One of the most important things about Castlevania is level design, and how the character interacts with it. In previous games in the series, the Belmont clan have been...rather normal-sized. Not tiny sprites on the screen, not super tall. They fit the world they inhabited, and the game is well-designed around them.


See? He fits. Simon in the SNES game though? He's HUGE.


It's not just Simon that's big now. Even the enemies are huge now. They crowd the screen, totally taking up a lot of real-estate on everyone's 4:3 TV sets back in the day. It makes hitting enemies far easier since there is less space to move around. Enemy placement isn't as important this time because...nothing is too far from Simon's whipping wrath. Also feels more cramped than normal.

Cramped!
Not so cramped.
Simon's about the same size as Frankenstein's Monster. WHAT.

You know what another bummer thing is? And this is totally my hang up, so I don't blame anyone for not feeling the same way, but...you only get to play as one character in this game. In Castlevania III, you could team up with other characters. A ghost-pirate. A magic-casting vampire hunter. Dracula's freakin' son! All offered different ways to play, had different abilities and weapons.

This game? You get this guy.


That's it. A guy and his whip. Enjoy.

When the SNES hit the market, it had some of the best, if not THE best graphics for home consoles. Tons of colors could flood the screen. Parallax scrolling added depth to the environments. Fog and clouds could be transparent, not just solid colors. And the SNES's ace-in-the-hole? MODE-7, baby!

This graphical trick enabled games to have 3D effects. Rotating, spinning, growing and shrinking sprites were a thing to behold back in the day. Some games, like F-Zero and Pilotwings used this effect to create new IPs, new ways to play. Super Castlevania IV also uses this effect, but not always in the best way.

The map screen zooming in was nice. Added some "whiz-bang" to what would normally be a static image of your route to Dracula's throne room. But then you get stuff like this:


This is fairly early on in the game, but you come to a room with a hook in the middle. So you whip your over-powered super-weapon onto it, and....you just hang there. For like, 30 seconds. No enemies come to attack you. No dangers to avoid. You just sit there idly while the room ssssslllllloooooowwwwwwllllllyyyyyy spins around. And you do nothing.

Is it a neat effect? Sure, maybe. At the time. Is it fun? Nah. Waste of time? Pretty much.

There was also this weird thing in the very beginning of the game, during your approach to Castle Dracula's interior. As you walked past the drawbridge, there was this huge, iron gate that rose up in the background. And during certain (seemingly random) parts, you'll come to a door at the gate that you can have Simon walk through, to the other side.

For no apparent reason. I mean sure, there's a giant pit there that you wouldn't be able to cross if you didn't go to the other side of the gate...but that's more of a conceit for the game. Nothing really changes on the other side of the gate. The game plays exactly as it did before, except now you have these weird iron bars kinda/sorta obscuring your view of the action. What's the point? Why not just NOT have a hole there, developers? It's not like going on the other side of the gate did anything useful.


Maybe it was just to show that it was something they could do? I remember it being kind of a big deal that Mario could climb on a chain-link fence in Super Mario World, so maybe the fact that a sprite can be partially seen behind another one was...impressive back in the day?

But the thing is, at least in Nintendo's game, when Mario climbed a fence, it actually affected your gameplay style. You could climb around enemies on the fence, or punch them off if they were climbing on the other side. You could use the fence to reach higher areas. Or lower ones. You could avoid certain enemies by getting to a flip panel and going to the other side yourself. They did a lot with the idea. Konami? Not so much.

Heck, Nintendo even put more effort into the simple act of going to the other side of the fence. Mario would punch the flip panel, and you could see him rotate around to the other side. When Simon goes to the other side of the iron gate? The gate animation shows the door opening (on it's own, apparently) and then Simon's sprite "pops" to the other side, with only the grass around his feet being an indicator that he moved from one "plane" to the other.

And what's worse? This idea was never revisited later in the game. I'd forgive it if they were just showing you something early in the game as a mechanic you'd use later to greater effect...but this idea never comes back. It's just some weird one-off and...that's it. Done.

Seriously, so strange. What's the point?

Here's another odd...um, oddity. The NES Castlevania games are some of the most expertly crafted pieces of software on the system. Each of them are devoid of simple, easy to accidentally activate game-breaking glitches, feature some top-notch graphics, and all run incredibly well on the 8-bit hardware. Very rare is it that you ever run into "flicker" or "slow down" which was pretty common for many games back then.

We were all pretty much expecting the exact same level of polish for the SNES sequel. And we didn't really get it. There is a really cool-looking corridor you go through after the weirdly boring rotating room. But with all the cool effects going on in the background, it takes a toll on the frame rate.

This place.
Everytime an enemy or two gets on screen, the action gets a little jumpy. And when an enemy is destroyed and the pieces go flying every which way? Forget about it.

There's also this enemy in the cavers that splits into smaller versions of itself each time you hit it. Which sounds threatening, but really it's just annoying. Because not only do these guys not doing anything different with each successive hit, they also nearly bring the SNES to its knees.

These jerks.
So these slow-moving, boring, damage-sponge guys bring the FPS down to like, 10 each time you encounter them during the stage. Lame.

Hey, you know what else is lame? And kind of weird? Simon's ability to attach his whip to hooks and swing from them. It sounds cool on paper, but it's ultimately kind of pointless. Castlevania is an action game, but also a platformer. In which you jump from platform to platform, and the challenge is created from your character's ability to jump, and the player's ability to judge said jump from a certain virtual distance and execute a safe landing on the next platform. So what does Super Castlevania IV do? Not only did it already throw out the jumping mechanics of the first games, but it also nearly threw out jumping altogether by letting Simon easily swing from one point to another.

Oh God, how would I ever have been able to traverse this pit without this hook? Besides with my inhuman jumping ability?!?
It's not even that the swinging thing is hard, either. You just hit it with your whip like you would anything else, and then jump off when it's safe. Where's the challenge in that? Bah.

The music is good. Don't get me wrong. But not nearly as hummable or memorable as the NES stuff. Or even the stuff after it.

Could just be my opinion, but....yeah. To me, it's just background filler.

Another case of "it's only my opinion" but...were any of these bosses really difficult for anyone? The "fake-out" of the first boss was kind of novel, but none of them were a real threat, IMO.

The original game on NES had "that one boss" that I think anyone that has played that game knows what I'm talking about. The SNES game? Not so much.

You might as well just watch Egoraptor's "Sequelitis" video. He covers it pretty well. I may edit it in later. And I have:


Okay, it may not look powerful HERE, but trust me, it's a force to be reckoned with.

Refer to Egoraptor's video. Again.

This is probably the most disappointing part. Confrontations with Dracula usually always end with epic final battles, with a Belmont versus a giant demon from Hell. It's kind of a staple of the franchise.

Not to spoil anything for the SNES game, but if you're expecting some huge battle at the end of this game, with a really awesome-looking, graphically impressive final boss? You're gonna be disappointed.

Just like I was.