SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV - Study No. 9

 

After stage 6's showiness and the offbeat curiosities of stage 7, stage 8 feels like somewhat of a visual downgrade, even though it does have a nice variety of details and continues the subtle polychromaticism that garbs much of SCV4. Stage 8 is also host to one of the soundtrack's lesser pieces. It's not so much a fault of the composition as it is its unfortunately mushy expression through the soundfont. It's an unexpected thing to say, with how great SCV4 sounds to this day for being a Super Nintendo game. For a preferred alternative, allow me to point readers towards an FM rendering of the piece by YouTube user the_muteKi. But for whatever it may lack in atmospheric particularities and dynamics that leave some lasting impression, stage 8's level design ratchets up its expectations. It's hard to not notice this, at least intuitively, with the compressed layouts and abundance of environmental hazards, many of them spelling out instant death. But the cellar/dungeon is also unusually considerate with how it arranges enemies, even if the arrangements don't always succeed. It will also probably be the most difficult stage for novices so far.

The beginning is a little odd. Stage 2's spider enemy is reintroduced twice after a long absence as a barrier between Simon and a pit, and then goes away, never to return. More sensibly, players are given a chance to deal with a couple of spiked mechanisms in a low-stakes context. The mechanisms perpetually raise up to the level of their gears, freeze for a moment, and then plunge downwards. For a while, spikes were incredibly prevalent within videogames as a visual device to indicate danger. This trend began to die out during the transition to 3D as the dominant representative dimension. Today, it's almost only seen in games that make some attempt to reference bygone design. When people played SCV4 for the first time, they -- being so instilled with the idea that getting near spikes at all is a very bad idea -- may have never discovered that Simon is able to stand atop these mechanisms. Although this is not necessary for getting through the stage, it can help as a navigational alternative, and also by partly dismantling the spiked objects of that aura of danger.

A few graphical touches that are easy to miss catch my eye here. The first is the fence that foregrounds the path. It seems out of place -- something wooden and fragile in an environment that's otherwise all stone and brick; and fences aren't things that we associated with the indoors. The second is the purple coloring that surrounds the barred fracturing in the wall. Is it illumination, or some slimy substance coating the stonework? And lastly is the contrast between the ruggedness of the majority of the background and the almost metallically smooth, gray chunks that line the ceiling -- a touch that's especially easy to not notice when the HUD is getting in the way. It seems to me that designing virtual dungeons/prisons of some fantastic character as places that better reward the imagination is difficult most of all because one of the architectural convictions of the prison is that, as it is housing society's "worst," it should be under no obligation to stimulate or comfort. The drudgery of prisonic existence is in part an effect of the drudgery of the prison's look itself. This conviction is in fact full of all sorts of interesting implications (as an example, look up George Dance's redesign of Newgate Prison), but it's very easy to use it to boring, cliched ends.

Green droplets of what I guess are an acidic liquid fall from some of the ceilings. In the Japanese version (see the second screenshot), all of the liquid was red, and assumedly blood. This is another silly instance of censorship, but in this case I actually do prefer the US/EU version, just because it looks more chromatically complementary to the stage and is in line with the game's coloring habits. Like the low-stress introduction of the spiked mechanisms, the droplets here have been isolated probably to make players aware of them as a prevalent hazard before they're pushed into tougher spots. My only issue is that, since the HUD obscures the ceiling, telling where the droplets are falling from is unnecessarily difficult. An unsprouted une can be seen to the right. Its situating as a camouflaged, unassuming surprise is effectively similar to the surprises of stage 7's second half. With the une and the droplets, we're prompted to pay closer attention. Behind us, the cellar's artificial constructs have fallen away to reveal that a cave surrounds the greater area.

