The Making of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Dracula X 

And this is why I never watch TV anymore. Quality of this film making is astounding. Thank you mate.

Thanks for all the amazing comments everyone! It's always a pleasure to return to one of my favorite series: Castlevania :) Symphony of the Night was actually the reason why I bought a Playstation at launch instead of a Saturn. In some brochure I saw the name Castlevania among a list of future releases and thought "this means I have to buy a Playstation" :) I still had to wait for more than a year before the game finally got released. Btw: the game had a really limited run here in Europe for some reason, I remember hardly seeing it on store shelves back in the day. I did manage to snatch a limited PAL edition of the game with artbook and audio cd featuring tunes from all Castlevania games up until that point which was already great by itself. The fun thing was I really didn't know what to expect from the game but was quickly blown away as I loved both Castlevania and 2D action adventure games like Wonderboy and Konami's Maze of Galious. Symphony of the Night is the PS1 game I definitely played the most and my favorite game for that console. Rondo of Blood is amazing as well but the PC-engine never got released over here, I eventually got to play it for the first time in the 2000s and loved it! My first experience with that storyline was with Dracula X for the SNES (called Vampire's Kiss here in Europe). I'm glad that port came out because it introduced me to these characters like Richter Belmont.

As a 3D mograph artist, I know this is a labor of LOVE!! there's absolutely NO reason for these to be as good as they are!

To make a quad from two triangles and texture it to act as a sprite is such a simple yet clever idea. It's these stories that keep me going as a software engineer.

Loved every second of this video ❤️❤️❤️

90s Konami was a POWERHOUSE. Rondo and Symphony blew my mind when I played them few years ago.

Amazing video! Bonus fact: the female singer in SOTN is Michiru Yamane's sister (she told me when we were hanging out backstage at Castlevania The Concert).

Man.... SotN aged super well. I didn't play it until the PS4 port.... And yet, it ended up being one of my all-time favorite games. This was a super well done video on these games. Both Rondo, and Symphony had some interesting history behind them.

Never disappointed by the insane production quality of your work.

I feel like playing Castlevania again.

Been re-watching this over and over to take in just the incredible, unnecessarily sumptuous visuals! Also popped seeing OSW and Matt McMuscles in the book at 17:36! Patron names was such a cool touch. A winner is you 💚

It never fails to astound me the amount of work you put into these videos. At 9:09, you're simply showing off the box art for Bloodlines, and yet you decided to make a 3D background to display the game case on. Just....insane. You truly put every other RU-vidr on this platform to shame. Digital Foundry should hire you for their DF Retro series. You're a genius, and I hope to one day be able to afford to support you on Patreon. Keep up the amazing work.

Unmatched, phenomenal production quality, as always!

Magnificent work as always. Most RU-vid videos I have on in the background whilst I work, but these ones always require me to sit down with some sandwiches and take in every frame.

I feel like I've watched a lot of videos about Castlevania and specifically SOTN, and I still came away from this having learned a ton of new production detail I'd never heard before. Great job.

What an absolute master work of media and research. Pure quality.

Are you hiring your services to dev teams who want to showcase their involvement in games? Regardless these are top notch.

As an amateur game designer, on top of it having a huge historical value, I find your work to be incredibly inspiring ❤

What to say? So high quality content on youtube is so rare and your products, Strafefox, are one of them. Bless the day when I came across in one of you video, never missed one of your uploads

The art direction, music, animation work, and vision put into Symphony is miles beyond what most developers are willing to do these days. SotN is a great lesson in art history.

Omg. I've been so obsessed with SOTN this past week and then you drop this on us out of nowhere? Not sure if destiny wants me to keep it around or your timing is impecable, Thank you Strafefox.

Fun fact: For the PSP rerelease and also the Wii VC version they rerecorded the german part of the intro. I don't know who the original VA was, but in the new version they got famous VA Klaus-Dieter Klebsch (as heard in this video) who is the VA for Hugh Laurie in Dr. House or Josh Brolin as Thanos

Just. Magic. All. Over. Just when I thought I knew all about this series, along comes strafefox and reminds me there is always SO MUCH more to know and learn! SO MUCH INSPIRATION!!

Watching this again makes me realize what an incredible couple of teams worked on these two games. Kojima's process is so elaborate, I didn't realize she had so many steps to her work. I just appreciate it more now.

I am glad that you brought up that this game was inspired by Zelda and not Metroid . I never knew this game was inspired by Bram Stroke's Dracula and how much work went into Ayami Kojima's drawings. I love Cynthia Harrell's voice, Konami should had use her wayy more!

The production quality is insane!!! Liked.

An amazing look at probably my two favorite games of all time both Rondo of Blood and SOTN were astounding for their time and still are great to this day.

i'm in absolute awe by your editing skills and all around artistic sensibilities. you won a subscriber

Impeccable production. Legendary game! Just listening to the soundtrack activates my brain's pleasure regions. Love and admiration from Brazil!

