Castlevania: Symphony of the Night harkens back to the early and great Castlevanias of the old NES, but with vastly updated graphics, gameplay, and even ambiance.  Sure, it's still a 2-D scroller where you roam around and jump around on platforms and what not, but it's at the top of the heap.  The game starts somewhat oddly with you as a vampire hunter facing off against Dracula in a fairly wacky fight that always reminds me of a pro wrestling match.  You beat Dracula, at which point time warps ahead and you switch to Alucard, Dracula's remorseful son (spell Alucard backwards..yah, clever) who brings the fight to Dracula's vast and labyrinthe castle in an effort to do away with his evil sire for all time.  At first I was put off by what I thought was a bizarre and inelegant introduction (the human vampire hunter is a character from one of the mediocre middle Castlevania games, and is very unwieldy) but it turns out the manner in which you use him to defeat Dracula "historically" in the plot affects Alucard's starting abilities.  Meaning if you beat up on Drakula with magic, Alucard later favors magic.  Ditto for melee combat.