We come across something here that really should've been happening long ago: bone pillars being combined with another enemy so that progress is not a simple matter of advancing while casually slapping the bone pillar to death. As explained in this series' earlier entries, even if bone pillars were by themselves in Castlevania or Castlevania 3, the mechanics (for example, lacking the ability to dangle the whip and nullify projectiles) more evenly matched your avatar with the enemy. This is an arrangement that I feel is brought down most of all by Simon's ability to whip upwards; but the simple interaction of intersecting projectiles -- the horizontal lines of the pillar's fireballs and the vertical lines of the fire eye's droplets -- helps to engage the player's efforts.

This set up is so close to being a really interesting thing! An axe armor blocks your way, and its advancement limited by being on slightly higher plane that it can't drop down from. Close by is another spiked mechanism, one that swings back and forth like a pendulum. It seems like the designers wanted players to feel pressured between two hazards. Unfortunately, the pendulum is ineffectively situated: it's too high to be jumped on, and it's not low enough to be a threat unless you're jumping -- and there's no reason to jump. What would have made this work was if the platform were low enough to necessitate that Simon crouch-walk to advance, or so low that it needed to be jumped over, perhaps with a spike on either side so that the platform's top was the only safe surface. In both situations, the pendulum would be a periodic impediment and a thing to possibly mount for some geographic advantage. As it stands, this setup misuses its parts: it's just another axe armor with an environmental hazard that is a hazard in appearance only.

Players are given the option of following a lower or upper path here with no view of the end of either. It turns out that the upper path is the one players will eventually want to take; the lower one is a dead-end, and just offers a few candle-bound goodies. This part should confirm to everyone that the flat tops of spiked platforms can be stood on, since the upper path is reachable only with the platform to the left of the first screenshot. On the upper path, which is interrupted by two spiked mechanisms that slowly move up and down, you're met by a couple of fire eyes coming from the right. The first will hit Simon if he's not crouching; the second, near this part's end, is further above, and is only a threat for its teardrops. This would feel like a mostly complete stretch if there were a bone pillar on the platform that's between the spiked mechanisms. To Konami's credit, there is one near the path's end, and it can only be struck with the whip by meeting it on its platform. Despite Simon's abilities, the intense proximity of the bone pillar, the droplets of the fire eye above, and the spiked mechanism just behind Simon can make this a tense moment.

I really like how the mechanisms' courses have been represented. From the screenshots, it may look as though they are behind parts of the wall that have been torn down, but (perhaps the last course in the second screenshot gives this away) in-game, thanks to the disparities of scrolling speed between layers, it is clear that they are parts of the foreground. In fact, they are projections from the ground with jagged edges, seemingly half-natural and half-artificial.

Before we ascend to an upper level, we have to contend with a tricky and well-designed set piece. Simon has to get to the floor whose edge can be seen to the second screenshot's bottom-right. However, a mechanism -- like those near the stage's start -- and a bone pillar guard the way, and are surrounding by pits of harmful sludge (a fire eye appears early on, and will likely cause most players to backtrack a couple of jumps just to deal with it on surer footing, so it's not much of a player in the scenario). Simon can whip the bone pillar, but getting close enough to do that without mounting the mechanism's top (this poses its own inconvenience: the mechanism comes down to the bone pillar for only an instant before retracting, and when it is at its apex, Simon is exposed to the line of fire from an elevated bone pillar to the right) exposes Simon to the mechanism's leftmost spikes. If players retreat to the floating platform to, say, use a relic like the axe, the first bone pillar's fireballs will hit Simon in the legs, and so require some fast, precise jumping or awkward whip dangling. To me, this is a great moment of level design because it allows different ways of tackling it, and each way presents a couple of complications. This is actually the first in a trio of gauntlets that stage 8 places in its three main horizontal rooms before transitional points.

