So the previous stage wasn't exactly a triviality, what with the appearance of harpies and their new passengers and tight time limit compared to other areas thus far, but I think we can all agree that it was much less challenging than the stages leading up to it.
Oh, what's this? The stage intro has changed, and we've made it! We're charting courses within Dracula's castle itself! Hooray! ...right? I guess that means it's time for the kid gloves to come off! ...or...rather the second layer of kid gloves, as I believe they'd already been removed once. (Cold and cursed Wallachian nights demand that you dress in layers! Much smarter than scant bits of leather, at any rate.)
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Stage VI
Now here's a setting that seems to be much more familiar! These environs clearly resemble the first stage of the original Castlevania as well as the one that adopted the same veneer in Castlevania III, but how long do you suppose they'll remain as such?
At least we get to see all the familiar foes to complete the illusion: ghouls, bats, undead hounds, and even our longtime "friend" the axe armor!
Then the stage takes a sudden turn towards new ground. Maybe you thought those random clock pendula were something, well Super Castlevania IV refuses to be outdone by the past! It would appear that the game uses all its processing power on this one environmental trick. I don't really get what's up with the flashing red background, though.
And now back to more standard stagecraft, which feels reminiscent of several advanced areas in Castlevania and Castlevania III, interior sections with long horizontal stretches filled with enemies...often with a doubling over backwards halfway up the screen. Of course, instead of being a dungeon or castle corridor, Super Castlevania IV seems set upon treating us to a tour of Lord Dracula's stately and sweeping ballroom. It's almost a shame that we're restricted to two dimensions, isn't it?
Of course, two dimensions are just about all one can seem to handle given the enemies that populate this stage. Elegant apparitions of ghostly dancers, shining mists, and even the very fixtures of the room themselves can seem to be set against you.
A word of caution regarding the chandeliers: the point of impact itself isn't the only worry you should have over Simon's well-being. If you care to notice, once it hits the floor, a solitary candle on each side will issue forth a short distance and will harm our heroic hunter if he should tarry too close nearby.
As for the enemies themselves, they seem to be quite oppressive and disinclined to dissipate, but they follow quite simple patterns:
The glowing mists will travel diagonally, bouncing off the floor and screen edges.
The female dancers will constantly arc towards your current position in a weakly-homing, but high speed approach.
The male dancers will vanish, line themselves up with you, and make a straight dash horizontally for your position.
We'll also be joined by a variety of skeletal skirmishers, both old and new. The familiar "blood skeletons" and whip-wielders of yore make their return to the field of battle, as well as an unusual variation on the sword-bearing variety.
I'm not sure that the effect is properly reproduced in the recording, much less on YouTube, but you'll notice strange pairs of hands phasing through the exterior wall of an upstairs corridor followed by a skeletal swordsman standing still just beyond...well, the game has them flashing in faux-translucence, simply waiting for you to touch those hands so that they might grab onto you, allowing the skeleton to take a free hit before resuming its invulnerability.
We're joined by newcomers to the dance floor: couples dancing will combine aspects of the female dancers' homing arcs, but they will also reverse direction upon reaching a screen boundary, making for what might at first seem like a dauntingly aggressive assault pattern.
In a stroke of benevolent item placement in extreme favor to the player, the level designers have decided to hide a 1up inside the far wall prior to climbing the stairs to the final room where the boss awaits.
Compared to other bosses thus far, you may find this one to be a fair bit more aggressive in its approach, doggedly pursuing Simon with extreme tenacity, only breaking from its indefatigable chase in order to turn this already deadly dance into a whirling waltz of blades. It's already enough that you have to contend with such advances, but the boss also transitions between translucence and complete transparency, so you have to keep up the pace or else get swept clean off the dance floor.
This boss, incidentally, has met its fate in the later, exploration-centric Castlevania games as a particularly weak regular enemy and little else, not to mention without its special attacks and aggressive homing. It merely wanders about the ballrooms it might haunt, lost in its own world of whimsy and dance.
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13 videos
The beginning of this stage looked like Simon was playing with the dog.
I thought it was getting kind of frantic in the ballroom: Weird floating women that look like bad programming of sprite movements, Colonel Sanders on fast forward, technicolor orbs that stretch out when hit enough, and tables that wiggle about and erupt food. It looked like Simon was having a trip.
That was a weird boss...It looked like they didn't even know or care you're there. They separate when defeated, it seems.
Overhazard 4 months ago