If you ever had the privilege of playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the original PlayStation, then you understand why so many people consider the game the greatest of the Castlevania series (Sorry Rondo fans, but I'm a SoTN supporter). You may also have been worried that Microsoft was going to force Konami to butcher the title in order for it to bring it within the 50mb Xbox Live Arcade limit - well, worry no more.
Gamespot is reporting that Microsoft has announced that they will be making an exception for Symphony of the Night - and it may not be the only title getting that kind of treatment;
"Even though Symphony of the Night will exceed the size limit, Canessa indicated that there is still a 50MB cap on Live Arcade games, although Microsoft is willing to make exceptions to the rule. "If any games do exceed 50 MB, it's for a very specific reason that would ensure that the gameplay experience is the best it can be," Canessa said.
Microsoft is willing to look the other way on Symphony of the Night, and according to Canessa, it won't be the last of its kind on Live Arcade.
"Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of the most popular games of all time, and you can [bet] that you'll see similar high-quality games come to Xbox Live Arcade in the future," Canessa said. " - Gamespot article summarizing a conversation with Greg Canessa, Microsoft's group manager for Xbox Live Arcade
Seeing how the original PlayStation version of the game was approximately 300mb, this is good news indeed. If you're worried about just how much space Symphony is going to take up, you may want to try seeing if the the "XBLA burn to DVD" method we mentioned a few months back will work with this one.
According to Kotaku, Symphony of the Night will be hitting the Xbox Live Arcade on February 10th, 2007.
Check out the Gamespot article here for more details on Gamespot's conversation with Greg Canessa, here for the Kotaku post indicating the game's release date and here for our earlier post on how to play Xbox Live Arcade titles you've purchased off a CD or DVD.
