super castlevania 4 is, not counting the more RPG lite adventures of simons quest, my favourite classic castlevania, it's stylish, it sounds great and more importantly to me, it's easy, while some of the later stages i did still use saves for, for most of the game i did not even feel the need to use them as it felt doable for even someone with my lack of skill at the genre. the game serves as a sort-of remake of the original castlevania, but with an expanded level set and mechanics, you got a whip with some really neat physics, i was honestly impressed by how fluid they felt for the time as well as more weapons to use. it doesn't feel like a remake at all with the vastly expanded group of levels, the first chunk of the game doesn't even take place in the castle, mostly following simon on his way to the castle, and this expanded stretch makes for some of the best levels including one of the coolest uses of mode seven on the system in a rotating hallway, a river level with really neat water effects, spooky forrests, ruins and caverns, all set to one of the best soundtracks i've heard on the system yet. it feels a lot more like an adventure compared to the original game, where castlevania felt like a gauntlet to get to dracula, this feels like a journey, while the final set of levels still keep that gauntlet feel the original had with their difficulty. the areas look fantastic too, despite being a launch game it looks fantastic, the sprites are huge and well detailed and the levels look amazing, it has a different aesthetic to the original but in a way that i prefer.

the gameplay is mostly in line with the prior games, while it does not have the multiple characters of 3 or the rpg elements of simons quest, it still stays true to how those played, staying true mostly to the first game but with the changes i mentioned earlier., you got linier stages, weapons, the opposable whip and some fairly basic platforming, you die instatly from pits but you have a health bar for enemy attacks, there's bosses too and all of them are fantastic, from the mummy that can clone itself, projectile spamming madusa, a particularly well animated skull head that shoots what i think might be bread at you and a very cool looking final boss that can blur its sprites and shoot lazer beams, it's dumb but :). it's a lot more accessable than the other games in the series though, and even a lot of the games that came after. this is because the game is just very easy for a snes game, it's very easily beatable without save states for a lot of people, and while i did use them near the end just to make things simpler for myself, i'm not sure if most people will even need them, though i kind of did. for this it's my go to rec for the early series, it's just the most accessable and i feel like that's not something thats brought up enough and is something i think the game deserves a lot of credit for, it's the best gateway game for earlyvania. the whip also really helps make this one shine, it's opposable and you can use it to hit enemies in weird positions and it uses it a lot more for platforming this time around, it gets especially good use in a midgame level where the level itself rotates and you have to hang using the whip, not only does this level look fantastic, it's just fun and a very cool use of the mechanic, it gets use in levels eslewhere, mostly for platforming, but this one level really took it farther and i loved that.

it sounds great too! like i mentioned earlier it has easily one of my favourite SNES soundtracks, it goes hard on the remixes in the best way and all of its original tracks own, the opening level set to simons theme sets a fantastic mood for the onset of the journey and it remains one of the series best songs, the cavern theme that's super relaxing and reminds me a lot of some tracks from chrono trigger. the forest theme sets you a little off-ease after the more bombastic opening but it's still super catchy, the waterfall theme sounding straight out of final fantasy 7 and the version of bloody tears here may just be the best version period. it's a classic soundtrack that should be experianced even if you end up skipping the game. the soundtrack itself is credited to 3 people, the first is Masanori Adachi, who did sound design for moon! and several other love-de-lic games, as well as working on audio for things like the actually underated paper mario sticker star, little kings story and snatcher. also credited is Akira Sōji who worked on games like tokimeki memorial, snatcher, sparkster and hard corps! lastly is Taro Kudo who, on top of producing chibi robo zip lash (also hated too much) worked on things such as axelay, moon and super mario rpg! you don't get much in the way of unlockables here though, sadly as that was just how things are with games like this, and unlike 3 you don't have a whole lot of replayablity, but the game is short and fun enough that you may want to replay for the fun of it, with the game clocking in at around 2 hours long at max you can easily fit in a few playthroughs in a night.

the game wouldn't have a super longlasting legacy, it wouldn't be ported until years later on the switch collection, where it would run fantstic and was where i played it via the limited run games release and future games would diverge more from it, the genisis game takes more after 3 than 4 and the post 16bit games would go on to do their own thing with the symphony and 64 games, one helping spawn its own genre that has went on to become massively oversaturated in the indie scene with almost too many good games to find and the other leading on to some killer ps2 action games (my favourite castlevania games are said ps2 games), though after the ps3 era the series would mostly die out beyond a mobile game and collections. the game was directed by Masahiro Ueno, who you may know from the frogger and lethal enforcers series', he even worked on the nes metal gear, lost in blue and mysims! a very prolific career spanning decades, though he has not done much as of recently, mostly gaining special thanks credits. it was also produced by Kazumi Kitaue, who's credits are quite honestly, absurd, credited on games raning from ninety nine nights to silent hill shattered memories to elebits and suikioden 5, his hands are on more classics than you can really name, odds are if it was big at konami, he had some hand in it. the game is a classic though, and these days with the collection is super easy to play, hell, i don't need to tell you how easy it is to emulate super nintendo if you want to play for free, go give it a shot, it's accessable and a lot of fun.