On the second floor, we're met with more falling and swooping mechanisms. A lone candle, holding the stopwatch relic (very helpful for an upcoming part) is placed alluringly in a shallow along the route. Be mindful, though: even if you crouch under the pendulum, it's set low enough that it'll strike Simon, so you need to approach the candle when it's swinging to one side. Soon after is a bit that I think can be read as the developers attempting to surprise players. You're simultaneously presented with a row of candles and a fire eye that flies in from the right, and both most likely will compel you to slow or halt your movement to do some whipping; but there's also a string of pointed rods embedded in the ceiling. Passing under a rod makes it fall. With the obviousness of the rods (not only do they stick out far -- the space between us and them isn't interrupted by any structures, making us more aware of any new details) and the clear walking path, this has little effect as a legitimate threat. Ideally, I think, Simon would be pushed to the right by some threat that appeared from the left while confronted head-on by a weak enemy (e.g., a bat) that appeared from the right.

Simon is challenged by two bone dragons. Short work can be made of the first one by snagging the rosary from the second candle in the first screenshot. The second one presents the most interesting usage of the enemy so far. Simon can leap to the second platform for a direct assault, but it's not advisable because of how exact you need to be with the whip to nullify the dragon's fireballs as soon as they exit its mouth. Of course, you could jump away before a fireball is emitted, but droplets perpetually fall from the ceiling between the platforms. The safest approach is standing at the edge of the first platform and attacking with horizontal strikes when the dragon is low enough.

A bridge that starts to collapse behind you after you walk onto it is a setpiece that's seen enough usage in the Castlevania series to be considered a bit of a staple. The instance of it here reminds me of the end of the eighth stage in Dracula's Curse, but I think that's just because both bridges are made up of square blocks. This is not a long bridge, nor is it heavily populated -- you're only confronted by two bats slowly flying close to one another, and another bat that swoops down from the top right near the bridge's end. The trick here, I think, is fighting against the impulse to attack. Whipping is doable, but it slows you down; it's much easier to get by with careful, nimble jumping. The last bat is meant to be a surprise, and, like a good surprise, it gives players enough time to react.

It's important that the developers used weak enemies here. Although whipping does slow you down, the bats can be killed in a single whip, and that leaves the option reasonably open. So many times I've seen sequences in fan-made Castlevania games where the player is pressured to keep moving, lest they fall into a widening pit or are struck by a trailing threat, yet the path is patrolled by enemies that are unreasonably hardy. In these sequences, the difference between requiring one and two hits is huge. Your reward for making it across the bridge is the cross subweapon from a candle. This candle is near a couple of platforms (seen in screenshot #2) that can only be gotten on from the bridge's side. If you do fall, you'll take damage from the liquid below and may die if your healthbar is straggling.

Block 8-2 opens with a vertical room that plays up the stage's overall compressed build and combines it with enemies that have some element of surprise to them. There's an attempt at mixing Medusa heads in -- a great idea! -- but it's weirdly inconsistent and sparse, for some reason. In the first screenshot, you can see that I've forgone the stairs and dropped down to the left for a candle, and consequently have to get rid of an une before I can continue descending. The second screenshot shows another point with alternate paths: you can go down on the left, but you have to make an awkward jump over a spiked mechanism (Simon's head grazes the tier above, limiting the jump's height), or you can risk going down on the right -- a risk because it's not clear if there is a pit or a floor below. While it turns out that there is flooring, a friend from stage 4, a hanging skeleton, pops out of a hole (seen in the screenshot's bottom right) and requires that you quickly move out of the way. In a weirder than usual move, Konami discolored parts of several staircases and made it so that if they are struck, they break apart and can harm Simon, if he's close enough, with the debris. It's interesting, but none of these parts are really in spots where Simon would whip, so the other criticism of the parts' questionable readability as potential hazards doesn't quite manifest.

I love this room's furthest background: stacks of brown and blue bricks that are zigzagged by stairs and lined with floors, and perforated by arched and circular openings. No matter how grimly and bluntly bricks are presented, to me, their multiplicity and uniformity evokes a lovely finickiness. This background is sort of an architecture unto itself -- different from how Castlevania backgrounds tend to be handled, which is as complementary but somehow detached backgrounds that enforce the explicit structural quality of the foreground by the absence of that quality in themselves. You can imagine stepping out of the foreground here and onto parts of the shady rise.

