Super Castlevania IV (1991)
Remake of Castlevania
New Nintendo 3DS · Super Famicom · Super Nintendo Entertainment System · Wii · Wii U
3.95 from 830 ratings
1867 members have it in their collection · 54 playing now · 499 backlogged · 245 wish listed
How long? Main story 5h · with extras 5h · 100% 5h (from 18 logged playthroughs)
A century of Transylvanian tranquility is about to come to a shocking end. Once again the mortifying screams of helpless villagers shake the ground as they huddle against new nightmarish horrors unleashed by the Duke of Darkness, Count Dracula. And this time he has a tombstone with your name on it, Simon Belmont.
You must descend into Castle of the …
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A century of Transylvanian tranquility is about to come to a shocking end. Once again the mortifying screams of helpless villagers shake the ground as they huddle against new nightmarish horrors unleashed by the Duke of Darkness, Count Dracula. And this time he has a tombstone with your name on it, Simon Belmont.
You must descend into Castle of the Undead and its gruesome ground, accompanied by the most chilling sound effects to ever tingle your spine. Inside, a freshly dug 11 levels maze features the treacherous Terrace of Terror, the dangerous Rotating Dungeon, the Sunken Ruins of Lost Spirits, torture chambers and creature filled caves. Use your whip like a grappling hook and swing past hundreds of traps and a host of ghost freaks, living corpses and hidden goblins. All while dodging or destroying the unpredictable spitting lizards, carnivorous coffins, and more.
Find the concealed weapons needed to defeat everything from eerie phantoms to haunted furniture. Then prepare to find yourself face-to-thing with hideous torments like the Tongue Lasher, the Darkest Knight, the Bone-Afide Horseman and the Granite Crusher. When your nerves get shot, use your password and take a breather. But forge on, Simon Belmont, because if you though Dracula was down for the count, he's only just begun to fright!
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Details
- Developers
- Konami
- Publishers
- Konami
- Genres
- Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Platform
- Themes
- Action, Horror
- Franchises
- Castlevania
- Series
- Castlevania
Release dates
- Oct 31, 1991 (Full Release) (Japan) Super Famicom
- Dec 04, 1991 (Full Release) (North_America) Super Nintendo Entertainment System
- Nov 23, 1992 (Full Release) (Europe) Super Nintendo Entertainment System
- Dec 02, 2006 (Full Release) (Japan) Wii
- Dec 25, 2006 (Full Release) (North_America) Wii
- Dec 29, 2006 (Full Release) (Australia) Wii
- Dec 29, 2006 (Full Release) (Europe) Wii
- Sep 11, 2013 (Full Release) (Japan) Wii U
- Oct 31, 2013 (Full Release) (Europe) Wii U
- Oct 31, 2013 (Full Release) (North_America) Wii U
- Sep 08, 2016 (Full Release) (North_America) New Nintendo 3DS
- Oct 20, 2016 (Full Release) (Europe) New Nintendo 3DS
Related
Bundled in
- Super NES Classic Edition (Sep 2017)
- Castlevania Anniversary Collection (May 2019)
Featured in lists
Rating distribution
5 stars
227
4 stars
376
3 stars
189
2 stars
34
1 star
4
Community All Reviews Statuses
Status danksocks Sep 2, 2024
With summer coming to a close, I'm getting a little bit of a head start on my spooky season playlist by diving into this game for the first time. I've never really sat down and played a classicvania for more than 15 minutes, but now I'm kind of kicking myself for not doing so sooner. Eerie atmosphere, great music, and …
Read moreWith summer coming to a close, I'm getting a little bit of a head start on my spooky season playlist by diving into this game for the first time. I've never really sat down and played a classicvania for more than 15 minutes, but now I'm kind of kicking myself for not doing so sooner. Eerie atmosphere, great music, and a forgiving (for its time) continue system all make learning these levels really fun. A lot of the games I've played recently are more about planning and puzzle-solving rather than "getting good", so this is a breath of fresh air for me. I haven't gotten very far but I found myself this morning replaying the game from the beginning up to where I left off just for the fun of it. Looking forward to continuing this as autumn approaches.
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Status TheBeautifulEric Aug 14, 2023
Playing this game after playing the first 3 was pretty surprising. The first 3 games were pretty brutal in terms of difficulty, but this game tries its hardest to be as accessible as possible. The whip is insanely powerful, it has insane range, you can aim it in multiple directions, and it has fast recovery. The whip is so good, …
Read morePlaying this game after playing the first 3 was pretty surprising. The first 3 games were pretty brutal in terms of difficulty, but this game tries its hardest to be as accessible as possible. The whip is insanely powerful, it has insane range, you can aim it in multiple directions, and it has fast recovery. The whip is so good, it makes the sub-weapons feel pretty weak for most situations. Simon is also more mobile than the characters in the first 3 games, being able to control his movement in mid-air and being able to land on stairs. The jump to the SNES also brings other improvements like with the aesthetics and sounds. The game also makes use of the extra buttons, so now there isn't the frustration of accidentally walking up stairs when you're trying to use your sub-weapon. The game is pretty chill up until about stage 7 or so, where the level design starts to get frustrating. That's when the levels start to get longer with fewer checkpoints, there's more instances of falling into pits, and there's sections where if you fail to progress during your first attempt, you just gotta take the L. Even though there's hard sections, the levels are not nearly as hard as in the third game. Overall, I think this has been my favorite of the classic style Castlevania's so far, but I still wouldn't consider it a must play.
