While Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has inspired countless Metroidvanias over the years, few have come as close to capturing the same look and feel as Konami's 1997 classic as Eternal Soul (also known as The Story of Magnadyne: Eternal Soul), an indie title currently in development at Barrier Studios.
Starring Amrita Magnadyne, the game sees you exploring the mysterious Castle Lexington. As you can see from the footage below, the game's visuals are heavily inspired by SotN – in some cases, the animation frames look like they've been lifted directly from Konami's title.
Cloned animation aside (the sprites aren't final, according to the developer), Barrier Studios has managed to replicate the atmosphere of Dracula's Castle almost perfectly – even the music calls to mind Michiru Yamane's amazing soundtrack.
Special abilities are promised, and an RPG-style levelling system is also included. In terms of combat mechanics, the player character will be able to use both a light and heavy weapon at the same time, a feature the developer says has been borrowed from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.
"Using Doppelganger to switch between them in DoS is possible, but not very intuitive IMO. It's much easier to simply have each weapon mapped to its own button," they explain.
If you'd like to keep an eye on Eternal Soul's progress, then make sure you follow Barrier Studios on Twitter.