It's clear by now that the spiked mechanisms are being arranged in more uncomfortable ways, as we're greeted by two that, due to having shortened courses and being right next to one another, more or less necessitate crouch-walking to get past them. For some puzzling reason, the last staircase leading down from the room above has a destructible portion. Hanging skeletons become a regular enemy here. They don't come out of every hole in the background (such as the hole seen behind Simon in screenshot #2), though, so there's a tension of not always being met by what one expects. To be frank, the last part of 8-2 is a bit of a disappointment. When compared to the previous rooms, it's rather uneventful, and the designers make some redundant decisions, such as repeating -- and not elaborating on -- the falling rods setpiece.

Screenshot #1 depicts what I consider to be the second-hardest jumping challenge of the stage. Droplets fall between where Simon and the first mechanism are; and with the mechanism's closeness, there's not much room given for aerially moving to the right. Being very deliberate is a must here. A good piece of level design. Predictably and annoyingly, Konami put the knife subweapon in that candle to the right. Most unknowing players will whip the candle when they're right under it, since its enclosed position makes that the most convenient spot to do so. Past this is a route that's sheltered by an upper path. Mechanized stalactites poke in and out of the ceiling (somehow there's enough room for them to retract and be unseen) and can kill with the slightest poke. You can walk through here if you're careful, but there's no real reason to when you can just crouch-walk. This is a part that needed something more -- bats that slowly came from the left and right, perhaps, with a fire eye hovering above and out of reach. The only things these stalactites do is make you worry about your finger slipping on the D-pad and Simon suddenly standing up.

I'm torn about stage 8's penultimate challenge. It's a bridge of platforms that disappear and reappear, with several of those sharpened rods lined up and ready to fall from above. On the one hand, it finally presents an intelligent use of the rods, because once you commit to the bridge, the platforms' fleeting appearances prompts forward movement mixed with some squiggly jumping that can be complicated by the rods. On the other hand, it seems to me that the platforms' magic act is actually randomized, or varied to a degree that makes distinguishing a pattern within a reasonable time frame (e.g., five to ten seconds) difficult, if not impossible, and I'm not totally convinced that this sort of design is complemented by the heavy, relatively dedicated jumping mechanic. No matter how many times I play SCV4, doing this always comes down to responding to some moment when a lot of platforms are present and hoping for the best from there.

It's too bad that Frankenstein's monster offers such an unexciting fight after Sir Grakul, and that it pretty much comes down to Konami's decision to let you whip and nullify the beakers he tosses to effect chemical reactions on the floor. Once you discover that this is possible, the fight may turn out to be you standing right next to the monster, whipping furiously, and only pausing to whip upwards at the occasional beaker. The platforms do make sense, with the monster walking to either side of the room and unable to be jumped over unless Simon is on an upper platform. And since the monster can create a weaker clone of itself, options for temporary escape are especially necessary. There was an interesting fight here, with the monster's scale and the floor as a possible danger zone, but Konami flattened it with a mechanical liberty. Still, I'll take this over Castlevania's version any day.

Next time, we'll be looking at Dracula's abundant and glimmering treasury.

SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV - Study No. 8

SCV4's seventh stage is, as I said at the end of the last article, one of my favorites from the game. It's a bit hard to say why, and that suggests to me that this personal preference comes from an interpretation of the stage's tonal qualities, expressed by the mixture of environmental details and music. Coming off of the sixth stage's drama and numerous development, stage seven seems all the more reserved, all the more an inward turn. Palettes are musty and dim; the stage goes through just one environmental shift; enemies take on a surreptitious character; the music is a peculiar, delicate critter springing about with fine notes in a triple time that feels vaguely irregular, describing both the quietness associated with a library and the creaky, shadowy oldness of the place in-game. As rich in visual suggestions as the setting is, there haven't been many library environments in the Castlevania series. Excepting SCV4, there have only been Symphony of the Night's Long Library, Aria of Sorrow's Study, Order of Ecclesia's Library, Lords of Shadow's Abbey Library, and Mirror of Fate's Library. It's a bit surprising to me that SCV4 remained unique in this regard until SotN. Still, despite the series enjoying the theme somewhat regularly later on, SCV4's expression stands on its own.

