Castlevania Collection

[Wolf Kanno]

Well Super Castlevania IV has a similar difficulty curve as Kid Dracula. Starting off pathetically easy and then get a massive difficulty spike within the last few levels. The Clock Tower level was a pain, which is traditional of the franchise. While not the worse example, I do feel they did a good job bringing back the Mummy boss from the NES era and making his fight a bit more challenging. You fight him on the clock face and his real method of attack is simply knocking you off it rather than just wiping out your health.

The final level was a doozy as it was basically a boss gauntlet with the series introduction of Slogra and Gaibon. Gaibon wasn't too bad thanks to the whips ability to finally hit targets above Simon, but Slogra was a nightmare. He's basically a Dragoon with a very generous invincibility frames. He basically comes crashing down the ceiling and if you hit him, he jumps off screen again and tries to dragoon jump you again. The only difference after the first hit is that once he lands this time, he's immune to all damage for a few seconds which gives him plenty of time to take cheap shots at you until it wears off and the whole process starts over. Staying ducked down helps, until you break his spear and he starts using his beak to body slam you at which point his invincibility frames makes him super cheap as he can just crash down and then immediately charge you with no real way to get out of the way since Simon still moves around like his NES counterparts. Took forever to beat him.

What do you get for beating these two? You get to fight Death, and this might be one of the most difficult versions of him in the franchise. He thankfully only has one form and takes damage pretty badly unlike the tanky Slogra. But he makes up for it with lightning fast scythe projectiles, a damaging scythe swipe attack and when he throws his scythe at you you're drawn towards Death like a black hole and the collision damage hurts like hell. To make matters worse, even though he's a sitting duck after throwing the scythe outside of the annoying vacuum effect, your sub-weapons can't be used against him during this attack.

Finally it's time for Dracula, whom takes a little getting used to. He now launches one giant fireball out you in his first phase but this ball will split into three or four once it hits or in the case of trying to jump over it, it will split into three and change trajectory into the air. So the only strategy is to hit it and then hold down the attack button to keep the whip in front of Simon and hope you've got both the timing and distance right to have the whip block the smaller projectiles. His second phase has him send out a fire ball that moves erratically around the room at the same speeds as Death's mini scythes but unlike those, it doesn't home in on you and if you hit the damn thing, it will launch mini fireballs in a circular pattern before dissipating into Wall Meat which is what ultimately makes this fight the easiest of the bunch. His third phase has him create walls of fire and summon two annoying fire spirits that slowly follow you around and explode into a wall of fire when hit or collided with. This is oddly enough the hardest phase of the entire fight. He jumps back into his second phase for a bit after this, and his fourth and final phase has him teleport spamming as usual and summoning four pillars of lightning which are easy to dodge compared to their fire incarnations in Castlevania III. Overall, Super Castlevania IV is pretty neat but a game I wished I had played back in the day in order to appreciate it more. I honestly feel the NES entries were better overall. I can kind of agree with the design flaws of the more versatile whip and the fact sub-weapons just don't have any punch in this entry whereas they would make or break you in the earlier entries if you didn't have the right one. The game just felt way too easy compared to the other games I've played on this collection. I will tip my hat off to it for a great soundtrack and some cool visual effects. Honestly, Castlevania has a pretty awesome soundtrack and I love the fact that during the climatic battle with Dracula, Simon's theme will start playing when you've got him down to his last phase. Not quite as memorable as Super Metroid's finale, but Super Castlevania IV does a pretty cool attempt as well.

Now I just need to beat Bloodlines. The only trophies I need are the two remaining endings for Castlevania III, and the two endings for Bloodlines, so here's hoping I like Bloodlines enough to play through it twice with both characters.