Game:

Super Castlevania IV (1991)

Duration: 15:25

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Gameplay Performed by: TrevorDFox

Super Castlevania IV is a platform game developed and published by Konami and the first Castlevania game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was originally released in 1991 and later re-released on the Virtual Console in 2006 for the Wii, in 2013 for the Wii U, and in 2016 for the New Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo re-released Super Castlevania IV in the United States in September 2017 as part of the company's Super NES Classic Edition.

Super Castlevania IV features expanded play control, 16-bit graphics featuring SNES Mode 7, and a soundtrack featuring brand new pieces and arrangements based on previous Castlevania music. Following the same setting as Castlevania on the NES, the game takes place in 1691 Transylvania, where the vampire hunter Simon Belmont must defeat the vampire Dracula. The game received critical acclaim with some calling it one of the greatest video games of all time.

Super Castlevania IV was directed by Masahiro Ueno (credited in the game as Jun Furano since Konami did not allow the use of real names at the time), who was also the main programmer. His first 16-bit game, Ueno's team possibly started development on it during 1989. Ueno liked the original Castlevania for the Nintendo Entertainment System the most and wanted to make a pure action game that was similar to it. Ueno only considers Super Castlevania IV a remake of the original Castlevania to some extent. Many features in Super Castlevania IV were introduced to make it a less frustrating game for players, such as giving them more control over Simon when he walked up stairs.

Due to the team being small, everyone was involved with the design and some ideas came from the creative artists and others by the programmers' experiments. The team drew maps on paper and a lot was changed as the game was worked on. Mitsuru Yaida (credited as Yaipon) programmed Simon and also implemented the game's whip system, which was to introduce some new gameplay that was not possible on the NES. As the enemy and boss programmer, Ueno conceived some rough ideas and additional programmers would implement more detailed boss patterns. Earlier bosses were designed to be easier so that players could discover weak points and effective weapons without retrying. Ueno also worked on both the Japanese and English versions of the game, with the latter featuring some instances of censorship. He was asked to alter the color palette in the English version in order to remove some depictions of blood in stage eight.

The packaging artwork for the North American and European versions was created by Tom Dubois, who also designed the packaging for many other Konami titles outside Japan.

The soundtrack for Super Castlevania IV was composed by Masanori Adachi and Taro Kudo (credited as Masanori Oodachi and Souji Taro respectively). Ueno wanted to make the environment of Super Castlevania IV more interactive and was proud of how the game's sound effects and music contributed to the atmosphere. The music was released on Akumajō Dracula Best 2 in a compilation with Castlevania: The Adventure and Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge's music. On June 21st, 2017, the game's music was released on vinyl by Mondo.

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