Last year, we covered a new romhack for the Sega Saturn release of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" titled "Dracula X Ultimate" by Team Meduza, which not only did it completely translate the original game into English (since the original Saturn release of SotN never got an English release), but it also went above and beyond and implemented a whole lot of Quality of Life features into the game, like restoring many translucent effects, global map rework, support for the 4MB expansion card, bug fixes, a Hard mode, and a lot more, all this while keeping the original Japanese title for the game in a localized format for both the title screen and loading screens, with the title of "Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight" showing instead of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night".

However, one key aspect of this project which was a detriment for many that used to love the original PlayStation release, was that this version of the project used the PSP re-release script and dub tracks instead of those from the original PlayStation release. For the unaware, the PSP re-release of Symphony of the Night, included within the "Dracula X Chronicles" game, which also included Rondo of Blood, saw the entire script and voice acting of Symphony of the Night to an updated version. This has been a point of debate between Castlevania fans, as some think the original script with all and its quirkiness had its charm, while others prefer the updated version with a more revised script.

Given this point of discussion between scripts of Symphony of the Night, the developers of the original Ultimate patch were not interested in reworking or making an optional patch that could include the original PSX script and voice actors, nor one that could revert the title screen to that of "Symphony of the Night", leaving many fans of the original PSX release and its script out of the really enjoying this new hack.

That all changed this weekend, as yesterday, November 2nd, 2025, SegaXtreme forum user, DraculaX350, forked the Ultimate patch and added back not only the entirety of the PSX script and voice acting, but also reverted the title screen and loading screens back to the classic title of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night", as well as implementing a couple of bugfixes still found in the main Ultimate v1.5 patch, like a couple of weapons having the wrong palette, and adding missing sprite frames to Richter's new costume. And to wrap it up, DraculaX350 also modified the in-game font that Team Meduza used to use a more user-friendly font instead of the gothic-stylized font the original Ultimate patch used.

​

The full changelog of this new fork compared to the original Japanese release of the game is the following:

• Increased overall performance in the game (increased CPU frequency)
• Removed voids at the top of the screen in some locations
• Improved “Hard Mode” (enemies deal 2X damage)
• Added translucency of clouds against the background of the moon (flickering)
• Added translucency to the large window in Count Dracula's apartment
• The name of the current location is now displayed in teleport rooms
• Prologue Richter missing sprites rewritten
• Fixed the flame palette in the prologue (before the picture burns)
• Fixed a bug with the palette of a huge skull in an inverted castle
• Fixed minor bugs in pop-up messages
• Fixed “Fire Shield” color palette
• Fixed number of items overlapping the item name

Those interested can try out the new patch by DraculaX350 from his own blog post about the hack, just be mindful that you will require your own copy of the original Japanese release of Symphony of the Night in a CUE/BIN format in order to properly patch the game with these new features.

Source #1
Source #2

 

[Sekii]

Is this now the definitive version to play this over the PSX one?

It seems like the graphics are still stretched (which means they just doubled every four columns of the assets) to fit the resolution. Most noticable on diagonal lines and sprites.
If you take a look at the screenshot I took from the video, you can see many columns that got doubled.
- Maria's left leg and the hair above, the line in the middle of her
- The candle holders have a wider base on the right and the fire of the middle candle also got doubled to the right
- The fairy's legs
- The bright part of Alucard's cape constantly switches between being one or two pixels wide, the orange lines in his outfit sometimes become orange blobs, his face got elongated, as well as his left foot and arm
- The throne in the background is no longer symmetrical, the doubled columns on the left are pretty noticeable
- And the red pieces of cloth tied to the skull above the throne are supposed to have some diagonal lines, but you can make out where the columns got doubled, thus making some lines randomly change thickness
Afaik, fixing this would be giant task, because you'd probably have to touch up every graphic in the game.

But if you don't care about that, this does sound like a really great version.

 

[Robert Newbie]

I'm all for the retranslation but I just can't get over Yuri Lowenthal voicing Alucard, that just feels so wrong. He's a good VA but damn it he's too prolific, not to mention the total switch up coming from Robert Belgrade.

Mentions Yuri Lowenthal
Has Persona avatar

Persona fan detected

My understanding is that Yuri Lowenthal pops up in a bunch of Persona projects, so he's well known to the community. Since I'm not playing modern games, I have to ask: has he become overused?

I remember the 7th gen belonged to Nolan North. Even Saints Row 3 had a character voice option just for Nolan North, due to the infamy. Even now, I don't have to check any websites to know he was in Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, and Dark Void. (Wasn't he also in The Saboteur?)

