Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: Unauthorized Secrets & Solutions

 (4 customer reviews)

Okay, lot of problems kept me from buying this one.1: What little pictures there are are black and white. 2: The details barely skim the surface. It doesn't do the game any justice. 3: It tells you how to beat the game. Period. It doesn't tell you how and where to find every item, what every monster looks like and is located, and tells you nothing about the entire second quest of the game (Richter). 4: The strategy guide basically ruins the feel of Castlevania by telling you exactly where to go and then go there, thus beating the game as fast as you can. It says nothing about 'side-quests', that is, little extras they put in the game. I've clocked in at over 50 hours on this game alone, because the main idea in Castlevania is to EXPLORE and try out new things, not run through, win, and throw the game in the closet. Overall, a disappointment.

I wish I'd bought the Bradygames book first. This book was totally inaccurate; it was obviously based on the Japanese game. Sell it in Japan, then, because we don't need it here. What few maps there were were terrible, and there was no real walkthrough. He just told you what to do in each zone, and they weren't even in any discernible order! There were no special item lists whatsoever, or much help on where to find them (not that that would have helped, since he gave all the wrong names for the items). I liked how he described one set of dialogue as "Richter's girlfriend says something that sounds important." Obviously, he never played the American version. A picture is worth a thousand words, and there were so painfully few pictures that it became a chore to look up something in the strategy guide. That makes this book almost totally worthless. Zero stars.

Don't buy this book. I've found more visually appealing websites with a heck of a lot more information for free. This book is all black and white with few images. It also assumes a lot of the reader and doesn't go into really any detail.

I really don't like to rag on stuff, but It just felt like a big waste of money. It might be the worst thing that I've purchased on Amazon.