I did not grow up a Castlevania fan. My first experience
with the series was the much maligned Castlevania 64 I also played Circle of
sorrow and legacy of darkness. So
sufficed to say I have no nostalgia for the Nes and Super Nintendo eras of Castlevania.
So when I decided to start playing Castlevania again in anticipation of the new
Netflix series I decided to start with Super Castlevania 4 in hopes it would
have some of the story elements I was used to. It did not, though it was a
worthwhile game.
Castlevania IV is a
remake of the classic Castlevania for the Super Nintendo. As Simon Belmont you must defeat the newly
resurrected Dracula. That’s pretty much it as far as story goes. You whip your
way through multiple levels with increasing difficulty, culminating in the
painful fight against Dracula.
The level design here is fast paced, yet if you hurry too
much you’ll walk right into several death traps. If you’re good and know what
to do you’re in for some fast paced, fun gaming. If you don’t know what to do,
or aren’t good at it, you will die over and over again until you are good
enough or get lucky. This game is brutal, and might quickly frustrate gamers
who did not grow up in an era where this was the norm. In fact it will frustrate many people who did grow up in that time. The game isn’t cheap.
The controls are responsive; it doesn’t glitch out and screw you over with bad
programing. Everything about the game
feels rights. And when you finally clear a level there is a feeling of
satisfaction not common in gameplay today.
The graphics suffer on the 3DS vs the big screen the details
do not stand out and many things do not pop in the same way, but otherwise they
are good. However I feel with the exception of a few
levels, the game fails to capture the atmosphere I desired. When I play a game about the undead I expect it to evoke certain
feelings, dark, brooding, a little creepy. Dialogue can help with this, but
perhaps more important are music and art choices, and most of the time I just
didn’t feel it.
Castlevania must have been amazing when it came out in 91. Parts
of this game are amazing. The controls, the graphics, the boss fights, these
things were on point. The generation of gamers weaned on the Nes expected hard
game play, and they got that in spades. But
with age these things seem less amazing, and the lack of proper atmospheres and
the sometimes frustratingly hard gameplay distract from the experience.
-Gedaemon
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