 By 2018 standards, I was quite late to the videogame party as a child. I was eight or nine before we got our first videogame console, which was the SuperNintendo (or SNES to use its nerdier name). These days I think kids are handed an Xbox controller the moment after the umbilical cord is cut, but I had quite a few game-free years before I discovered the joy they could bring. Jumpers for goalposts…. The first game we actually bought (‘we’ meaning my family, as my sister, and my Dad, were both immediate gamers too following the arrival of the SNES) was Super Castlevania IV, which my memory tells me we got in that little period between Christmas and New Year where everything seems a bit dreamlike and not quite real. Super Mario World had been packaged with the console, so I don’t real count that as being the first one that we bought. So why Castlevania? The simple answer to that is I don’t know. My Dad, who bought the game, was very aware that his growing son was obsessed with monsters and the supernatural and that my grandad (my Dad’s father) would regularly show me films like Predator that were far too old for me. So perhaps it was because of that? But then this purchase wasn’t purely for me, and my sister had never really shown much fondness for monsters and the supernatural, and my Dad can take or leave it if it isn’t written by Stephen King (or myself, these days), so perhaps it was just a random purchase. Whatever the origins of our buying it, I fell in love with the game immediately. Before we even got it home to play, in fact. The box art was beautiful, showcasing various monsters that you’d come across in the game itself. The booklet that came with it explained the story, and also gave little bios for many of the monsters (not all of them because to accommodate that, you’d have needed a full novel.) I knew I was onto something special before I’d even blown on the cartridge and switched on the console. And when I got home and did that, I was not disappointed. The music was, and still is, just beautiful. Atmospheric, dark and sombre and then building to a faster action pace, using an actual organ. It’s proper music, not the usual tinny/beepy sounds you’d expect from a 16-Bit videogame. The graphics astound me to this day. What they accomplished for a game of that time must surely have pushed the developers to the limits of what their generation of technology would allow. The way it’s 3D without being 3D, the way the backgrounds have moving things in them, the sheer level of detail where you notice a new thing each time you play it, the colour scheme. In fact, the design of my favourite level in the game, the haunted mansion that’s full of zombie hounds and dancing ghosts, would later inspire the décor for my own house when I moved away from home. It still does, in fact. The level designs for the whole game are fantastic, alternating between left and right, up and down navigation just enough to break up the 2D side-scrolling flow without confusing you about where it is you’re meant to go. That’s never an issue in this game. Even if the last stage was left to right, and this next one is up to down, it’s always clear where you need to be heading. Some games from this era find it hard to strike a balance with this, but Super Castlevania IV manages it perfectly. The difficulty is all over the place, I will say that. Some of the earlier stages are much more difficult than some of the later ones, but I feel that’s probably due to my lack of ability with platforming rather than anything else. I’m a combat gamer, so give my character the weakest weapon and a room full of monsters and I’ll be a fine. But expect me to navigate a river by jumping from one massive rock to another, and you can bet that my bloated corpse will be floating along the shore before long. The control system is wonderfully fluid. Much more so than the previous Castlevania entries, and strangely, more so than the next couple aswell. The ability to control the direction of Simon’s whip, and even crouch with it hanging below you to catch unsuspecting enemies as they walk into it, are features that didn’t even survive to future entries of the game. Which, when you play them, has the effect of making it feel as though you’ve taken a step back in the series. That’s unfortunate, but it also adds to the effect of Super Castlevania IV standing out so much as an entry in the classic era of the series. The monsters are a wonderful mix of classical mythology such as Gorgons and Golems and Mermen, and also iconic characters such as The Mummy, Frankenstein monster, and of course Dracula himself. No werewolves in this entry, strangely. Speaking of Frankenstein’s monster, that’s a point of contention for me with regard to this game. There’s a level where you fall into an icy cavern and fight a flat-headed blue-skinned slow-moving monster in a laboratory, who throws potions at you. Given the look of him and the icy cavern setting, I’d always assumed this was Frankenstein’s monster. But other official sources say it is, in fact, Mr Hyde. But he looks like the classic Karloff monster, doesn’t transform at any point, and why is he in an icy cave? I find as many sources saying one as the other, but I still think it’s more likely to be the monster. I’ve come back to playing this game again recently, as one of my Christmas gifts last year was the SNES classic mini games system, which includes Super Castlevania IV amongst the pre-loaded games. It’s been a joy to go back to, both in terms of nostalgia but also in how well it honestly holds up as a game. It’s not clunky to control, the graphics still look great if you are mindful of the era it was made (don’t try and compare it to a game that came out this year for the PS4, for instance) and it’s still really fun to play. It’s also not “too” punishing in terms of what happens if you mess up, either. Many games from that era will see you starting the entire game again if you run out of lives, but Castlevania at worst starts you back at the beginning of your current level. With the bonus of having a large HD television these days, I’ve also noticed things that I never spotted all those years ago. In the background on the early levels, for instance, before you reach the interior of the Castle structure, you can see the monstrous Hounds feasting on the carcass of some fallen prey out on the moors. The same hounds that you’ll later encounter in the haunted mansion. I never noticed that until I played through the game again last week. The story of the game still holds up fairly well, whilst it’s not particularly layered. Basically your character Simon Belmont is the latest in a bloodline of monster hunters, tasked with stopping Dracula whenever he awakes. It’s always clear when he has stirred because it seems to give license to all the other monsters to come out into the open. When I was a child playing this game, I always assumed that all these monsters were Dracula’s personal servants, but when I play it now I’m not convinced that’s the case. He has an army, sure, but I don’t think every monster you encounter falls into that category. Some are just going about their business in their territory which you unfortunately need to pass through to be on your way. Others….like the ghosts…..don’t even seem aware of your presence at all unless you get too close. The dancing ghosts are still my favourite, as I mentioned. An entire mansion full of well-dressed ghosts, many of whom are still caught in the loop of dancing with their beloved. The hounds which guard the house still doing so even though they themselves are also long dead. What happened at this mansion, I still wonder? Was there a fire, were they all poisoned? It must have been something awful to have killed so many at the same time, and evidently in the midst of a grand ball of some sort. If you’re able to get hold of SNES Classic Mini console, I’d say it’s worth it as a horror fan for Super Castlevania IV alone. The console also has Ghouls N Ghosts on it, which is like Castlevania’s insanely difficult cousin where you often run around in your pants. But that’s another nostalgic horror game lookback for another time.  Lex Jones was born and raised in Sheffield, north England, in 1985. A keen writer from a young age, he was always fascinated with the supernatural and is obsessed with stories. He loves films, books, theatre, videogames, graphic novels, anything with a good story that captures the imagination. His books tend to have a supernatural (or at least 'unusual') undercurrent, as this moves them away from the more boring aspects of real life. Check out Lex's books on Amazon by clicking here 
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