Retro Binge: Super Castlevania IV

Ah, Castlevania. For those of patience and skill. If you don't meet these requirements, you are surely to be enraged and throw your controller through the 16 inch TV.

The story is sufficent enough, nothing compared to other SNES games, but it suffices enough, as you won't be concentrating on such things we take for granted today. You are here to beat down Dracula, and you are doing it as fast as you can.In a way, it is a remake of the original Castlevania from the NES, just with improvements and a complete make over.

Castlevania is known for its difficulty, and its nuisences.For example, the original Castlevania trilogy, when the player was hit, he would fly backwards, and usually into a pit; resulting in death. This little punch in the balls, was slightly fixed by three, with platforms being cleverly placed within a level, to prevent death- this carries over to Four, but the whole thing should have been removed. It isn't game breaking, but it is incredibly annoying.

If you do die, you are sent back to the start of that particular screen, no shits and giggles in this game. If you die, you are going through hell to get to where you have been. You will also lose the metal and more powerful whip, and have to recover it again before you can start kicking demon ass properly. This isn't hard though, with the classic Castlevania candles littering the stages, even the outside areas, leave power-ups, and usually subtle upgrades for the whip. Whether it be making it a metal or even longer whip. Among the other power-ups, which consist of: holy water; the cross; knives and axes, hearts will fall from the candles. These do not replenish life, but infact are your ammunition for the weapons you aquire. When you die, you lose all the hearts you collected and restart with five. Again, no shits and giggles. If you don't concentrate, you are going to be cussing like a fishwife.

While on the subject of weapons, the whip has now been given a feature of eight way movement. This makes it the most advanced whip out of the entire series; it was dropped for later 2D Castlevanias, in which Simon Belmont was involved.


The game requires you to have utter control over Simon Belmont, pure concentration and the ability to time jumps and whip lashes together to bring down enemies. Failing to do so, will result in death. And once again, brought to that dreaded remastered 8-bit death tune. But with the games utterly tight controls, you shan't fail because of the game, but because of your own skill.

For a game that tried to distill a slight horror tinge on the gamers of yesteryear, once you leave the start screen and it's chilling music, it becomes more scary for the game's uncanny ability to turn you into a raging monster yourself. The monsters in the game are incredibly unfair if they get the advantage on you. The easier enemies- such as skeletons- are not so much of a hassle one on one, but when three decide to gang up on you, you better be able to be quick on your feet. Flying enemies are incredibly annoying, and over powered. Bats shouldn't be able to destroy such a powerful man, and the Madusa heads hadn't been given a correct pattern. The stronger looking enemies are a complete piss take now. With Simon's whip, you can let it hang loose by holding the attack button. This gives you an incredibly unfair advantage over them - I'm not one to complain but I found some enemies a little too easy. Knights in the first Castlevania were the one of the most feared to the 8-bit gamer. 9 hits with the whip and almost impossible to hit without getting touched. But in IV, you have this loose spin with the whip, meaning a less powerful hit, but if you can find a ledge in which the knight cannot reach you, it'll be dead in no time. This was amusing to me. How much we have progressed with AI. Now a days, the enemy would clamber to you and destroy you if you camped, but in this, it cannot leave it's path.

The levels are cleverly designed and much fun to plough through. The whip is one of the most fun weapons I have used in a while, and the enemies are imaginitive and downright hard to defeat at times. Leaving this game was hard for me, and after beating down Dracula, I went through it all over again. Todays games do not do this as often as they should, with replayability litterally due to achievments.

Fuck achievments.