Game:

Super Castlevania IV (1991)

Category:

Review

Duration: 11:57

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3

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They say that hard blokes are just like that pensioner who lives down your steeet He gets up of a morning, downs ten pints of Guinness, falls asleep in front of Countdown and often pops back up for a wee while every 6 years. I mean think about it we have Grant Mitchell with his highly honed Shakespearean thespian lilt, Mick let’s come third in a body building contest and humiliate my son leo Johnson in Brookside and of course the greatest hard man to have ever lived Jim McDonald. Think about it this guy returns to the cobbles of weatherfield every 6 or 7 years and has one agenda to reunite with Liz and to reignite the hearts of the British public with his infectious irish brogue Oh yes the memories! Whether it was Jim duffing up Jez Quigly or telling his 40 year old sons constantly to get to school or even throwing Liz out the car after she had been playing spot the submarine with the Barnes Brothers. To me there’s no one harder.

Someone else who constantly keeps coming back for more is undead bloke Dracula who every 100 years rises from the ashes to reclaim unpaid royalties and bite some more birds. Unluckily for him Emmerdale extra and part time Gloria Estefan dancer limp wristed bloke Simon Belmont, has been tasked with storming through Transylvania, fighting the many demonic creatures that have been lifted from The Hammer House of Horror, Neighbours and that bloke you know from Wolverhampton and must put Drac back in his coffin for another 100 years or until the Rolling Stones finally retire!

Yes indeed, Super Castle Vania 4 is a drastic reimagining of the very first NES game which not only adds some super cool graphical enhancements, moves, bosses and traps but also is a showcase for what the SNES is actually capable of. Whilst Sega boasts its blast processing with its Sonic The Hedgehog library, Super Nintendo has Mode 7 which can rotate entire levels, shrink or enlarge enemies and create some stupendous effects like Simon jumping across multiple giant chandeliers, or this room here which gives the illusion of rotating. It sounds cool, it looks cool and it’s a technical masterclass on how early utilisation of the SNES led to some incredibly huuugeee launch titles and I feel that Castlevania 4 along with Super Mario World and PilotWings were indeed the benchmark for how developers would later learn how to enhance their games even more as the SNES library for bigger and ballsier Graphically those blokes and birds at Konami have made every environment memorable and alive with all manner of flora and fauna and horror set pieces and they have carefully shaped the adventure to be just that wee bit epic by having Simon start off whipping his way through the neighbours gardens and the countryside before he gets to Dracs gaff just off the M6. There’s a real sense of adventure and purpose and each stage just gets bigger and more grandiose. Enemy sprites are varied and detailed and whipping them all is fun and simple, and Simon looks and moves a lot quicker this time around. So, the stiffness from the previous games is pretty much gone with jumping now being much improved and Simon now can whip in any direction which looks superb. The backgrounds accompanying the levels are packed full of detail and it’s a real visual treat for the eyes. No two stages look or even play alike, and I loved how early on Super castle Vania just throws in this cool little detail allowing Simon to go behind or in front of the scenery, which was almost like a wee nod to Super Mario World! You will be whipping through caves, moss ridden areas, waterfalls, halls full of spectres and a treasure level which made me want to dive in like Scrooge McDuck. Whats great here is that the style is extremely of a high standard with bold bombastic stages and a lot of variety. I have to say that it is completely unlike any other game I have ever played. Konami have cleverly thought through the Cast of giant boss blokes that you’ll face also. You’ll be fighting everything from a psychotic skeleton, to a knight who reminds me so much of Arthur from Ghosts and Goblins and even a 2 headed hydra to name but a few. They all look like they could have come out Ray Harryhausen’s studio and the attack patterns are just so cleverly precise and intimidating constantly putting the player on edge with the will I beat them this time mentality? These battles are chocked full of adrenaline and there’s no greater feeling than just beating one of these bad boys by the skin of your teeth.

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