casltevania anniversary collection; super IV

content/games/gameboy/castlevania-ii-belmonts-revenge.md

@@ -5,14 +5,15 @@ score: 3
 howlongtobeat_id: 1571
 howlongtobeat_hrs: 2.2
 game_name: "Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge"
-game_genre: '2D Platformer'
+game_genre: 'Classicvania'
 game_release_year: 1991
 game_developer: 'Konami'
 tags:
-  - castlevania
+  - 'Castlevania'
+  - 'Classicvania'
 ---
 
-After the giant failure of [Castlevania: The Adventure](/games/gameboy/castlevania-the-adventure), Konami still had the guts to continue its handheld [Castlevania](/tags/castlevania) line in 1991, by going back to the drawing board and fixing nany of _The Adventure_'s shortcomings. A design document from the _Anniversary Collection_ revealed that the team aimed to improve the following things:
+After the giant failure of [Castlevania: The Adventure](/games/gameboy/castlevania-the-adventure), Konami still had the guts to continue its handheld [Castlevania](/tags/castlevania) line in 1991, by going back to the drawing board and fixing nany of _The Adventure_'s shortcomings. A design document from the [Castlevania Anniversary Collection](/games/switch/castlevania-anniversary-collection) revealed that the team aimed to improve the following things:
 
 - The player should move much faster;
 - Attacking while on a rope should be possible;

content/games/gameboy/castlevania-the-adventure.md

@@ -5,9 +5,12 @@ score: 1
 howlongtobeat_id: 1594
 howlongtobeat_hrs: 1.6
 game_name: 'Castlevania: The Adventure'
-game_genre: '2D Platformer'
+game_genre: 'Classicvania'
 game_release_year: 1989
 game_developer: 'Konami'
+tags:
+  - 'Castlevania'
+  - 'Classicvania'
 ---
 
 In 1989, The Nintendo's handheld [Game Boy](/games/gameboy) made its debut in Japan, suddenly creating a demand for bite-sized adventures that could work on the go. Konami decided to translate their 1987 NES Castlevania franchise to the new platform, but in doing so, both the Belmonts and the vampires lost their iconic characteristics. 
@@ -24,7 +27,7 @@ Yes, the NES game is also particularly famous for it's grueling difficulty and "
 
 As you can hear, the musical tunes are no doubt up to snuff, probably to disguise the otherwise hideous gameplay elements. What kind of a vampire killer can't throw a holy cross or an axe? Trevor can't, and he sure does need it: at certain points, the game throws all kinds of weird enemies at you: rolling eyeballs that explode on impact, pillars that puke out diagonally bouncing balls at an alarming rate, the carefully placed bat here and there, ... 
 
-For a Game Boy platform game, precise controls are of paramount importance, while in _The Adventure_, trying to navigate Trevor over a set of floating bricks with pits in-between (in stage 1, only five minutes after booting the game!) truly is a nightmare come to life. In stage 3, the spiked wall starts coming down and then moving to the right, meaning you'll have to hurry up, except that you simply can't. I played this as part of the _Anniversary Collection_ while heavily abusing save states. I have no idea how this could be finished on an actual Game Boy in the early nineties.
+For a Game Boy platform game, precise controls are of paramount importance, while in _The Adventure_, trying to navigate Trevor over a set of floating bricks with pits in-between (in stage 1, only five minutes after booting the game!) truly is a nightmare come to life. In stage 3, the spiked wall starts coming down and then moving to the right, meaning you'll have to hurry up, except that you simply can't. I played this as part of the [Castlevania Anniversary Collection](/games/switch/castlevania-anniversary-collection) while heavily abusing save states. I have no idea how this could be finished on an actual Game Boy in the early nineties.
 
 ![](wall.jpg "The spiked wall on the right outruns the protagonist. (Captured with Castlevania: The Anniversary Collection, with Dot Matrix filter)")
 

content/games/snes/_index.md

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ See [the rating system](/about/#rating).
 | 7 | Turtles IV: In Time | B |
 | 8 | Street Fighter II (Turbo) | B |
 | 9 | Super Mario Kart | B |
-| 10 | Super Castlevania IV | B |
+| 10 | [Super Castlevania IV](/games/snes/super-castlevania-iv) | B |
 | 11 | Donkey Kong Country | C |
 | 12 | Super Bomberman 2 | C |
 | 13 | Secret of Mana | C |

