Super Castlevania IV

The Good
In this fourth installment of Konami's Castlevania series, the first for the Super NES (With the first three being for the NES which I haven't played) you play the role of Simon Belmont who comes from a family of vampire slayers who have passed down the knowledge from generation to generation and swore to keep the evil powers of Dracula from taking hold through the centuries. Every 100 years Dracula mysteriously regains his power and must be vanquished. This game is actually a remake of the first Castlevania released on the NES but at the same time is very different from the original.

Released in 1991, Super Castlevania IV is a visually stunning and musically historical 2D platform action game even to this day. It showcased the many graphical capabilities of the new Super NES with parallax scrolling, Mode-7 effects such as rotating and spinning rooms that were so convincing it gave some players motion sickness, and some level bosses that were as large as the screen! The graphics are extremely detailed and remains some of the best seen on the Super NES. The music in the game remains one of the best Castlevania soundtracks to this day and does very well in setting the eerie horror driven atmosphere of the game. Sound effects are well done from the sounds of bricks cracking, bones bursting or wolves howling, they're very well done and highly utilize the stereo functionality of the Super NES. Speaking of atmosphere, this game has plenty of it for your enjoyment. The combination of the creepy background graphics and colour palette and mesmerizingly haunting soundtrack and sound effects suck you in and edge you on until you finally vanquish the irrepressible Dracula.

Gameplay-wise it is very fluid and Simon can now whip in 8 directions (The first and only game in the series to date that features this). You also can collect sub-weapons throughout the game such as the axe, boomerang, fire bomb, knife or stop watch which freezes time. You collect hearts throughout the game which are stored in candles which you must whip in order to release them. Each time you use a sub-weapon, it depletes some of your hearts (Separate from your health meter). Difficulty is moderate with the game being enjoyable with the first few levels being relatively easy with progressing difficulty. Some higher levels can get a bit tedious but the atmosphere of the game makes you want to keep going to see more of it in the levels to come.

As far as replayability goes, you are able to play the game on a harder difficulty once you beat it and while you may not want to play it again right away, you can record your password and come back to it in a few weeks to enjoy all over again. This game has no battery-backed memory, so it uses the mentioned password continue system to allow you to continue your game later where you left off.

The Bad
There are times when the game has noticeable slow-down especially when there are many enemies on the screen or when you whip a couple of skeletons and all of their bones go flying around the screen. It can be annoying at times but rarely would cause you to lose a life.

Other than that, I can't think of much else I disliked about this game.

The Bottom Line
This is an example of a Castlevania game at it's finest. A 2D action side-scrolling platformer where your quest to kill Dracula, while not an overly original plot, makes for a delicious gameplay experience which is highly addictive. Definitely a classic. If you have a Super NES it is well worth checking out. Many hours of haunting enjoyment await you.

The Good
The mark of a genuinely great game, is one that can capture your imagination, and truely bring an atmosphere of other-worldlyness through the screen. This game did just that. The visuals are a vast improvement on the 8-bit versions of this classic series, as you would expect from Nintendo's new 16-bit box-of-tricks. The visual style is very gloomy and pixellated, which contrasts heavily with the clear, cartoon-style graphics of most games of the time. Despite this, though, the significant gameplay elements on the screen are normally clearly visible. The enemies are generally very impressive-looking, and read like a who's-who of cliqued Transylvania-based characters. Ranging from the plentiful skelitons, to the heavily-armoured undead knights, and very impressive bosses, the spites are all very well drawn and animated. While Simon himself strolls across the screen with the self-assurance and arrogance that you come to expect from a member of the Belmont family. As for the level with the swinging chandaliers, well that, at the time, really had to be seen to be believed. Also, along with F-Zero and Super Star Wars, this was one of the first games the make use of the Super Nintendo's new 'Mode 7' capabilities, which allowed game worlds to rotate round an axis. It's impossible to discuss the qualities of this game without paying homage to the soundtrack. It still stands out as one of the best ever, even when compared to wonderful audio present in more modern classics like Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy and, of course, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Gloomy, dark tracks add atmosphere to the more sedate levels, while the frantic all-action levels are played out to some brilliant fast beating music, which really contributes the feeling of danger. The gameplay is typically Castlevania. Simon Belmont has his trusted whip, which can be slashed in 8 different directions. Special tricks with the whips also include a slingshot-style spin attack, and, best of all, the ability to snap the whip onto a hook, and swing vast distances Tarzan-style. Because of the versatility and flexibility of Simon's whip, the extra weapons don't play as big a role as they do in the sequal, Dracula X. Throwing knives are useful for taking out enemies from distance, and the clock, which freezes all on screen enemies, has occasional uses. Generally, though, the trusted whip is all you need to progress. A general trend in Castlevania games is for them to be very difficult, and extremely frustrating, at times. This game, though, has the best difficulty curve of the whole series. It is truely challenging, without ever seeming unfair. The enemies are generally beatable, but health recovery items are rare. The bosses range from being very easy early-on, to being pretty tough towards the end of the game, but never seem unbeatable. Like most of the early Castlevania games, most lives will be lost through falling off platforms, or, to a greater extent, being knocked off by an enemy of some description. Again, though, this doesn't happen with sufficient frequency to make the game seem grossly unfair (unlike Dracula X, which truely is an unfair game).