Stage 7 immediately introduces another carryover: the spear guard. Spear guards were in the first Castlevania, and patrolled a handful of paths in the second stage. They had no offensive capabilities (unless you're counting their somewhat erratic patrol movement), which certainly wasn't a problem in itself, but none of their positions were strategic; if they got too close to an attacking player, the player could retreat for safety and not expose themselves to any complicating factors. Simon's Quest brought them back for its mansion environments, and gave them a charging attack, but the mansions' level design was too haphazard to create strong relationships between the spaces and monsters. Unfortunately, the spear knights remain a misused enemy in SCV4. Despite their new ability to thrust their spears upward at Simon if he is a level above their route, the level design simply doesn't create any chances for this to be a legitimate threat, and so the spear knights come off much as they did in Castlevania: hardy mobile obstacles that the player must whip simply because they cannot be jumped over. The series would have to wait until Rondo of Blood for the first considerate design and application of this enemy type.

Konami was sure to add in a couple of animated details to enliven the place. Enormous books jostle about on their own in cases' shelves, and the eyes of avian-headed statues glow with yellow light. Although the lack of a ground floor in the background is a consequence of the floors' pits needing a visual reason for their fatal faculty, it's an interesting sight -- bookcases so tall that we can't see their bottoms. The windows in the back seem like a strange reduction of a Gothic window where an upper circular design is set above a pair of minor arches within an arched frame. I love the bright, almost viscous green that lines the stonework's sides.

In what appears to be a clear riff on Castlevania 3's extensive vertical rooms (in particular, those from block 5-0A), the library houses a long series of staircases haunted by gargoyle skeletons -- an interesting aerial enemy that flies from one side of the screen to the other in a sine wave that covers an increasing vertical space. Added to this are books that have taken to rebelling against being treated like books, and float in spots before shooting towards Simon. This is actually one of the game's best designed and most flawed rooms: there are ample and engaging threats to deal with as one descends, but it's also possible to drop down a bunch of flights and skip most of the route at the expense of perhaps a slap in the face by a fluttering tome. The only pit is at the bottom, and its placement right under a solid platform makes it nigh impossible to fall into. Weirdness going on in the background: a kind of suspended floor with simultaneous perspectives, and thickets of rectangular windows and recesses (empty bookcases?).

We're now on the third lower floor, and a couple of more thoughtful design challenges happen. In the first screenshot, Simon has to descend to the third platform while minding that either axe armor can throw axes towards both of the platforms facing them. The idea here, probably, was that the upper axe armor would instill self-consciousness about dropping down/descending, and the lower axe armor would need to be disposed to nullify the threat of its axe volleys knocking you into the pit. In my opinion, this could've been improved by squashing the vertical space and having a spear knight below so that the upper and lower platforms that lack axe armors would be less safe. On the upper platform, you'd have to worry about the spear knight's thrusts, and on the lower platform an axe armor to the immediate left would better contextualize the primary "heavy obstacle" function of the spear knight.

Screenshot #2 shows a slicker situation, wherein players alight upon zigzagging, floating books and contend with a couple of platforms along the way, each occupied by an indestructible but collapsible (with two hits) red skeleton. It's one of SCV4's rare resurrections of the first Castlevania's most identifiable and enjoyable design element: design that prompts constant forward movement while invoking tension through the consequential possibilities of pausing or readjusting. There's also an element of required punctuality between the floating platforms' shifting positions and the span of time a red skeleton remains collapsed.

