Originally a PlayStation 1 exclusive, Symphony of the Night was eventually released on the Sega Saturn, but only in Japan. After that, gamers could enjoy it on the Xbox 360, PSP, PlayStation 4, and more recently, on Android and iOS.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night originally sold very poorly, but the game’s quality helped spread word of mouth, and eventually, it sold 700,000 copies on the PlayStation.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night technically originated as a game for the Sega 32X that was going to be called Castlevania: The Bloodletting. That prototype was canceled, and development shifted to the PlayStation.
While its connections to Super Metroid earned the game credit for starting the “Metroidvania” genre, The Legend of Zelda series was also cited as one of its inspirations, particularly for its emphasis on exploration and backtracking.
The Sega Saturn version in Japan featured Maria Renard as both a boss and a playable character.
The original stats for Alucard when you start the game depend on how well you fought as Richter against Dracula during the opening sequence. The best possible result is technically impossible until you beat the game and start a new one, because there’s no way to finish the fight within one minute or less during your first playthrough.
If you put a copy of Symphony of the Night into a CD player, you’ll find a hidden song listed on Track 2, featuring Alucard warning you not to play Track 1.
The sound you hear in the save rooms is actually Alucard’s heartbeat, and it changes based on how much health he has left.
The boss called Olrox was inspired by Count Olrok the Vampire from the classic horror movie Nosferatu.
Maria Renard’s animals are based on the Chinese Four Symbols — creatures resembling a phoenix, a turtle, a tiger, and a dragon. She had these animals in Rondo of Blood, and in the Sega Saturn version, they are shown as grown-up alongside her.
There’s a boss battle against three fake versions of the main cast from Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. If you kill the imposter Trevor Belmont before defeating Sypha Belnades, she will repeatedly resurrect him as a zombie until you kill her.
The English version of Symphony of the Night made frequent references to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe.
The prologue in the English version was originally called “Bloodlines,” which was an inaccurate title, considering it was based on the game Rondo of Blood.
In the PlayStation version, an unused audio ending was discovered where Maria saves Richter, but the magician Shaft turns her into a demon.
Konami originally intended for Symphony of the Night to be fully 3D but chose to use 2D sprites instead due to hardware limitations.
Speedrunners have found a way, using glitches, to beat the game in roughly five minutes, with one player completing it in just over four minutes.