#30: Super Castlevania IV

Where are Super Castlevanias I, II, and III?

I was looking forward to playing this game though I didn't remember anything about it from my youth. Mostly I remember how awesome some of the later Castlevania games were (like Symphony of the Night) and was looking forward to putting a lot of time in on this. I started playing Friday evening with every intention of playing it a lot on Friday and a lot on Saturday.

Nice '3d' touch with the passable gate.

Unfortunately I didn't need nearly that long. I made it through most of 3 levels and then got stuck falling into bottomless pits and gave up. Maybe it's that I was sick when I was playing it so may not have had top reflexes or sufficient patience but I just got really frustrated with how far back the last checkpoint was. Eventually I ended up falling into other bottomless pits on the way to the one I was stuck on. With my skills degrading I decided to give up.

WHEEEE!

That said, Super Castlevania IV had some interesting gameplay twists that I liked. I love being able to hook my whip onto these little ring things and swing around. Makes me think I'm Indiana Jones! The gates were nice. Crumbling blocks over pits are a staple of the platformer genre around this time and it was nice that they respawned if you walked away from the screen and back again. They put some serious work into making neat graphics as well. The wooden bridge in the below screenshot has the wooden planks move down when your weight is on them, and if you jump up you wiggle the rope handrail.

There were also plenty of downsides. I had no clue who my character was. I had no clue what he was doing. I assume since it's a Castlevania game that I'm some sort of Belmont out to kill Dracula but some sort of cutscene or plot development or text of any kind on the level intro screens would have been nice. As far as I could tell I was playing a spooky but mediocre platformer. Honestly, platformerwise it felt pretty comparable to ActRaiser. A jump button, an attack button, a cast a spell button. Orbs to hit for points/health nodules. Bosses with easy to learn patterns. ActRaiser had a whole other game beside the platformer though, and Castlevania does not. I feel like it's better than Home Alone, though, and I suspect if I was a little better at one jump that I'd have enjoyed the game a lot more. The spooky music was definitely a plus as well.

Rating: A-