The Bad
It's hard to think of much to say against this game. The password system, which consists of putting different items in a grid, was annoying. But this is a pretty trivial complaint. I think the main sticking-point is over the hero's ability to jump (not an insignificant factor in a platform game). From the evidence of this game, and many others in the Castlevania series, the Belmont family members all seem to inherit the ability to jump like artheritic rhinos. The character feels heavy in the air, and cannot re-adjust once he's taken off. Furthermore, some gaps seem to be further than he's capable of jumping (normally the ones over spikes and bottom-less pits), which can lead to some frustrating moments. Also, there are issues with the responsiveness of the character when you press to jump. This again is a pretty minor complaint of the straw-clutching variety (although try telling that to someone who's just seen Simon walk of the platform to his doom, despite his efforts to make him do otherwise....).

The Bottom Line
A true 16-bit classic, and a game that remains extremely playable to this day. Blessed with some of the greatest visual effects of the time, and one of best soundtracks ever made, this game was brilliantly atmospheric, and brought weird and wonderful fictional world of Transylvania to life.

The Good
If you've ever wondered what thrashing an un-dead Count with a long, flexible chain feels like, then maybe this game is for you. In the grand tradition of Bram Stoker's horror classic, Simon Belmont takes it upon himself to rid his world of these unspeakable evils - an un-dead army full of ghouls, zombies, living skeletons, knights and all other kinds of graveyard trash.

So, as an action-adventure game, you move through (mostly) two-dimensional levels that challenge you to jump precisely, avoid attacks, and kill at will with the aforementioned whip/chain. You’re a 16-bit Van Helsing, and the body-count at the end of this game is phenomenal, but, unlike your Contra or your other action games, you feel less sympathy for these Lovecraftian abominations as they either explode in a burst of femurs and ribs, or simply implode, as if returning to the purgatory they were delivered from.

Throughout the game, Simon swings and whips his way among many locales - it's a tour of the unspeakable realms of evil. Broken and crumbling facades, wrought-iron bent and rusted, slime-dripping caverns and even a treasure-trove littered with golden monies and treasures, (a demented take on Scrooge McDuck's vault?!). The count really has quite a fun park for you to get through here, and the constantly changing areas are logged on a pre-level Mode 7 style map - unfortunately, this is a pre-determined course that you and Simon must traverse. And the count draws ever closer!

As this is quite an early release for this system, you can see that this is a more traditional platform-style game, understandably in the tradition of the NES Castlevania titles. Everything has been updated from these 8-bit entries, and overall the Super alluded to in the title is a promise that is kept. Animations are simple but effective, sprites are well-drawn and coloured, and the enemies are varied and truly aggressive, (who would of thought a simple bat would pose such a threat?!)

Does the game play match the vision? In a short answer, it does. Simon does controls stiffly, but it seems right somehow. He walks, never runs, and has a moderate jump that seems quite plausible. His whipping motion has a far enough reach, but takes that little moment of time to fully unleash - again this has a realistic touch. But, you will get frustrated somewhere along the way, for Castlevania has that unique phenomenon that video games posses - that in which when you fall from the screen view, you die inexplicably. Add to this the violent lunging Simon undergoes when struck by a foe (even of a light-weight bat!), and you'll find yourself dropping off whichever tiny platform you were perilously clinging to.

Castlevania must have set a precedent for the role of end-of-level enemies in games. The boss fights in this game, although not always challenging, are still epic in their vision. It's like a who's who of evil mythology - a veritable Necronomicon of the gaming world. Of course, I cannot name them all here, but I will say that the Count himself is rivalled in his horrendousness by many of his cronies. And an appearance by the scythe-wielding, black-robed Death is but one of the despicable characters Simon must challenge - whip in hand.

The Bad
One thing bothered me though. I find the colour-scheme used for several of the levels thoroughly un-scary. A terrible mix of mini-golf turf green and a heightened dog-crap brown in some of the earlier levels undermines the brilliant score and artistic sprite qualities. Thankfully, these levels disappear fairly quickly, and we begin to explore the darker, moodier and repugnant regions in coming levels. Simon, on his lonely and loathsome quest, is thrown into cracking dark grey stairwells, Atlantis-like columns blasted with underground cascades, and neglected Victorian mansions, complete with chandeliers and long echoing halls. It's creepy.

And, for whatever reason, the game has a mysterious element that has given it a long life. The silence of Belmont (he never utters a word, nor is one ever subtitled), the unexplained route we're taken on, and the lack of human beings (other than Simon himself) add to the isolation greatly. This point however, is a matter of taste.

The Bottom Line
I think Castlevania's success is due to it's cohesion in the development stages - something that seems to be lacking in modern games. When the credits role, you can't help but notice that some names repeat, and this got me thinking. When a talented and dedicated team of developers and programmers stick to a vision, and set sensible limits to their goals, they can't help but succeed in making something meaningful. Modern games have taken an almost Hollywood-style role in their production, with massive departmental and divisional staff working on fragments of the finished product. To my mind, this waters-down the core elements of the production.

The question I have is this: would such a small team of today, working on a severely limited platform as the SNES be able to create such a future-proof title as Castlevania? I'm not so sure.