Edit: I wanted to mention that including health recovery items in candles and in enemy drops is a nice touch. It's nice that the game is a bit more forgiving by not needing the player to remember where every hidden chicken is located. I also forgot to mention the final boss.
Status Reset_Tears Jun 12, 2022
The classic Castlevania everyone loves most... but I just found it good, not great (or amazing). The foundation is solid enough: great pixel graphics, great music, and plenty of great monsters to whip. But I think Rondo of Blood and Bloodlines are overall a good step or two better than this one. I think the biggest problem is something most …
The classic Castlevania everyone loves most... but I just found it good, not great (or amazing). The foundation is solid enough: great pixel graphics, great music, and plenty of great monsters to whip. But I think Rondo of Blood and Bloodlines are overall a good step or two better than this one. I think the biggest problem is something most people say is a great thing: the ability to whip in every direction. I'm certainly fine with that in concept, but in practice it feels very tacked on for this game. The levels don't feel at all designed with this ability in mind, and all the subweapons that were fun to experiment with in other Castlevanias pretty much feel pointless here.
The game isn't a cakewalk by any means, but the well-designed challenges of other classic Castlevanias aren't well-replicated here, and the main challenges you do get are just shitty little things flying at you randomly. (You get that nonsense in other entries of course, but it ended up feeling more annoying here.) The bosses are also really lame for the most part, save for one or two exceptions.
So yeah... definitely not a bad game, but I think people need to reconsider their rankings of the pre-SotN Castlevanias a bit!
Status kingbk83 Jan 13, 2022
This is a great game, but putting on the nostalgia glasses, the slowdown at parts (very prevalent in old SNES games before developers figured out how to work around that), how Simon feels like he is wearing cement boots as he moves around, and perhaps the easiest fight against Dracula in any Castlevania game (sans Simon's Quest), it's perhaps not …
This is a great game, but putting on the nostalgia glasses, the slowdown at parts (very prevalent in old SNES games before developers figured out how to work around that), how Simon feels like he is wearing cement boots as he moves around, and perhaps the easiest fight against Dracula in any Castlevania game (sans Simon's Quest), it's perhaps not the "legend" some make it out to be.
On the positive, the whole setup for the final battle, from the candles lighting up as you move, to the music from Dracula's theme starting up, to how it switches to Simon's theme mid fight when you are close to end, is very cool.
Ok, that retro kick was fun. Now time to get back into Eastward. My backlog awaits (Demon's Door, Disco Elysium, etc.)
Status kingbk83 Jan 5, 2022
In my retro kick before I start something new, playing this one again. It's a good game, but now that it's over 30 years old, I can see the flaws more clearly than I did when I was playing this on my SNES.
The music is fantastic and the action is fun, but it suffers from the same problem a …
In my retro kick before I start something new, playing this one again. It's a good game, but now that it's over 30 years old, I can see the flaws more clearly than I did when I was playing this on my SNES.
The music is fantastic and the action is fun, but it suffers from the same problem a lot of old SNES games suffered from with slowdown when a lot of things are on the screen. Also, like Super Metroid, the controls are a bit sticky.
Overall, fun game, but not the greatest Castlevania game of all time. Sorry, Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood are better, and Castlevania III for the NES is very close.
Status Felagund May 26, 2020
Hallmarks of old platforming games that I'm glad we (largely) abandoned:
- Enemies respawning the first pixel the screen leaves their position
- Death by knockback
- Having to attack every random section of wall for something breakable because there's no visible indication at all
Status dylanado Oct 31, 2018
Started playing Super Castlevania IV for the first time a few days ago. I wanted to beat it before Halloween was over. Just finished with 40 minutes to spare. I think the game had such a great balance. It was challenging, but not too challenging. The password system was great, and the checkpoints were very forgiving, especially in the last …
Started playing Super Castlevania IV for the first time a few days ago. I wanted to beat it before Halloween was over. Just finished with 40 minutes to spare. I think the game had such a great balance. It was challenging, but not too challenging. The password system was great, and the checkpoints were very forgiving, especially in the last level.
It feels good to finally beat a Castlevania game :)
I am up to 12 games completed this year. By the end of last year I had completed 24. I don't think I am going to reach that number again, but I am hoping to complete four or five more.
Have a Happy Halloween everyone!
Status SoupyMax Oct 28, 2018
This was my second Castlevania game. The gameplay and level design are top notch. They really make you feel like Spiderman... in certain levels. The soundtrack is also incredible. However, as great as all of these aspects are the bosses are really lackluster. Really solid entry!
Status Chovus Sep 18, 2018
I cannot remember if I played this when I was a kid, though I have now beaten it. I used the axe for the entire game. The biggest problem I had was one grappling point in the treasure room which I failed so many times that I was worried I might run out of time, but I still beat the …
Read moreI cannot remember if I played this when I was a kid, though I have now beaten it. I used the axe for the entire game. The biggest problem I had was one grappling point in the treasure room which I failed so many times that I was worried I might run out of time, but I still beat the level with plenty of time. I never did the harder second quest and most likely never will because of all the other games I could play.
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Review b_n 4/5 · Nov 16, 2014
1001 Games - #202
Pros: detailed and engaging level design, never frustratingly difficult, classic soundtrack
Cons: noticeable slowdown on busy screens, very easy for Castlevania veterans, lacks branched paths of predecessor
Recommendation: an excellent entry point to the linear 2D Castlevania games. May be disappointed by the lack of challenge after playing the NES games, but recommended for anyone else.