Konami certainly made an impression with the Castlevania games on NES, so it was a given that the beloved vampire-hunting series would make the leap to the 16-bit consoles that followed.
If you'd like to learn a bit more about the series' 16-bit entries, we'd highly recommend checking out the new retrospective history video (above) from the Splash Wave channel. These videos have great production values and are well worth a watch for fans of the series. This one concentrates on Super Castlevania IV for the SNES and the Sega Megadrive / Genesis entry Castlevania: Bloodlines.
Super Castlevania IV is considered by some (including its director Masahiro Ueno) as something of a remake of the NES original for the new generation of hardware, although with its sumptuous visuals, reworked mechanics and startling 16-bit soundtrack, it has a very different feel to its 8-bit counterpart.
Castlevania: Bloodlines, or Castlevania: The New Generation as it was known in Europe, has the distinction of being the first series entry to grace a Sega console. In Japan it was called Vampire Killer and the game is probably most notable for adding canon connections between Castlevania and Bram Stoker's novel by making John Morris the son of Dracula character Quincy Morris.
Let us know if you learnt anything new about these two fan-favourite Castlevania games with a comment below, and check out our ranked list of the best Castlevania games on Nintendo consoles if you really fancy reminiscing.
Comments 18
SCIV is still great just for the sole reason of having that 8 way whip. I really wish Rondo of Blood had that whip because maybe then it wouldn’t be so bloody difficult.
There is no bad Castlevania game. Each one has its charm!
Yeah it's a shame that Castlevania didn't have a character linking it to Bram Stoker's novel until they used John Morris 🤔
All the entries were great back then, Rondo of Blood being the best but Castlevania IV has the best controls but could have done with a shorter whip, you can't go wrong with any of them and all are some of the best games of that generation
Splash Wave do incredibly high quality videos and in depth game history analysis, great to see you guys give them a shout out!
I hope more people can see their fantastic content! Excited to give this new video a watch ~
I used to love playing Super Castlevania IV just for the music. This, Cybernator and Secret of Mana are the main reasons I loved the SNES era.
@Zuljaras haunted castle and the pachinko games?
Guys watch Game Sacks video it's awesome
The graphics of SCIV and especially the music are what freaked me out as a kid!
My parents got it for me (I didn't ask for it) and I buried it in the back of my closet after playing the first 15 minutes. After 3 years of recurring nightmares about the game, I finally dug it out and beat it. It's been one of my favorite games since!
@PickledKong64 Haunted Castle had a really charming graphics and the soundtrack was fantastic!
Pachinko machines are NOT games.
@Zuljaras true my bad. I love haunted castles Soundtrack so your right. But dayum was it a pain to play.
Splash Wave has some good videos from what I've seen. On this topic, I've never liked CV4. It never worked for me. The things other people like are things I don't like. I can't deny many people love the game, but I don't recommend it to people new to the series because it doesn't represent the typical Castlevania game-play experience as well as other games. Bloodlines, on the other hand, I love. While not covered in the video but from the same era, I also love Rondo on the PC Engine, and the Castlevania game on the X68000(released as Castlevania Chronicles on PS1).
Two absolute classics, and it’s not even nostalgia talking. I didn’t have Super Castlevania IV back in the day, I only got a cartridge off eBay about 10 years ago or so and I didn’t get into Vampire Killer until about 2 or 3 years ago. Sadly owning a legit cartridge of that game is a very expensive proposition!
I loved Castlevania 4, and got it around the same time as my SNES. A couple years later when I got Rondo I found it pretty frustrating that it didn’t have the same kind of controls. I beat it, but never went back for the “good” ending because of that.
Remembering playing Castlevania IV with the other classics like Super Mario World, Link to the Past. The SNES with it’s games was definitely one of the coolest Console generations.
Thx to Castlevania IV the series has special spot in my heart. Except for the Gameboy, 3DS Lords and the Wii ReBirth Version there hasn’t been a good release for Nintendo.
Be good to see a new release for the Switch.
@Steel76 Exactly. I appreciate it for what it is now, but I think 4 is really underrated. I’d like to see a Castlevania 5 developed in the way that Capcom brought back the Mega Man series way back when.
This is great! Thanks for sharing!
I remember my best friend and I rented this back in the day, and I think that is all we did that whole weekend. I play it regularly on my 3ds, but I still think about how that game epitomized "next-gen" to us.
It was a good video but I there was a lot of filler that could have been left out.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...