New addition: Main files drive link

After a lot of work, testing, and feedback, I’m excited to share the final version of SotN - Reawakened, my personal mod for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

The goal was to make the adventure feel fresh while keeping the atmosphere and identity of the original game. Reawakened adds new mechanics, combat changes, quality-of-life features, and more ways to explore the castle.

Highlights include:

• New relics and upgrades, including Shield Dash, Runner Soul, Magnet Heart, Magnet Gold, Mender Sigil, Shield Rod, Spike Breaker, Ankh of Life, Familiar Crest, and the Mana Orb.
• New familiars: **Dawn the Summoner*\, who calls sword-wielding soldiers into battle, and ***Orobo the Dragon****, who tracks enemies and attacks with sweeping curves.
• New mechanics: use Shield Dash with an equipped shield, run with Runner Soul, attract nearby Hearts or gold with the Magnet relics, and use teleport tickets to travel to different areas.
• Combat and boss improvements, including revised enemy behavior, dedicated boss HP bars, and more aggressive attacks. Some bosses also have Rage modes.
• Quality-of-life additions, such as a pause-menu bestiary, a toggleable minimap, and quick weapon switching.
• Rebalanced equipment, spells, familiars, and progression, with new effects and more ways to build Alucard.
• A hidden-room Easter egg to discover and unlock while exploring the castle.

This has been a solo, volunteer project, and I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who shared feedback, tested the mod, and helped me improve it along the way.

I hope you enjoy exploring the castle again!

Patch and instructions:

https://castlevania.bomeponto.com.br

Note: The video shows test footage. The on-screen stats are displayed for recording purposes only.

Note²: From this point on, Reawakened will only receive bug fixes. There won’t be any more new features or content.

I’m getting married in just one month, so I need to focus on this huge and wonderful moment in my life.

The website may also go offline in the near future, since I only have about one month of free hosting left. To keep up with the project and any future bug-fix updates, please join our Discord using the link at the top of the website.

This project has meant so much to me, and I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who played it, shared feedback, tested it, or simply supported the project along the way.

Your support means a lot. ❤️

Seeing a lot of people claim that zombies kill you in just a couple hits, or that the boss "two shots" you, or that the runback is "too long and difficult."

So, I figured I'd test some of these things out myself. This is a fresh save. No accessibility settings changed. I never killed a single mob except for the boss, to avoid any leveling and any potential health/damage upgrades.

It takes six hits to die to basic enemies.

It takes six hits to die to The Fallen

The Fallen is easy AF and the runback takes 10 seconds: Edit 30 seconds exactly.

What are some monsters you wish to see in the upcoming game?

At first playing it, the demo was giving me some Blasphemous vibes. But after sitting with it, with how the combat plays and how it progresses, it kind of gives me a ClassicVania vibe where the only semblance of MetroidVania is the map and power-ups.

I'm strictly talking about the gameplay here though. The way you fight enemies, even the common ones, are all about spacing and making sure you don't get hit. Think of the axe throwing knights, or the spearmen from Rondo. You know when to jump in and whip. There's more enemies because you have options to run in with magic or whip-in and attack. But it really got me realizing this with the first boss fight, The Fallen.

I tried many things to get a good flow, but from the amount of health it had on top of when to attack, how greedy one should get, and to interrupt for a subtle weakness, I realize that you're basically playing at a distance and keeping an eye out for attacking and dodging. You can knock The Fallen off while it swings, or you can dash under it. You can get ready when it begins to pound or buffer a magic spell as it lands and you run and dash in. It all reeks of ClassicVania ethos to me. I was wondering if you could get perfect dodges, but to my brief exerpience, no. But you can dash back and strike in on The Fallen's third attack and time your attacks if it decides to throw its cross. You can also bait The Fallen to whip and you can dash in and have its AI reset from side to side with dash in hits and dash backs. A type of classic cheese if you will.

I have to say- I was a little worried with how the game would turn out as I wasn't a fan of Dead Cells (not a fan of roguelites period), but you always have to give games a go- especially for Castlevania games. Glad there's a demo. I'm sold. The game will open up and offer more power-ups via the Arcana and it makes me wonder how far they'll go with that. I doubt it'll be a DSS, but the upgrading system is nice. Not really sure why you need level-ups in this game right now outside of upgrading weapons, but the demo only gave me more about the gameplay and feel to write about. That and the art design and voice acting is great.

People say the music on this game/demo is not good but I can't to stop hearing it in my head over and over again 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

I finished the entire map of Aria of Sorrow today after around 10 hours, and honestly, I had an amazing time with it.

The graphics, which are fantastic for a GBA game, the music, the map, the souls, the weapons, the abilities, the movement — everything just clicked. There was barely any filler compared to SotN, a lot of the bosses were genuinely fun, and the weapons actually felt different from each other. That’s especially noticeable compared to SotN, where a lot of weapons basically felt like slightly different ways of stabbing forward.

I also spent a lot of time experimenting with different weapons and souls, which made the gameplay feel really rewarding. The only thing that bothered me was the menu system, especially during the underwater section, where you constantly had to switch things around. Some of the bosses were also pretty easy. Not quite as easy as SotN, but still easier than I would have liked.

Overall, though, this game completely blew me away. For me, it even outshines all the 2D Metroid games. Aria of Sorrow is easily the best retro Metroidvania I’ve played, and now I’m definitely craving more. Dawn of Sorrow is next.