Here, in the library's other even more dingy half, a gallery and armory, is where the stage really grabs my attention. No major design adjustments happen, but, for me, a special atmospheric character develops out of the surroundings' dingy-yet-colorful stillness and the craftier, weirder enemy selections. Minute animations in the painted (pretending to be painted, anyway) woman's face alert players to something being wrong. A whip to her obscured hand's region will make her unable to grab and detain Simon, who can then better deal with the clusters of bats, initially hanging from a frame (and fairly well camouflaged), which fly his way. Walls covered in checkerboard patterns recall stage 4, and we're treated to yet more purples and greens. The paths' stonework gets cruder, and the remotest backdrop has further abstracted.

It's possible that this portion serves as a catacombs, on top of its role as a gallery and armory, but it's hard to say for sure. Frames show within them skulls and limb bones, and some of the frames are comparable to loculi, yet the bones are much to big to be human (not exactly the strongest point to be made in such a videogame series, sure), and some frames, like the one in the above screenshot's upper right, look as though they are housing tattered canvases. Animalistic statues with menacingly glowing eyes, upholding stone spheres, suddenly and harmfully (if touched) crumble when approached. Just within block 7-2's first moments, a few happenings -- the living painting, obscured bats, and unstable statuary -- prompt a guarded response in the player. This greater dynamism and unpredictability in stage design is refreshing.

A skittering creature emerges beneath this path's carpeting and moves towards Simon as he's below a ceiling's row of spikes. It's harmless, but I am sure it was intended to make novices panic and, in their rush to get away from its advance and the spikes, run into a nearby cluster of bats (two are visible to the screenshot's far right) and have to make some split-second offensive decisions. Cool-headed or experienced players will crouch, letting the creature pass underneath without pushing Simon up into the spikes, and therefore have enough room and time to deal with the bats.

Be careful when ascending to this floor. A clubbing knight is hiding in the frame below, ready to strike. The clubbing knight, one of which is visible to the screenshot's upper left, is an unusual enemy -- it's stuck in one place, some position that allows it to retreat behind a kind of wall. This means that it's technically a non-mobile enemy, but its interaction within a given part of a stage deals in layers, and carries a three-dimensional aspect. Clubbing knights appear in four stages total, with stage 7 as the last. They're conceptually interesting as a destructible threat in the stage's makeup itself, but they're not utilized to their full effect. Konami could've instead fully hidden their bodies right up until players were about to pass their haunt, and also lengthened the time they wind up for a swing once they do appear. In this way, the knights would be both legitimate surprises and, thanks to the delay in their attack, have a wider use as a piece of tension-inducing level design. As it stands, their behavior is too erratic to be fair in tighter situations where you might be compelled to keep moving, and their premature visibility makes their horizontal stasis a little awkward. Still, their placement in the highlighted instance is more successful than the others, if only because seeing them pop out of frames is a more striking sight than them just being behind a wall.

The orange canine at the screenshot's top is a candle hunter. It's unique to this stage, and is one of the bestiary's oddest entries -- although basically the same as the zombie dog from stage 6, it leaps at candles during its patrol and knocks them down so that the player can't obtain their contents. The spot to the lower right with the overhanging block housed a double shot power-up, which lets Simon throw out two sub-weapons in quick succession.

This floating worm, known as a larva, has the distinction of being one of two enemies (the other is the dead mate) in the game that is only seen once. It crawls through the air in swirly, unforeseeable directions, and while it can be killed, it has a very high amount of health and its sole weak point is its head. The best strategy is to keep walking and, once you've reached the rightmost part of the room, wait for the larva's horrible, whirling, bubbling sound to disappear -- indicating that it's left the premises -- before continuing along the lower path to the left. The vivid and sudden sight of this immense, raucous creature creates a memorably unsettling moment, and builds on the motif of unpredictability.

