A while back, I wrote a piece about me replaying Super Punch-Out!! and having a blast trying to finish it again. I played it on my Super NES Mini and you do realize there is more than just Super Punch-Out!! that’s available in that system, right? Well, it has been a couple of months since then. I was pretty burnt out from playing some of my more story driven games so I booted up my Super NES Mini and looked for something a little lighter. I looked for a game I could boot up, play a few minutes of and then stop.

The game that I chose was Konami‘s Super Castlevania IV.

This was a game I had played way back during my high school days. I never owned a Super Nintendo myself when I was growing up but I did have a friend who did have one. And one of the games I played intensively when I would visit his house was Super Castlevania IV. I remember it being incredibly hard. It was so hard for that, in fact, I never finished it. That was actually a rarity for me back then so that really stuck out in my mind. Still, I booted it up without really expecting anything. I just wanted to play something to unwind.

I would up finishing the game in around two hours. Okay, that’s not exactly amazing as there are speedrunners who would beat Super Castlevania IV in roughly half an hour. But then again, I’m not a speedrunner. Nor have I played this game recently. I’m coming in basically from scratch and I still beat it in short order. Why did I think this game was hard again?

For the uninitiated, Super Castlevania IV continues the story of Konami’s premiere vampire hunter, Simon Belmont, and his family’s quest to take out Dracula. As with previous entries, Simon Belmont enters Dracula’s castle armed with the Vampire Killer, a whip imbued with magic properties. As he traverses the castle, Simon Belmont will collect other sub-weapons as well as take on Dracula’s minions, such as the Grim Reaper himself, before reaching the top of the castle to face off against Dracula himself.

Now, I have very concrete memories of the Castlevania games, specifically the first Castlevania and Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, on the original NES and they were gut-bustingly difficult but mostly for gameplay reasons. Sure, your character can crouch down and whip at enemies. However, the controls do come off as very limited! Jumping becomes difficult because you cannot control how far you do precisely. Enemies can come from all different directions and, since you can only attack horizontally, it’s hard to defend yourself from flying baddies, like the Medusa Heads! While this can be somewhat alleviated with the use of sub-weapons, it still makes going through the stages a huge pain!

I guess Konami realized this and, with the Super NES’ much more burly computing power, updated the gameplay. In Super Castlevania IV, Simon Belmont can not whip in eight directions. He also now has the ability to dangle the Vampire Killer in front of him, becoming a makeshift shield against flying enemies and projectiles. His jump is much more easily controllable and that makes jumping on platforms much easier. There are other new tricks here, like how Simon can use his whip to hook onto specific chandeliers to swing through gaps and even jump on stairs instead of just falling through them.

While these changes are mostly welcome, I do realize now it also makes Super Castlevania IV a little too easy to beat as what made the older games difficult were its shortcomings. Jumping across platforms is less nerve wracking as I can make adjustments while in the air. Flying enemies are less of a bother as I can now knock them out of the air by whipping upwards in a diagonal direction.

This wouldn’t be too much of an issue if Konami adjusted the level design to account for these updates to Simon Belmont’s repertoire. But the stages in Super Castlevania IV generally follow the two-tiered levels of the previous entries in the series. They do try to add a few twists, such as adding specific hooks Simon has to use to swing through some chasms. But the problem is enemies feel less of a threat because of the eight-way attack. The whip becomes an almost unstoppable weapon because of this, rendering the sub-weapons virtually useless in most instances.

The bosses also come off as less iconic and, like with the regular enemies, much easier to beat. There are some boss designs that do look cool and take advantage of the Super NES’ more powerful graphics chip and Mode 7 abilities, such as the Golem. Still, they just seem to lack any sort of personality and beating them is just a matter of whipping them to death with Vampire Slayer instead of having to rely on any real strategy. Even Death, who used to be a big pain in the butt to beat because he would be flying overhead, out of reach from your vertical whip attacks in earlier games, is a cakewalk since you can, you know, just whip upwards to attack him. The only boss I had a modicum of trouble with was the two-headed Hydra at the end of Stage 3. Not because it was a difficult boss… but because the slowdown threw off all my timing!

So, without even being conscious about it, my supposedly quick gaming session turned into a two hour playthrough of Super Castlevania IV. When I did eventually realize I’ve been playing for much longer than I intended, I have already gotten to Dracula, the final boss of the game. After maybe around five minutes to beat Dracula, I saw the credits rolls for the game.

So, why did I find Super Castlevania IV to be so difficult all those years ago? I can’t really say. Maybe it’s because I have played the previous games and, seeing this was the sequel on the Super NES, I attached the difficulty to it. Basically, my mind tricked me into thinking it was hard because of its pedigree. I can’t say I was disappointed with the game because, despite it being much easier than I remembered, I do think it was a good game. I guess the lesson here is to check yourself once in a while and try out things you thought were difficult before. Maybe you’ll find they’re much easier than you thought they were?

Have you played Super Castlevania IV before? Did you think it was a hard game to beat? Better yet, what’s a game you thought was impossible to beat when you were younger and you now know it’s much more than just possible to finish? Let me know in the comments section below!