Monday, July 22, 2019

PrinceWatercress plays Super Castlevania IV - Part 1 of 4


Every one hundred years the forces of good mysteriously start to weaken. Thus, the power of Dracula starts to revive itself. His power grows stronger and stronger every one hundred years.

Dracula has revived many times. However, his sinister actions have been consistently thwarted by the Belmont family.

It's been one hundred years since the last confrontation between Dracula and the Belmont family. But now the serenity of Transylvania is being threatened by destructive forces.

One a dark and eerie night Dracula rose from his grave to unleash his destructive power over the countryside.

Once again Simon Belmont is called upon to destroy Dracula. With only his whip and courage he sets out to restore peace to Transylvania.

The game is officially a remake of the first Castlevania game, but what a remake it is. So much so, it ended up on the Super NES Classic.

After you put in your name, you'll set off for Dracula's castle.

Stage 1


You move with the Control Pad. Down-Left and Down-Right allow you to do a duck walk. B lets you jump. Y lets you attack with the whip, and you can attack in eight directions (down is only available in mid-air) in conjunction with the Control Pad. R allows you to use your sub-weapon, assuming you have enough hearts.

By whipping candles, you'll find pick-ups such as hearts, sub-weapons and gray things that look like a cross wrapped in a ribbon. That last one is a power-up for your whip, and after finding two of those things, your whip will be fully powered-up.

Small hearts are worth one heart; big heats are worth five hearts.

Moving diagonally with the D-Pad near stairs allows you to walk up and down stairways. If you hold Down and B, you can jump straight down off stairs. Unlike in past games, you can also walk backwards on stairs by carefully rolling your thumb on the Control Pad in such a way as to allow yourself to face one direction and walk in the other.

The dagger is a throwing weapon that is thrown straight forward.

Once you get past the front gate - complete with the drawbridge being pulled back - you'll be on the castle grounds. If you see a door in the fence, you can press Up to go in and out. This will help you get past some bottomless pits.

You'll also meet your first enemies: skeletons that will throw their bones into the air and bats that will fly forward.

The chicken leg refills one-third of the life bar. Money bags will give you points. Points are useful; you'll get your first extra life at 20,000 points, then you'll get one every subsequent 50,000 points after that. (20K, 70K, 120K, etc.)

The Cross is actually a boomerang, and it is the best weapon in the game. When you throw it, it travels to the other end of the screen and takes out anything in its path.

The bone pillars will spit fireballs at you, but you can destroy the fireballs with your whip.

The ax is thrown upwards when used and can do damage to things far above you.

If you find a pork chop in the wall, you'll be able to refill all your health.

The brown water jug makes you temporarily invincible.

The cross necklace destroys all enemies currently on the screen.

The hooks with the flying bat on them can be used to let you swing around on the whip. Hold Y to grab hold and keep a hold on it. Use Left and Right on the Control Pad to swing, and use Up and Down to control how far up or down you are hanging off the hook.

The guy who reaches his hand out from behind the wall will club you if you get too close. You can hit his hand to get rid of him, though.

By holding Y and moving the Control Pad in all sorts of directions, you can swing the whip around for some very weak hits. It can take care of some weak enemies in a few hits in case they get way too close.

The Roman numeral II is a sub-weapon multiplier (known by other players as "the double-shot"). Pick it up, and you'll be able to have two of your current sub-weapon on screen at a time as opposed to just one. If you die or pick up another sub-weapon, however, you'll lose it.

Also, make it a habit to strike at walls, especially in very small areas within stages. You may find wall meat, sub-weapon multipliers and even extra lives.

The Holy Water burns in place when thrown onto the ground, and the flame will destroy any enemy that comes into contact with it for as long as that flame is on-screen.

Be careful when going through the third section. Walk past the seaweed enemies that stick to the ceiling, and duck down and whip the horse heads that fly at you when you see them.

The stopwatch stops time for a few seconds.