The theming stresses the armory side of things in the block's penultimate room, with spears and axes hung on the walls and knights' suits set atop tables further back. A couple of axe armors guard the last hall, and are more interesting to deal with than they have been previously, since the player -- still bound to a staircase, and needing to ascend -- does not have convenient means of engagement. The axes of the one to the right can span most of the given distance, and the armor to the left is close enough to the staircase while being outside of easy vertical-diagonal reach of the whip that the player consciously needs to find an ideal spot to attack. This time around, I was struck by the thought that stage 7's boss might've come as a twist to some players: with block 7-2's skeletal details, empty picture frames, and prominent axe armors, one may have expected Death at its end.

Instead, players are met by a suit of armor that breaks out of its display case and attacks. In his first phase, Sir Grakul alternates between throwing his axe as an axe armor would (but only from his upper half, allowing players to duck under the axe if they're on the lowest level, or -- if they're on one of the platforms -- to avoid it with a precisely timed jump) and slamming it on the ground, causing two flames to crawl along the floor in either direction. After 3/4 of Grakul's health has been depleted, his axe shatters and he withdraws a sword, necessitating a retreat to the closest elevation from which the player can jump over his swipes. There is a bit of strangeness here reminiscent of Koranot's design, in that there is a symmetry to the room whose layout includes two strategically superior points (the elevations), and that the flame attack spreads out both ways, even though it's impossible to get to the right side without being hurt. That aside, this is a solid, exciting boss fight. Sir Grakul cuts an imposing figure, he ties into the armory theme, his voraciousness and adjacency to the player creates tension, and his attacks ensure that you will be making frequent choices on whether to whip or prepare to avoid an assault.

The floor gives way following Simon's victory, and he's swallowed by the resulting void. This echoes the transition in the original Castlevania between stage 3 and 4, wherein Simon falls down a shaft and lands in a subterranean zone. Likewise, next up is the dungeon, in my opinion SCV4's weakest place visually, but housing some of its strongest level design.

P.S. Please check out this great bass cover of the library's theme by YouTube user tiguilherman.

SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV - Study No. 7

Replacing the map of the surrounding landscape is one of Dracula's castle, somewhat abstractly showing what the order of business will be, and accompanied by a turbulent keyboard (harpsichord or piano?) tune. Each large tile at the end of a path designates a boss, but the route in fact extends to the clocktower, bridge, and pinnacles to the upper right -- something that may have surprised a few players back when. Stage 6 is the classic entry halls, seen in the NES trilogy (albeit in a reduced form for CV2), most recognizable for their large gray columns and red tattered curtains. CV4 opts for discontinuing the pattern of having "Vampire Killer" play in this setting, and instead inserts an original courtly composition for organ and strings, bereft of any percussion or motor rhythms.

These entry halls retain a couple of the details from CV3's (block 8) -- sculptures of robed women set upon pedestals in arched recesses, and frame-like moldings with angled edges (not appearing until block 6-2). Returning, too, are the shuffling groups of zombies and bats, which now hang from upper walls and wait for Simon to get close enough before swooping down. A couple of zombie canines are also present, possibly as a stand-in for CV1's panthers. They'll crumple to the floor from a whip hit, but right themselves a few seconds later and continue running about. Simon's sprite here is taller relative to the surroundings than it is in CV1/3, but there is still a sense of scale gained from the retention of the columns whose capitals are obscured, making you wonder how far up they go.

The lower shot is from the Japanese version, and shows that the sculptures were partly nude before being made "decent" for the American/European versions. You can see differences between the HUDs, too: the Japanese version's text and numbers are darker and more dimensional. There are several other changes, like the game's logo, the Japanese version of which is shown crowning the map in this post's two first images. I prefer it to the English logo. The blood-dripping characters have a weapon-like malice, the purple-to-red color scheme is closer to evoking SCV4's weird palettes, and the castle silhouette is a sort of redundant touch, and funner for its excess than the plaque.