This is one of the best made documentaries I have EVER watched, and I am not exagerating. The pacing, the visual examples that display while you are explaining technical aspects of development, and the graphics created specially for the video that give the whole piece an atmophere and cohesion, plus really specific and well researched bits of trivia.. it's just wonderful. Bravo!

During my last couple of college years I sank HOURS into both Dracula X and Symphony of the Night, both games were absolutely awesome, SoTN especially was a timeless masterpiece, it's a living proof that you can pick up a game from the 90s and enjoy it even more than the majority of games that come out today.

The music and visuals along with story and theme are a match made in heaven. Amazing and spectacular that game was and still is to this day

23:47 Idea with a room later implemented in Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (GBA)

Making me fall in love with Castlevania all over again. Excellent work on the video, I love watching every second of it! I'm going to boot up Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night and play them again. Thank you.

SOTN is a work of pure genius. Everything from the characters, writing, and design. I cant count how many times i loaded this up just to listen. I eventually learned to play them myself so i still play them when i have time. SOTN, A true work of art.

The RU-vid algorithm finally blessed me with this video of yours, and after binging all of your content, I deeply regret not discovering your criminally underrated channel earlier. Thanks for keeping up this insane quality over the years!

Unbelievable production. Fantastic as always! Two of my favorite games of all time.

videos like this belong in a museum. super informative and inspirational

15:59 I'd also like to point out, as far as "all kinds of details" go, using a magical rod on a leather shield to summon the spirit of the cow it was made from is one of the greatest visual gags in all of gaming. Plus, the spirit cow helps you in your battle against Dracula by granting you a defense buff! It's like there's a whole story behind this cow Dracula killed just waiting to be told. One day, I shall tell it!

Symphony of the night is one of the finest video games I have ever played and this video manages to demonstrate it very well, congratulations I loved it.

Top quality as always, on every aspect. This channel could release a video of drying paint and it would be absolute fantastic.

Rondo of Blood is the best of the pre 32 bit era Castlevania games, full stop.........It is one of the best designed games of the early-mid 1990s 2D era.

The best team to cover the commonly regarded best Castlevania entries. Thoroughly enjoyed it; even learned something new that other hours-long videos did not cover. Five stars!

Every Halloween I play through Symphony of the Night. It is probably my most favorite 2D adventure game.

Great video! I'm so glad you started this off right with a look at Rondo of Blood, one of my favorite games of all time, for which SOTN would not exist without it. For years many SOTN fans didn't know about it or it's connection, even though it starts off in game with the end of Rondo and many of the exact same sprites were used throughout. This isn't too surprising since it was never officially released here till more recently but I for one bought the import for PC Engine CD back when it came out while I was still in high school, I couldn't not have it! Still the best Castlevania.

Another great video discussing masterpieces we all adore! Excellent choice of music and loving your presentation! Each video has gotten better and better!

Additionally to your already mind-blowing extra visuals, you are doing a great job in highlighting how key to SotN's success it was, that everyone on the team was an expert in his/her craft. Thank you for this fantastic video!

You never disappoint and always amaze me. The archival footage of Kojima's illustrations is such a find, and the level of quality in all of this is fantastic.

Why would anyone dislike this? Its a great documentary for 2 amazing games. Excellent video

Oh how I sync with Ayami Kojima's artwork. Recognized the candles from Alucard painting, which I've made a shadowbox of.

This is unbelievably well produced!! Holy crap man, you did Symphony of the Night justice. I feel like I have to sit back and take a minute to realize the beauty of what I just watched. Thank you for exploring the behind the scenes details of these masterpieces and shining a light on the people who don't get enough recognition, and presenting everything with such passion.

The renderings used for the cutaways / transitions in this presentation are absolutely fantastic…well done

Amazing production values, on point narration and information. You never cease to amaze us. The wait is always worth it.

what a perfect video, as always. they keep getting better. goosebumps at the end. its surreal how much of an impact symphony of the night had on the industry and on indie games later. half of the indies games releasing nowadays are inspired by this masterpiece.

It's humbling to see all the hard work and effort that went into some of these games. SoTN is an incredible piece of work, a real masterpiece. Great production value as always

I cried every second of this video, the way they put so much effort and love to the Castlevania games warms my heart.

What a treat of an episode, I love SotN. Despite beating it several times tho, I don't remember seeing that scene with his mother burned at the stake. Edit: I looked it up and now know how to activate that scene lol. Very informative, awesome, high-production episode as always, Strafefox!

This video is a master piece. I would have loved to see you talking about the music a bit more in depth given that this OST is one of the main reasons this game was a success.

Castlevania Symphony of the Night is my favorite Castlevania game. The music, the pixeled art and animation is outstanding❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Love this documentary ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

This video is very detailed and well-explained on how Symphony of the Night was made. Thank you! Symphony of the Night is the best amongst all the entire Castlevania titles

This was incredible. You never fail to impress.

Brazil always watching you ❤️

It's insane how much work and innovative technology it takes to make a videogame, even 30 years ago. I know very little about programming and game design, even though I've been gaming since the 80's. But this stuff truly impress me to no end. Takes geniuses to come up with it all.

