milesajackson
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The first time I've finished a Sonic since completing Heroes on the GameCube when I was about 7 years old.
Have had some experience with 2D Sonics - the Advance and Rush games - but I was very young and wasn't really able to appreciate how nice the loop of these games is. The worlds are rich, beautiful, and BIG. They have these branching paths that are so lovely to roam around and explore. The difficulty is pretty perfectly balanced - it's extremely hard to die, but even harder to get a 'perfect' run and attain enough rings to enter a Special Stage and win a Chaos Emerald.
As mentioned, the loop is very satisfying. You can blitz your way to the end of the stage, but exploration and taking your time in these sprawlings tages is encouraged by how hard it is to attain a good number of rings, thereby attaining a checkpoint to win a Chaos Emerald. Repeated runs lack tedium to the sheer number of different routes you can take through a stage.
That said, if there's a big drawback here it's that the reward for that loop is... pretty tedious. The Special Stages that you enter by collecting rings are so arbitrary and reliant on muscle memory that they lose a sense of fun, and it often takes too long to regain enough rings for that muscle memory to be built up through repeated runs. The final reward for collecting the Chaos Emeralds is being able to play as Super Sonic. He's not all that great, for my money, and by the time I gained access to him I was basically at the final boss which limits being able to use him anyway.
Talking of, that final boss just about borders on unfair. It requires doing the entire thing without taking a hit. It took a good couple of hours, and while it wasn't a big deal I think giving the player one ring might have even added to the experience.
All that's mostly by the by. The stages here are so lovely and lush and beautiful. Annoyingly, the stages with the best atmosphere were also the easiest, and consequently the places I spent the least in time in. Still, the music and gorgeous sprite art of Aquatic Ruin, Casino Night and Oil Ocean put a big smile on my face. They're some of the most vibrant environments I've ever seen in a 16-bit game.
Overall, really enjoyed this, and can't wait to get stuck in to more of these 2D entries. I'm not totally sure why I didn't think they'd be for me. In some respects I enjoyed this even more than Super Mario World.
Have had some experience with 2D Sonics - the Advance and Rush games - but I was very young and wasn't really able to appreciate how nice the loop of these games is. The worlds are rich, beautiful, and BIG. They have these branching paths that are so lovely to roam around and explore. The difficulty is pretty perfectly balanced - it's extremely hard to die, but even harder to get a 'perfect' run and attain enough rings to enter a Special Stage and win a Chaos Emerald.
As mentioned, the loop is very satisfying. You can blitz your way to the end of the stage, but exploration and taking your time in these sprawlings tages is encouraged by how hard it is to attain a good number of rings, thereby attaining a checkpoint to win a Chaos Emerald. Repeated runs lack tedium to the sheer number of different routes you can take through a stage.
That said, if there's a big drawback here it's that the reward for that loop is... pretty tedious. The Special Stages that you enter by collecting rings are so arbitrary and reliant on muscle memory that they lose a sense of fun, and it often takes too long to regain enough rings for that muscle memory to be built up through repeated runs. The final reward for collecting the Chaos Emeralds is being able to play as Super Sonic. He's not all that great, for my money, and by the time I gained access to him I was basically at the final boss which limits being able to use him anyway.
Talking of, that final boss just about borders on unfair. It requires doing the entire thing without taking a hit. It took a good couple of hours, and while it wasn't a big deal I think giving the player one ring might have even added to the experience.
All that's mostly by the by. The stages here are so lovely and lush and beautiful. Annoyingly, the stages with the best atmosphere were also the easiest, and consequently the places I spent the least in time in. Still, the music and gorgeous sprite art of Aquatic Ruin, Casino Night and Oil Ocean put a big smile on my face. They're some of the most vibrant environments I've ever seen in a 16-bit game.
Overall, really enjoyed this, and can't wait to get stuck in to more of these 2D entries. I'm not totally sure why I didn't think they'd be for me. In some respects I enjoyed this even more than Super Mario World.
I'm a big fan of Dracula's Curse on the NES. Yes, it's brutally difficult and littered with cheap deaths (particularly on the Hard Path), but it's the most cinematic 8-Bit game I've played, innovating the typical Castlevania formula with its unique, enjoyable and genuinely balanced multiple character system.
In that respect, the 'back to basics' approach of Super Castlevania IV can't help but feel like a regression. Simon isn't as fun to play as Grant, Syfa or possibly even Alucard in Dracula's Curse. Ultimately, there's just a lot less strategy involved when there's only one character in this format, and conceptually a lot of the levels seem to lack the ambition of its predecessor.
What is righted is Dracula's Curse's biggest flaw, the cheap deaths. They're in far fewer proportion here, and it makes for a much smoother playing experience. And some of the levels here feature quite incredible little details that wouldn't have been possible on the NES' hardware, and some really memorable moments make use of Mode7.
Still felt this was going to end up as a step down on the third entry until a quite amazing final couple of levels and bosses. In general, I found the bosses in this game far too easy, but the final few levels introduce a complexity into the level design and boss battles that was sorely lacking before. This results in a properly rousing finale, the ascent through Dracula's Castle a death-defying gauntlet that feels intense and relentless in a way no Castlevania game has to this point. It's a marvellous final act, and elevated what had prior to that point been a slightly unambitious project.
Super Castlevania IV saves its best material for the end. If you're struggling through the early and mid-game, I'd definitely advise you stick with it. Its flourishes toward the end actually put it on a pretty similar par to Dracula's Curse as a whole. Certainly there's far fewer moments of tearing one's hair out at unfair deaths than in that game, even if the whole isn't as exciting or ambitious. It's a more polished experience, similarly cinematic in its own way (more in its little details than in its Hollywood spectacle).
In that respect, the 'back to basics' approach of Super Castlevania IV can't help but feel like a regression. Simon isn't as fun to play as Grant, Syfa or possibly even Alucard in Dracula's Curse. Ultimately, there's just a lot less strategy involved when there's only one character in this format, and conceptually a lot of the levels seem to lack the ambition of its predecessor.
What is righted is Dracula's Curse's biggest flaw, the cheap deaths. They're in far fewer proportion here, and it makes for a much smoother playing experience. And some of the levels here feature quite incredible little details that wouldn't have been possible on the NES' hardware, and some really memorable moments make use of Mode7.
Still felt this was going to end up as a step down on the third entry until a quite amazing final couple of levels and bosses. In general, I found the bosses in this game far too easy, but the final few levels introduce a complexity into the level design and boss battles that was sorely lacking before. This results in a properly rousing finale, the ascent through Dracula's Castle a death-defying gauntlet that feels intense and relentless in a way no Castlevania game has to this point. It's a marvellous final act, and elevated what had prior to that point been a slightly unambitious project.
Super Castlevania IV saves its best material for the end. If you're struggling through the early and mid-game, I'd definitely advise you stick with it. Its flourishes toward the end actually put it on a pretty similar par to Dracula's Curse as a whole. Certainly there's far fewer moments of tearing one's hair out at unfair deaths than in that game, even if the whole isn't as exciting or ambitious. It's a more polished experience, similarly cinematic in its own way (more in its little details than in its Hollywood spectacle).