Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is finally playable on PC thanks to a fan-made recomp that's the closest thing we have to a port.
Although Castlevania has been dormant for a long time and is only about to have its first new game in over a decade, Konami has at least kept the series' past alive with a remastered collection. Unless you're a Lord of Shadows, those collections make every Castlevania game that much easier to play.
However, there is an odd exception to that rule. Castlevania Requiem, including the best game in the series, Symphony of the Night, is completely locked to PlayStation. This left PC players without a way to experience Alucard's journey for a while, which has finally changed thanks to a fan project.
Symphony of the Night is finally playable on PC with this port
God bless NocturneRecomp
The project in question is NocturneRecomp, which, you guessed it, recomposes the Xbox Live Arcade version of Symphony of the Night and makes it playable on both Windows and Linux. The project was actually released a few weeks ago, but it was brought to my attention by Castlevania YouTuber Dr4gonBlitzDaily, who demonstrated it in action.
While I don't know how the Xbox Live Arcade version of SOTN stacks up against its other ports, NocturneRecomp seems like a pretty solid way to play the game, supporting modding and widescreen. A developer on the project also suggested that more features are coming, such as quality of life items and Randomiser compatibility.
I just finished my first playthrough of SOTN, but NoctureRecomp is making it powerful enough to go through it again…
If the recomp wasn't incredibly impressive, it's the only good way PC users have to play Symphony of the Night, which makes it a bit of a godsend. If you're looking to revisit the series before it returns with The Curse of Belmont later this year, NoctureRecomp looks like it's well worth checking out.