I still can't believe the absolute quality of this channel. Thank you so much for all the work you all put into these videos!

Symphony of the Night is just too damn good 🏆 The whole game is just so AMAZING... it has nice art, nice sound, and very nice aesthetic

Amazing work, as always. I hope you keep this sub-series going with a look at the GBA or DS games someday.

Good lord, I feel like that was one of the best documentaries I’ve ever watched about anything in general. The fact that it was about videogames, let alone my favorite videogames of all time…?? I’m thanking you and the universe for this treat!!!

This documentary was simply amazing! The research and attention to detail involved was really well done. SOTN will always be a masterpiece in my book.

Amazing work, imo Castlevania hit a pinnacle with the graphics of Rondo of Blood. I love the other Castlevania's and they have a great aesthetic but the music and graphics of rondo of blood/sotn is just so vibrant and raw. Would love to see another Rondo of Blood or Sotn pixel style with maybe some experimentation with polygons like sotn but not change too much. They could have even better fluidity

You've done an incredible job! Thank you very much for the great quality of the content! 🖤

Again for god sake Netflix sign this man for a series , production quality is out of this world , please keep them coming.

Over a few months ago, I had the pleasure to find a physical copy of Symphony of the Night at a local retro game shop in my part of town, and I never regretted getting the game. Loved every moment of it! The art has inspired my art, the music is incredibly and beautifully well crafted, and the tale is as old as time. 37 years later, and still loved by the fans.☺️

Always enjoy the content here. Well produced and the quality is top notch. Plus it's Castlevania! Keep up the great work!

Stellar video, as always. I really need to get into this series of classic Konami games.

There’s millions of videos on youtube...this one became one of my TOP 10. An incredible example of how to make a perfect making of... Congrats.

26:04 - That barrel puzzle was what finally got me to look up a walkthrough.

Fuck I love this channel! Peerless graphical displays and research; topics I'm always interested in learning about; narration that's calming, well-written, and easy to digest. Strafefox has it all. I know the "🅰️lmighty 🅰️lgorithm" doesn't prefer channels with infrequent, high-quality, lengthy content. But I do, dammit.

Sadly there's no more Castlevania games so I'm playing blood-stained ritual of the night it's just as good

The production quality here is remarkable. Excellent video.

The production quality of these docs is off the charts.

Fitting that this era brought us the best Castlevania games of each sub genre.

Symphony of the Night: The game that put the Vania in Metroidvania!

i swear that ALL your videos are piece of art. I wish that TV put show of THIS QUALITY instead of what they broadcast daily. gosh I'm crying

By far the best video game channel on youtube these days... Professional and humble, not vying for clicks, delivering stellar production value and not once asking for subscription or begging for support. Kudos for the video and overall approach.

I'm playing these fantastic games for the first time and I am in awe of them. This video shows up in RU-vid and It's such a compliment to the games...outstanding video!

Out of all of the videos I've seen, this one is the only I've seen without skipping it and it's well worth the time as I am incredibly satisfied watching it.

You boys always strike gold thanks for all the hard effort you put in.

So, so good. Another quality behind the curtains look at one of my favorite games ever. Thank you for this.

This truly is one of the best and most criminally underrated channels on RU-vid. Thank you so much for all your hard work--and for bringing back the memories.

still this channel only have 130k sub, the production quality is effing phenomenal. i love rondo of blood and sotn till the end of the world. the music will always remain close to me, listening to it,remind me of my happier carefree days.

What a great way to start my Monday. Thank you for this top notch, second to none documentary. Kudos to your channel as always!

This is absolutely super high quality. The production value, the cohesive script, tone and overall feel is just great. Most likely one of the best videos in this genre.

Even as a kid in the 90s who didn't understand anything about video game development, I could tell there was something extremely special about Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I had been a fan of the NES and SNES Castlevania games, but I still remember getting this PlayStation Underground demo disc that had a trailer for the Japanese version of SotN on it. Watching this trailer kind of blew my mind as I realized the new direction the series was going, and even as a kid I realized how cool these changes could be. It would be a few years before I ever even saw the game on sale in the States, but I remember getting it years later and loving it as one of my favorite PS1 games of all time.

A shockingly high quality mini doc. Amazing production values and very informative. Thank you.

One of the best Documentaries about 2 best Titles From Castlevania. Thanks.

This is one of my favorite games and I usually roll my eyes when a video comes across my feed because they usually go over the same tired facts we've all seen a dozen times. This video was something different and I'm glad I sat through it. Gracias

Man , it's official , Strafefox is the best retrospective-documentary youtube channel about our favourite videogames 😍😍😍

As always, strafefox never disappoints, especially now that we have a SotN and DracX episode today. And it's still a sin that this channel hasn't reached 500k subs by now.

Imagine a world where all video content was created with this Godlike level of craftsmanship. S+++++ Rank

what a game. i'm grateful having grown up in the 90s and getting to experience the ps1/n64/dreamcast era when games were starting to be worked on more seriously. this game and its soundtrack will always be one of my favorites.