The Medusa heads go up and down as they fly at you. If you stay in place as soon as you see them, they won't hurt you.

The wooden planks between solid platforms will flip your around and send you tumbling down if you jump on them...so be careful. They will have a different appearance in later stages, but they act the same way.

The small grey ghosts go down in just a few hits.

The boss here is a skeleton on a skeleton horse. Strike the head of the horse to destroy it, then attack the lancer with your whip and sub-weapon. Keep your distance, and watch out for the easily-telegraphed diving attack whenever the lancer does it. Once you beat the boss, you'll get an orb to pick up along with a ton of bonus points for all the hearts and time you have left.

Stage 2


Watch out for the purple zombie hands. They can grab you, and while they won't hurt you, they will keep you in place. Bush monsters will walk back and forth, and spiders will move up and down on their web as they spit baby spiders at you.

You'll see spikes after you make your way down a slope. Spikes will kill you instantly if you land in them.

The hedgehogs that slowly move back and forth and roll into a ball every so often go down in a few hits.

Near the end of the first section, you'll see zombies. They're slow, and they go down rather easily.

In the second section, there will be brown water. If you fall into it, keep jumping or else you will fall in and die.

The crows will dive at you if you get too close. The frogs will keep jumping at you. These two enemies and the bats are the best enemies to use the "whip wiggle" (holding Y and moving your thumb around the Control Pad) against.

The Roman numeral III (also known as the "triple shot") lets you have three of your current sub-weapon on the screen at once. Again, if you die or pick up another sub-weapon, you'll lose it and you'll have to work your way back up to it all over again.

The mid-boss is a Medusa. If you have the Boomerang and the triple shot, duck down and keep throwing Crosses to the right from the far-left side of the screen. Otherwise, whip it in the head, whip the snakes and jump over the projectiles to avoid being turned to stone.

The third section has a current of water pushing you slowly forward. If you hear a rushing sound, that means the direction the current moves has reversed. Also, watch out for flying bat-men (and hit them with your whip) as well as red spikes that are both in the floor and in the background, as the spikes kill you instantly. Also, the green hands that fly up and down as they fly at you go down in one hit. There is also a candle carefully hidden in a column in the foreground that gives you a 1-Up if you somehow manage to hit it.

There's no boss here, so once you're through the third section, it's on to Stage 3.

Stage 3


Be careful with your jumps at the start so you don't fall in spikes.

The rock men split in two after enough damage, then split in two again after even more hits. Once they've shrunken down and divided twice, a few more hits will take them down for good.

There is a wall to the left that can be broken as soon as you start going down; you can find a whole meat there.

When you see the shaking pillars, wait for them to drop before moving ahead.

In the second section, you'll be climbing your way up. There will be some seaweed enemies (that were also seen in the middle of Stage 2) that will get in your way, as well as some green hedgehog-like balls that travel around platforms that cannot be destroyed. Also, the metal bat hooks - now gold - make a return appearance here, and you'll have to let go as you swing towards the direction you want to go to move forward.

In the third section, you'll meet some old friends: fishmen that jump out of the water and spit at you, Peeping Eyes that fly around you and cry drops of blood that are damaging to the touch and the Bone Dragon, which is stuck to a wall and moves up and down as it tries to spit fireballs at you. The Bone Dragons drop a ton of small hearts when destroyed. Also, watch out for column segments falling from the sky and blocks that crack and break under your weight.

You've probably already noticed that if you get hit, you get knocked back, and sometimes that knockback can send you into a pit or instant-death spikes. If you're on stairs however, you're just stunned in place for a few seconds.

The skeleton knights will try to hit you with a sword. Keep your distance.

The boss here is a two-headed dragon. The cross is the best weapon to use, as you can hit the dragon heads from a distance; otherwise, you'll have to get close, get a hit in and move away every so often. The dragons have a three-way fireball shot, but if you're fighting with the cross from all the way to the right, you can easily avoid it. Be careful grabbing the crystal orb when you've beaten the boss; dying is still possible.

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