 

[SK91]

Mentions Yuri Lowenthal
Has Persona avatar

Persona fan detected

My understanding is that Yuri Lowenthal pops up in a bunch of Persona projects, so he's well known to the community. Since I'm not playing modern games, I have to ask: has he become overused?

I remember the 7th gen belonged to Nolan North. Even Saints Row 3 had a character voice option just for Nolan North, due to the infamy. Even now, I don't have to check any websites to know he was in Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, and Dark Void. (Wasn't he also in The Saboteur?)

For me personally not just in games, but I've heard his voice a lot all my life. Ben 10, Naruto, multiple Persona games, grunts in a bunch of random games, Spider-Man, so on so forth. He has a really distinct voice and he doesn't have much range (or at least doesn't show it often) he's always been around somewhere since the mid 2000s.
And for the roles where he replaces someone else it can be really off-putting like Alucard here, or in Spider-Man even though he wasn't replacing anyone; and that character gets a new voice all the time, in my head that oughta be like Josh Keaton or something but then I come out and hear god damn Ben 10. Like I've grown to accept the Spider-Man voice, cause it's it's own thing but Alucard I just... Can't

 

[Robert Newbie]

For me personally not just in games, but I've heard his voice a lot all my life. Ben 10, Naruto, multiple Persona games, grunts in a bunch of random games, Spider-Man, so on so forth. He has a really distinct voice and he doesn't have much range (or at least doesn't show it often) he's always been around somewhere since the mid 2000s.
And for the roles where he replaces someone else it can be really off-putting like Alucard here, or in Spider-Man even though he wasn't replacing anyone; and that character gets a new voice all the time, in my head that oughta be like Josh Keaton or something but then I come out and hear god damn Ben 10. Like I've grown to accept the Spider-Man voice, cause it's it's own thing but Alucard I just... Can't

Hahaha, that's understandable. In some cases, the actor (respectfully) doesn't have enough range/doesn't exercise much range, and in other cases, you've heard the voice so many times that you can identify it readily.

For example, Veronica Taylor does the exact same voice for both Ash Ketchum and the main character in Ape Escape 2. Steve Blum does have range, but he tends to default to what I call "the Spike Spiegel voice." My friends in college would tell me how Chris Sabat had excellent range, but as time went on, he started to rely on a single gruff voice. There are many examples.

Since I wasn't watching much animated stuff in the 2000's, I didn't get the full Yuri Lowenthal experience. I recognize the name most because I'm a huge fan of Persona 3. In the case of Grand Theft Auto III and Persona 3, I was bummed to see popular opinion trend towards the later entries. After all, the third entries in both of those franchises were the ones to propel the series into the public eye.

TL;DR: Castlevania!

 

[Idaten]

I don't understand why would anyone who wants to make the accurate experience of the game still opt for using the dub instead the voice acting that was recorded and directed by the creators their country and language. It makes no sense and automatically make this project not even worth checking. I'll stick with original Japanese release.

 

[LightBeam]

So I finally managed to make it work last night. Considering the loading times especially when opening the menu, I'm wondering if this is really the best version to play right now
Also couldn't open the map so I thought there was something with this version, but apparently it's just the select key that isn't mapped ...

I'll keep going I think, I've been waiting for too long for the recompilation to be done, I think I can bear with the slow menu


Oh also, the Richter sprite is different ? Why is that ? And Maria yells in japanese against the Dracula fight at the beginning, wondering if it's a bug or if it was like that in the PSX version (I can't remember)

 

[Robert Newbie]

I don't understand why would anyone who wants to make the accurate experience of the game still opt for using the dub instead the voice acting that was recorded and directed by the creators their country and language. It makes no sense and automatically make this project not even worth checking. I'll stick with original Japanese release.

In the end, it depends on the developer's intentions. If the creative vision was to mimic a theoretical Sega Saturn version's US release, then it makes sense to go with the English dub from the 90's.

I can understand both sides of this argument, but it takes time to implement any one dub. If it's as simple as replacing the audio files, it may be possible for even a novice to create an undub patch.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I don't understand why would anyone who wants to make the accurate experience of the game still opt for using the dub instead the voice acting that was recorded and directed by the creators their country and language. It makes no sense and automatically make this project not even worth checking. I'll stick with original Japanese release.

At that point why even bother with a translation at all? Just play the game in Japanese.
Not everyone likes Japanese dubbing.

 

[nine0nine]

Is there a good Sega Saturn emulator for the Switch to play this on?

theres the cotton tribute emulator, which works by injecting the saturn ISO into an official emulator for a game called Cotton.

