This Week In Retro: Super Castlevania IV (Patreon)

October 31, 1991: Crack that whip...wiggly whip!

by Diamond Feit

Why a whip?

There is no shortage of stories about vampires, and all of them have their own guidelines on what does and does not destroy these creatures who consume human blood to survive. A wooden stake to the heart is a common method of slaying vampires, as is decapitation, but depending on the author their weaknesses can also include holy symbols, silver, garlic, and of course sunlight.

Yet the Castlevania series began with a hero who wields a whip as his primary weapon against the forces of darkness. Later games create a legendary legacy for the Belmont family heirloom, but in the initial run Simon and Trevor are clearly just cracking a leather whip. Each game includes its own upgrade system wherein the whip transforms into a bigger, better weapon—most notably in Castlevania II where Simon can straight up buy better equipment. Who needs ancestral hand-me-downs when you can purchase a morning star and then light it on fire?

30 years ago today, on Halloween 1991, Castlevania leapt into the 16-bit era and the star of the game is Simon Belmont's whip. Yes, there are all-new graphics and sounds, but the biggest change in this entry of the series is a complete overhaul for the so-called Vampire Killer. In the previous Castlevania games, regardless of which Belmont held the whip, their attacks were slow and had a finite, horizontal hitbox. It's why choosing the right subweapon is so important, as many boss battles come down to offensive speed and reach.

In this new adventure, a remake of the original 1986 Famicom game, Simon takes a new, much more flexible approach to fighting Count Dracula and his minions. His trusty whip is still his primary weapon, but he can now crack it in eight cardinal directions. Better still, he can continue to manipulate the whip after the initial swing and loosely flail it to his heart's content. A limp whip doesn't pack the same punch as a fully-cracked whip, but even in its flaccid state the Vampire Killer deals contact damage to enemies and can block many small projectiles.

In addition to his newfound whip dexterity, Simon himself is also more mobile than ever before. Instead of a fixed jump, he can now change direction while airborne, and even leap onto a staircase (though not off of one). His whip now enables him to swing from select grappling points, affording him even more aerial agility. On the ground, Simon can shuffle while in crouched position, a necessary maneuver to enter certain tight spaces in Dracula's castle.

With these new and improved movement and offensive skills, Castlevania's first 16-bit outing controls like a dream compared to the earlier games. Even if Simon is not any faster than before, still marching forward at a pace best described as "determined," he is capable of doing so much more that the game feels smoother. It is now possible to hit most candles without jumping at all, making item collection a faster experience. Similarly, Simon's new angled attacks allow him to strike enemies without stopping, a godsend when leaping between precarious positions or when fleeing another threat.

These improvements are in large part due to the new technology the Super Nintendo offered developers, particularly when it came to on-screen sprites. The NES had a hard limit to the number of graphical elements that could be visible at one time, which is why the action in certain games would slow down and the visuals flickered in and out of existence. The SNES far exceeded those limits, enabling the team at Konami to give Simon a whip made up of individual segments rather than a single, rigid line. Enemies likewise could contain multiple bits and pieces to their bodies, allowing skeletons and other fragile creatures to explode when destroyed.

The SNES also excelled at sprite manipulation, opening the door to spinning and scaling graphics the likes of which had never been seen before. Simon's wiggling whip stands as just one subtle example of this, as both his weapon and his arm can freely move in any direction. Yet Castlevania has never settled for "subtle," so the fourth level of the game features an entire room that rotates while Simon clings to a grappling hook for his life. The very next screen sets Simon inside a tube-like corridor with a spinning background full of spring-loaded skeletons who burst forth and block his path—a path that is slowly falling apart as he progresses. It's dizzying, it's dazzling, and there's no way it makes any physical sense. It's like the man will say a few years from now: "This castle is a creature of chaos."

The graphical enhancements are a welcome upgrade, but what makes this game stick with me three decades later is its soundtrack. Composers Masanori Adachi and Taro Kudo crafted an atmospheric score that's less about short hooks as it is on setting the mood. Just as the SNES hardware allowed for more impressive visuals, the ability to use samples gives the music a multitude of different "voices." Players will hear plenty of percussion instruments, but there are also strings and organs and pianos mixed in as well. Tempos vary from subdued uneasiness to rousingly tense as the final battle approaches. There are even a few covers of themes from Castlevania I and II, cementing a pattern going forward that future games would consistently revisit past hits.

Today, this first 16-bit Castlevania soundtrack is lauded as one of the series' best, but that wasn't always the case. In a 2017 interview, Adachi told VGMonline.net "at the time the reception to the soundtrack had been extremely negative." Adachi said he even got harsh notes before the game was complete, but he kept making the kind of music he felt was best. "I was grateful that the people who were in charge of making decisions let me keep creating whatever I wanted to the very end," he said. The fans' rejection of the soundtrack hit him harder, however, saying "I lost a lot of my self-confidence." Keep that in mind the next time you question yourself: Even the most skilled creators experience self-doubt, and sometimes their best work can be underappreciated.

Speaking of underappreciation, Castlevania has never been a huge seller, and there is little evidence to suggest this 16-bit overhaul changed that paradigm. I was a latecomer to the Super Nintendo and I can clearly recall discovering this cartridge in the bargain bin, a lucky find for me but not a sign that this game got the love it deserved. Even today, with more people than ever pledging themselves fans of the series, this entry tends to sink beneath the beloved games that preceded it (such as Castlevania III) or followed it (the one-two combination of Rondo of Blood & Symphony of the Night).

I can see why some fans of the series wouldn't want to revisit this one. Simon's body takes up a lot of real estate on the screen, making him a big target. The colors aren't as vibrant as other games in this series, with lots of browns and grays smudged together that, while thematically appropriate for a rotting castle, don't make for an appealing visual feast. Even the showcase feature of the fantastically flailable whip has its detractors, as the massive upgrade in reach makes Simon's subweapons a lot less important. There's no point to grabbing a throwing knife or an axe when one whip strike covers at least two-thirds of the screen.

There's also a nagging sense that this story has just been done before, a problem directly tied to how this game was localized. Since Konami intended this as a remake of the original Castlevania, its Japanese title is the same as that first game: Akumajō Dracula. Yet in English, it is branded Super Castlevania IV, painting it as a sequel even though it's a retelling of Simon's original defeat of Dracula, the one that necessitated an entire follow-up quest to save his soul. Even teenage me, a kid who had no problem with Marvel Comics' heroes and villains fighting the same battles for decades, thought that was weird.

While I certainly have a stronger fondness for the exploration-heavy Castlevania games that would follow this highly linear retread of familiar material, I'm still a huge fan of Super Castlevania IV. I played that bargain big copy of mine over and over until I sold my SNES for a next-generation console, and when I picked up the SNES Classic it was the first game I played to completion. Unlike Castlevania I or III, IV is entirely beatable without cheating or laborious practice, even if the final battle underwhelms. It's the only Castlevania game I can think of where Dracula never changes form or summons any allies; he just attacks how you'd expect him to and dies when he's had enough.

This Halloween, if you're itching to fight a vampire with a holy wet noodle, I highly recommend Super Castlevania IV. It's widely available, controls well, and that soundtrack truly shines even compared to other games in its series. You don't have to agree with me and Nadia Oxford that it deserves an S-tier rating, but I insist that it's well worth enjoying three decades later.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.