Sorry for the bad english, it is not my Native lenguage

Im feeling a very Lamment of Innocence sensation with this game. It really look a like a third brother from the PS2 3d era of Castlevania, but directed by Tetsuya Nomura himself instead of Koji Igarashi -- look a like a 3d Castlevania from a alternative timeline where Konami blamed IGA for LoI and CoD and hired Nomura to make a Castlevania

You know, you go trought strange gothic towers (Castlevania), kill cool Monsters, use a whip, have a cool hair...

But at the same time the game is to much a final Fantasy game to be a Castlevania. Yeah. It is not a Castlevania that much. I dont know, It is Just a strange feeling. And in the end of the day It have nothing to do with final Fantasy too because It is too much creepy to be part of that series -- so It is Just its own thing -- its Just Pandora's Tower

This has got to be the most ignorant take Ive seen in regards to Belmonts Cure and its recent Demo, at this point people are just grasping for whatever negative thing they can find about it, having differing opinions, and valid criticisms are one thing, but being completely disingenuous like this is another thing entirely, have we completely lost the plot? I think so

Super hyped for the demo. I did not expect a Souls boss!

• Back then I wasn't able to beat all the NES games I owned, but this was doable.

• The endings always confused me.

• I thought that it was cool that dracula's ribcage was a shield, but I wished the other body parts were a bit more impactful. They mostly acted as keys.

• The game required you to buy stakes. In each mansion a guy sold one, but I thought some of them were so hard to get to, it's easier to go back to the first mansion and buy the stake there.

• Invisible floors man. This game loves it. This kinda thing isn't done as much in games now but it was definitely a thing back then.

• I kinda love that many of the townspeople lie to you. It was really flavorful and felt like you were in a time where rumors were being passed around constantly and not all of them were true.

Hello, I am extremely new to Castlevania, with SOTN being my first game. I tried to play the XBLA port years ago when I was younger, but I was far too impatient and unintelligent to "get it" at the time.

I was in a spooky game mood and decided to pick up the Requiem collection due to it being on sale and SOTN being the title I have heard the most about. Well, after a couple of hours into the game and some trial and error, the game has clicked for me. I absolutely love the exploration aspect and the feeling of slowly getting stronger as you progress. I cannot wait to progress further and discover the rest of the series!

I’m not gonna complain about the gameplay. I must say I’m a Fromsoft fanboy and it is exactly what I wanted. However. I understand that a lot of people don’t like the feel and the elements that come with this approach to combat. It is a valid complaint.

I can’t judge the level design yet, but so far, so good.

However, oh boy, they dropped the ball with the art direction. I’m sorry, but this is Castlevania, and it just can’t look like another generic indie game. We are talking about one of the OGs. A franchise with an established identity and a long list of games whose art style has aged gracefully to this day.

In this series in particular. The art direction matters. Because the levels and especially the Castle are one of the protagonist of the game. It requires a level of craft that this game is lacking and it loses all the regal gothic vibe, replaced by some horrid pastel reds and greens.

I don’t know what happened. Maybe Konami didn’t advise Evil Empire properly. Perhaps they didn’t at all. But it looks terrible. It’s a downgrade from the previous games, including Lords of Shadow because even Mercurysteam did a better job getting the vibe right.

The music is also terrible. All things combined, it feels like I’m playing DmC: Castlevania. Just like Ninja Theory misinterpreted DMC. Evil Empire doesn’t quite understand the game they’re working on.

I don’t think Evil Empire are the right people to work on this series. At the same time IDK who should.

That’s it have a nice one.

Dominus Agony

Dominus hatred

Dominus anger

Oque essas coisas significam?

Oque difere hatred de anger?

Oque isso tem haver com o drácula?

TL;DR I loved it l. Preordered, demo convinced me I will play the heck out of this.

Had to modify the controls a bit, but didn't take to long to get used to once I had dash moved to a shoulder button.

I've seen some people say it was soulslike, I disagree. Felt very castlevania to me! And the map/level design somehow manages to tickle both my classicvania and my metroidvania itches simultaneously and that is a huge plus.

The only thing that was a disappointment was in the demo at least the whip can't direct attack, but I was able to at least kick some enemies faces in during swinging off of something with it. I am not a huge fan of having to use iframes to dodge attacks dodgeroll mechanics but that is certainly no dealbreaker. That mechanic of "time this button to not take a huge hit" is the only thing in the entire demo that reminded me of anything soulslike, and plenty of non soulslike games do that nowadays.

My favorites in the series till now have been CV3, rondo, and sotn, though sotn bosses often felt too easy even if I avoided gear that cheesed them. Challenge in the demo felt just right. I died a bunch of times on the boss before I got my dash timing right often enough to get through, and that's how a castlevania game should be - get good or get dead repeatedly till you do (or level grind so can you be less good, I suppose?)

My playthrough of the demo didn't have me agreeing with any of the complaints I've seen here on reddit. I hope somewhere during the game actually smacking something in the face with a whip instead of a sword is an option, but having multiple weapon choices is good.

10/10 would get eaten by werewolf Leon again.

edit: steam community comments seem insane to me with complaints about imagined attacks on Christianity and soulslike complaints. like the only ppl commenting were the ones hating it without actually having any intention to give it a chance.