I havnt looked into it in years but it worked for me when i tried it with Cho Iniki. This does look like the ideal candidate for the same emu, if the compatabilty is there.

 

[Lumstar]

At that point why even bother with a translation at all? Just play the game in Japanese.
Not everyone likes Japanese dubbing.

Useful details like menus and item descriptions are in Japanese.

SOTN is simply one of those games with a peculiar fanbase rift, where some folks adore one translation or the other. Regardless of accuracy to the source material (or lack thereof).

 

[NostalgicMillennial]

Mentions Yuri Lowenthal
Has Persona avatar

Persona fan detected

My understanding is that Yuri Lowenthal pops up in a bunch of Persona projects, so he's well known to the community. Since I'm not playing modern games, I have to ask: has he become overused?

I remember the 7th gen belonged to Nolan North. Even Saints Row 3 had a character voice option just for Nolan North, due to the infamy. Even now, I don't have to check any websites to know he was in Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, and Dark Void. (Wasn't he also in The Saboteur?)

Remember Steve Blum voiced every gritty jarhead inspired protagonist in military shooters?

 

[Robert Newbie]

Remember Steve Blum voiced every gritty jarhead inspired protagonist in military shooters?

I have to admit, I haven't played many military shooters in my time, but I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. For all we know, the directors may even request the same voice by default, but I cannot fault anyone for wanting to pay the bills. I can't say we as consumers suffer, since we get to have professional voice acting in our video game entertainment, but I don't think it's unfair to say "the Spike Spiegel voice" got overused.

 

[raxadian]

Does this work on Ymir?

 

[PatrickD85]

Every damn time I see anything about this game ... I wish it gets ported to current gen consoles....

 

[ShadowOne333]

Every damn time I see anything about this game ... I wish it gets ported to current gen consoles....

Makes me wonder why out of all things Castlevania they still haven't ported over the Castlevania Requiem Collection to PC and other consoles.
That thing's stuck in PlayStation, if it was available for anything else I'd purchase it without thinking, having both Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night in one package is such a wonderful thing, yet they only re-released every other Castlevania game in collections EXCEPT those two.

 

[Robert Newbie]

Makes me wonder why out of all things Castlevania they still haven't ported over the Castlevania Requiem Collection to PC and other consoles.
That thing's stuck in PlayStation, if it was available for anything else I'd purchase it without thinking, having both Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night in one package is such a wonderful thing, yet they only re-released every other Castlevania game in collections EXCEPT those two.

I did some research, and I guess Sony funded the development of the Castlevania Requiem Collection. So, there are factors that would keep Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night off other platforms. It depends on the nature of the agreement, if there are any loopholes, etc.

Don't worry, the physical version of Castlevania Requiem Collection is only valued at about $100 USD. That's $50 USD per (28+ year old) game! (Ok fine, it's $20 USD on PSN.)

TL;DR: It may be a while before the two come to competing platforms, which is a shame. Rondo of Blood always seems to end up trapped in exclusivity h*ll.

 

[PatrickD85]

Makes me wonder why out of all things Castlevania they still haven't ported over the Castlevania Requiem Collection to PC and other consoles.
That thing's stuck in PlayStation, if it was available for anything else I'd purchase it without thinking, having both Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night in one package is such a wonderful thing, yet they only re-released every other Castlevania game in collections EXCEPT those two.

Exactly, and I love those titles but have never seen them go outsight of Playstation/Sony. And why? well it might have been a deal back then... but come on ... every self respecting Castlevania fan would buy them again. It's simply put easy money....

 

[ShadowOne333]

Exactly, and I love those titles but have never seen them go outsight of Playstation/Sony. And why? well it might have been a deal back then... but come on ... every self respecting Castlevania fan would buy them again. It's simply put easy money....

What is an exclusive?!
A miserable little pile of nonsense!

 

[PatrickD85]

What is an exclusive?!
A miserable little pile of nonsense!

Nah I get it for first party titles, could not imagine Mario being on any other console for instance.
But with games with long lineage across multiple consoles ... it's just other nonsense.

 

[Samus12345]

theres the cotton tribute emulator, which works by injecting the saturn ISO into an official emulator for a game called Cotton.

I havnt looked into it in years but it worked for me when i tried it with Cho Iniki. This does look like the ideal candidate for the same emu, if the compatabilty is there.

When I played it on my Switch, the Ultimate 1.1 patch wouldn't work, but the PS1 Script 1.021 patch did, with rewind working and everything. No idea if this version would work, but I suspect not.