History YMMV / CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight

** 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. Hysterically, this bug is a bit of a an embarrassing spot for IGA, as he personally programmed 99 Luck Mode not realizing this might happen.

* HilariousInHindsight: Thanks to the largely-anonymous nature of video game voice acting at the time, this completely flew over everybody's head, but after years of dedicated internet archaeology it turns out Richter and Dracula are voiced by [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil1 Chris Redfield]] and [[VideoGame/SilentHill1 Harry Mason]], the two preeminent survival horror protagonists of the [=PSX=] era.

** ''Symphony of the Night'' is not the series' first foray into {{Metroidvania}}-style outings. That honor goes to ''Vampire Killer'' for the Platform/{{MSX2}} in 1986, followed by ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest'' the following year. Given that Creator/{{Konami}} was still experimenting with the subgenre in those games, coupled with the former's general obscurity and the latter's many GuideDangIt moments, ''[=SotN=]'' would overshadow both titles and become the blueprint all future 2D entries would follow (remakes notwithstanding).

** "Gaze upon my dark form, and this pear!"[[note]]A {{Mondegreen}} of "...and despair!" thanks to the VA's over the top line reading[[/note]]

** ''Symphony of the Night'' is not the series' first foray into {{Metroidvania}}-style outings. That honor goes to ''Vampire Killer'' for the UsefulNotes/{{MSX2}} in 1986, followed by ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest'' the following year. Given that Creator/{{Konami}} was still experimenting with the subgenre in those games, coupled with the former's general obscurity and the latter's many GuideDangIt moments, ''[=SotN=]'' would overshadow both titles and become the blueprint all future 2D entries would follow (remakes notwithstanding).

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

** While the [[UsefulNotes/XboxLive Xbox LIVE Arcade]] version is a direct port of the [=PlayStation=] release that sadly lost the [=FMVs=] ([[BadExportForYou outside of the Japanese version]]) and sound quality is slightly downgraded to fit within the file size limitations of XBLA titles at the time, it also has the usual XBLA bonuses (optional pixel smoothing, leaderboards, Achievements, etc.) while notably having almost no loading times and eliminated the frame-rate issues caused by certain effects.

** ''Symphony of the Night'' almost received a port to, of all things, the very ill-fated UsefulNotes/GameCom, only for it to be cancelled when the system flopped; the general assumption was that it barely got past proof-of-concept until a beta version was uncovered in 2022. Shockingly, not only is the game largely complete and can be finished, but it managed to retain a lot of the features of the original (around half of both castles, most major bosses, equipment, leveling, subweapons, and the spell and familiar systems) despite working with extremely weak hardware. It's still a Game.com game, though, and suffers from sluggish performance, heavy jump physics, poor hit detection, only one very dinky music track, and a finicky password system instead of saves.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny:
** Though the 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 [[GuideDangit obtuse puzzles,]] annoying item management, haphazard enemy placement, 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,]] 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 became tradition for Castlevania games to have a fake final boss where you got more game after doing specific actions 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 highly 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.

* 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. Later games taking Symphonys formula and adding more difficulty, especially ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'', has further exasperated this.

** In the original dub, Richter Belmont speaks with the voice of [[VideoGame/SilentHill1 Harry Mason]] and the ([[TheOtherDarrin first]]) voice of [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil1 Chris Redfield]].

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Richter Belmont. His {{Motive Rant}} when Alucard confronts him in the throne room is unclear as to how much of it is actually Shaft's control... or if what he says is actually a legitimate fear that Richter holds of becoming useless after defeating Dracula once. Given that Dracula is revived once a century, once a Belmont has defeated him, that Belmont (theoretically) will never again face him in their lifetime, meaning their purpose boils down to fathering a family that will continue the war while they no longer take an active part otherwise. Is this just part of Shaft's brainwashing? Or was Richter legitimately afraid of this future, and Shaft simply capitalized on this weakness in his mentality?

** Imps can dodge attacks and stun Alucard for a long while. This is worse than it sounds, because while he's stunned, Alucard will keep rapidly using both attack buttons involuntarily. Had a [use] item equipped to either hand? Watch in horror as your entire supply of it is expended against your will.

** While the UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade version is a direct port, it also has the usual Arcade bonuses (pixel shading, leaderboards, achievements, etc.) while notably having almost no loading times.

** 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=] controller, 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.

* "Gaze upon my dark form, and this pear!"[[note]]A {{Mondegreen}} of "...and despair!" thanks to the VA's over the top line reading[[/note]]

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Considered one of the best game soundtracks ever. The song at the entrance, "Dracula's Castle," is very popular.