content/games/snes/super-castlevania-iv.md

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+---
+title: "Super Castlevania IV Is Still Super"
+date: 2023-02-19
+score: 4
+howlongtobeat_id: 9339
+howlongtobeat_hrs: 4.1
+game_name: 'Super Castlevania IV'
+game_genre: 'Classicvania'
+game_release_year: 1991
+game_developer: 'Konami'
+tags:
+  - "Castlevania"
+  - "Classicvania"
+---
+
+It's hard to believe that a game such as _Super Castlevania IV_---stuffed with amazing moments, superb Mode-7 graphical effects, and thrilling soundtrack---is already 32 years old. It's Konami's first attempt to boost [the Castlevania genre](/tags/castlevania) from 8-bit to a 16-bit console, and most of the time, the choices made were spot on---and still are. From the moment you enter the first castle gates, until the drawbridge slowly closes and the [_Theme of Simon Belmont_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWMN91gMD_4) track starts pumping adrenaline in your veins, you know: this is a true Castlevania classic.  
+
+
+![](library.jpg "Stairs are still present, and yes, stairs are still death traps.")
+
+Simon Belmont's moveset has been extended somewhat compared to the latest NES entry: while jumping, you can now more accurately choose where to land, although you should not expect the fluidity of a Mario platformer here. His whip action has been rethought as well: whipping in diagonal directions is finally possible, as is below while jumping over obstacles and rotating it while standing still to get rid of boss projectiles. 
+
+For players in 1991 coming from Castlevania I-III, it must have been a very transformative moment, but for me, even though I played the game on and off the last 20 years, it still feels as if Simon is an armored slug with a sluggish whip. If you're standing on a stair, you're still a sitting duck: you can't jump, although you now can attack. It's still frustrating to see bats coming towards you while you can't do anything but fall into a pit and try again. Some stages seemed to trigger masochists behavior with the level designers, and although that's not unusual for a _Classicvania_, it felt awkward to continue plodding along this way. In one particular stage, you have to quickly ascend to the top of a tower as a pointy rotating blade is chasing you. Every badly judged jump kills you but you have to jump, and you can't on stairs, and you can't on the _edge_ of a stair, even though you're aiming for another platform!
+
+![](rotating.jpg "Look at all this rotating Mode-7 glory!")
+
+That said, the difficulty of previous games is a bit toned down and more evenly spread across the ten stages. When people say "Castlevania IV is easy", they actually want to say "Castlevania IV is easy _compared to its predecessors_". It's still hard. I was only able to reach the final battles with Death and company by save state scumming, as I played it via the [Castlevania Anniversary Collection](/games/switch/castlevania-anniversary-collection) edition on the Nintendo Switch. 
+
+The game itself is only 4 hours long, but I doubt anyone could have finished it in less than 10 hours back in the day, where sometimes platform and enemy placement memorization will be obligatory to pass. The absence of a RAM chip is made up by the presence of a decent password system, and if you happen to die on your quest half-way through a stage; no worries; they're divided into separate segments and you simply restart there. For example, the above screenshot shows on the top right `BLOCK 4-3`, while the one below is the beginning of stage 9 (`BLOCK 9-1`). Breaking walls to reveal a tasty chicken breast is still a thing here, as are sub-weapons and hearts gained by whipping the heck out of all candles you come across. 
+
+![](vault.jpg "Stage 9: the vault, filled with coin-traps and ghosts.")
+
+I did not perceive most bosses as enormous difficulty spikes, although some, like of course Death, certainly are more powerful than others, requiring more than a few tries to figure out their attack pattern. At the end of the last stage (`B`), you'll encounter Dracula, but not before first defeating three other bosses! By then, I was ready to throw in the towel, but again, I think the game does deserve frequent replays that will flex your vampire-killing muscles. I wish I owned a SNES as a kid. Pouring endless hours into this, while listening to [the killer soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWMN91gMD_4&list=PL79DA330B8AE4C836&index=4), would surely have been a blast.
+
+![](death.jpg)
+
+I was surprised to see [Gamespot rate the game](https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/super-castlevania-iv-review/1900-6164052/) a `7.8`, but their main gripe with iteration _IV_ is more or less the same problem I had with it:
+
+> You never know when a medusa head is going to come out of nowhere and knock you off that platform into the abyss. Oh, and was that your last life? And you were just about to make it to the boss? Sorry, it's back to the beginning of the area for you. If this scenario sounds familiar, and you don't mind plunging ahead anyway, Super Castlevania IV is probably a worthwhile play for you.
+
+For me, it's difficult to digest that kind of gameplay, especially after _Symphony of the Night_, and my much beloved [Castlevania GBA games](/games/switch/castlevania-advance-collection). Still, if you'd like to check out a "Classicvania" but are too scared of the NES games, this is as good (and as easy) as it gets.
+
+![](stages.jpg "In the stage overview screen, after finishing a level, you can see Simon making progress towards and within the castle walls.")
+

