur voice actors delivering melodramatic, second-grade dialogue.

When Richter Belmont encounters Dracula early in the game, he confronts him with "Die, monster! You don't belong in this world!" That doesn't sound so bad on paper, but Richter sounds like he's straight out of the worst possible B-movie. More middling dialogue with atrocious acting follows, until Drac delivers the immortal line that not even Morgan Freeman could believably deliver: "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!" 

What does that even mean? Why do our secrets make us miserable? Does an immortal, evil vampire have no secrets? That line reeks of ninth-grade poetry.

Compare it to the Japanese version, where not only does the voice acting sound better and more intense, but the words actually sound like things people would say. Instead of corny dialogue about monsters and secrets, Richter and Dracula debate whether greed or love drive humanity, and instead of gibberish about piles of secrets, Dracula ends the discussion with "Foolish drivel. I will prove to you which of us is right. With death!" It's not Shakespeare, but it's still way better than what we got in the States. 
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