It's kinda crazy what designing a game for home consoles first does for overall game design, because Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is far and away the most well designed, consistently good game in the franchise thus far. Levels are longer, more varied, and Arthur's moveset's gotten tweaked once again to accomadate. He can't fire weapons vertically anymore, but he can double jump now, and the levels feel designed around that lack of vertical firing. The bow also exists, firing two projectiles diagonally upwards, filling the void somewhat.

Playing this reminded me a lot of beating Castlevania 1 without savestates for the first time, since the player movement actually feels like a deliberate design decision and not just to make the game harder. It was genuinely fun learning level layouts and just getting better at the game, for once in this franchise. The limited continues scared me initially, but it quickly becomes apparent how quickly continues rack up. You also die a lot, but with enemy positions and spawns being mostly fixed, it serves as a learning experience as opposed to uncontrollable RNG bs.

Also yeah, there's slowdown; admittedly a lot of it, in fact, but I don't think it's enough to really mess with the core experience. If anything, it probably made certain sections a lot easier. Still an extremely solid 16-bit platformer for anyone in search of a challenge.