content/games/switch/castlevania-anniversary-collection.md

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+---
+title: 'Castlevania Anniversary Collection: Classicvanias Worth Checking Out?'
+date: 2023-02-19
+game_developer: 'Konami'
+score: 3
+game_genre: 'Classicvania'
+howlongtobeat_id: 67286
+howlongtobeat_hrs: 23.5
+game_name: 'Castlevania Anniversary Collection'
+tags:
+    - 'Castlevania'
+    - 'Classicvania'
+---
+
+I'm a proud owner of [Limited Run Games](https://limitedrungames.com/)' _Castlevania Anniversary Collection_ Switch cartridge, but it's been sitting on the shelf for almost two years before I was ready to take on the retro [Classicvania](/tags/classicvania) collection. It wasn't the unexpected impor taxes that held me back, but the sheer difficulty of most of these games as I tried to remember them. 
+
+I wasn't mistaken. Classicvania games seemed to have invented the word _hard_.
+
+Contrary to the nowadays much more widespread and popular term ["Metroidvania"](/tags/metroidvania), back in the day, these games were short, slow-paced, stage-based and mostly linear, and quite basic when you take a second look at the gameplay mechanics: you move forward, whip enemies, encounter a boss, whip some more, die, retry, die some more, and repeat. No stats or level-ups, no equipment bar from occasional sub-weapons, and no open-ended castle map to gradually get towards a `100%` discovery rate.
+
+The Anniversary Collection contains the following games:
+
+1. Castlevania (NES)
+2. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
+3. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES)
+4. [Super Castlevania IV](/games/snes/super-castlevania-iv) (SNES)
+5. [Castlevania: The Adventure](/games/gameboy/castlevania-the-adventure) (Game Boy)
+6. [Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge](/games/gameboy/castlevania-ii-belmonts-revenge) (Game Boy)
+7. Castlevania: Bloodlines (Mega Drive/Genesis)
+8. Kid Dracula (NES)
+
+![](menuscreen.jpg "Pick your Castlevania poison in the main menu. A screenshot, short blurb, and logo appears when selecting a title.")
+
+As probably is always the case when compiling a partial retro collection, Castlevania connoisseurs will have noticed odd inclusions and exclusions. For example, the first Game Boy game is one of the crappiest 'Vanias ever to be released, better left untouched and not remembered, yet the third installment on the Game Boy platform is missing? Perhaps even more puzzling; one of the best 2D classicvania's is missing: _Dracula X Chronicles_. Why? Luckily, we have finally access to _Bloodlines_ (loose cart price in 2023: `$73`) and the first ever translation of _Akumajō Special: Boku Dracula-kun_ or Kid Dracula originally released on the NES (`$35`). The GB cart of _Belmont's Revenge_ is also quite pricey nowadays, at `$78`, so the collection is without a doubt a very good deal, even the premium physical edition.
+
+Purists don't need to worry about emulation quality: the top notch porting job has been done by M2, just like the [Castlevania Advance Collection](/games/switch/castlevania-advance-collection). The main menu is basic but thematic and functional, and extra's include a short bonus book with box art galleries, developer interviews, research reports, and more. Even more impressive, all Japanese versions of the games are present as well, which contain subtle differences compared to the American releases.
+
+While I enjoyed browsing through the box art, the pages load noticeably slow, and I missed the instruction booklets. Why weren't these scanned in? It felt a bit strange to me to put in all that effort but to omit the booklets. There's a "MANUAL" item available in the options menu, but it simply explains the control scheme using Switch-specific jargon. 
+
+![](coverart.jpg "Browsing through the JPN and US Game Boy box art.")
+
+As these games are played through emulation, one save state for reach game is offered, and you can record your playthrough. The later M2 Castlevania collection, the GBA one, does offer more save slots, which I also missed here to quickly jump back into certain stages. During play, you can switch between different borders/frames and display settings (original, pixel perfect, `16:9`, `4:3`, or two scanline alternatives)
+
+A Castlevania fan will no doubt enjoy this release, and hopefully Konami will get the message that not _less_ but _more_ is more, yet if I had to recommend either the GBA and the Anniversary collections, I wouldn't need to think twice: pick the GBA Collection. Those games aged much better than their stiff Classicvania counterpart, the system built around it by M2 has more features, and perhaps most important of all: in 2023, replaying an early Metroidvania is a lot more fun than replaying one of the games of the Anniversary Collection. 
+
+![](/games/gameboy/castlevania-the-adventure/wall.jpg "Castlevania: The Adventure with a custom border enabled and in original DMG color mode: four shades of green drab.")
+
+Meanwhile, I'm still keeping my hopes up for another Collection that re-releases _Symphony of the Night_ and _Dracula X Chronicles_. The Nintendo Wii remake of the Game Boy's _Castlevania: The Adventure_ would be a welcome addition as well. Or how about the PSP remake of Dracula X?
+
+There's still plenty of superb material left to work with, so fingers crossed! In the meantime, consider buying this just to peak your curiosity and to support M2/Konami. As a modern gamer that isn't used to the harsh difficulty of eighties and nineties games, just don't expect to get a lot of enjoyment out of it.