 

Axe Knights didn't show up until CV1's fifth and penultimate stage, and were rightfully treated as a higher level enemy for their resilience and ability to attack with projectile axes that could be thrown higher or lower, and returned, in magical-boomerang-like fashion, to their owners after a couple of seconds. Although they were still formidable in CV3, the Knights appeared earlier on in the adventure and in more than one stage, and their presence (not quantitatively) was somewhat lessened. One of these stages was the entry halls, and that's perhaps why the Knights are in SCV4's variant. They're certainly more interesting than most other carried-over enemies, just by virtue of intrinsically having more complexity than the typical Castlevania enemy, yet in many cases they're missing the particular challenges their patterns can bring. Simon can, as he could with the Bone Pillars, dangle the whip and nullify their axes; and, of course, he can attack from below structures. So, Axe Knights can't really function by themselves or even with architecture that, traditionally, might've been suited to the Knights' behavior -- to function, they need other enemies to come into the picture and complicate things. To the game's credit, it does attempt to do this with a smattering of platforms (atypically without supports) that limit ease of movement near the first two Knights and several adjacent bats. This would be a more exciting introduction if SCV4 had kept the classic steady stream of bats, fluttering in from either side of the screen, and not made them one-time threats.

Up a flight of steps, assumedly at the halls' upper limits, Simon needs to utilize massive swinging chandeliers and small (again unsupported) platforms to progress to the left, over a deadly drop. The void-like background hums between black and a dark red, and the candles' flames flicker and bend to match the chandeliers' swaying. Even if the hardest work to be done is some timed jumps to get across the chandeliers, it's a memorable section for its sparse but strange imagery and the way that this imagery introduces and augments the drama of the stage's spiny second theme.

On to a sort of grand hall, patrolled first of all by more Axe Knights, with shadowy aisles on the side for ghostly dining. Not for the first time do we see the game's love affair with purples and greens (for some reason, in this instance, I'm reminded of a few rooms from Aria of Sorrow's Castle Corridor). I'm fond of the columns' and walls' craggy, irregular textures; they're a neat contrast against the relatively elegant affects of the chandeliers, dining tables, candelabras, and the floor's trim stonework. You'll want to mind the chandeliers, since they fall when Simon is underneath them. This is an idea that would return for a segment of Bloodlines' fifth stage, the Palace of Versailles. One of the game's two most well hidden secrets is after the first two chandeliers, and I can't imagine anyone discovering it thanks to anything aside from sheer luck. To access it, you need to whip (no, none of the relics will do) a part of the floor that crumbles and reveals a staircase leading down.

Below we find a candle-lined chamber holding a bounty of items, including every relic and a potroast. What makes this spot exceptional is that it was used by the developers as an opportunity to flesh out the world, and is, as far as I can tell, the first example of a Castlevania game using one of its secrets to take some sort of narrative and atmospheric liberty. On top of having its own lengthy theme, by far the most lighthearted piece of the soundtrack, the room is patrolled by the ghosts of a man and his dog, which runs along the lower floor and weirdly rebounds off of its walls in arcing leaps. The only way to safely get to the bottom half is to attack the dog, since it hurts Simon -- but, once struck, the dog falls to the ground, prompting its owner to run to its side, kneel and sob with a hand to his face, and fade away. It's interesting to see the game attempt to foster a little empathic moment -- another case of an ostensibly kitschy action game deviating from expectations. Dawn of Sorrow brought the man and dog back as a persistent enemy called the Dead Mate in its Silenced Ruins area. This wasn't so memorable, aside from the novelty of seeing an obscurity resurrected.

If we're to return to the main path, Ectoplasms, flashing a variety of colors, intrude on the scene with "screensaver object" behavior -- bouncing off of the edges of the screen while adhering to a diagonal course -- and a group of reclining dead noblewomen take to the air, hovering about and homing in with surprising speed. Both of these enemies call upon the whip's new capabilities, or the axe subweapon, and their combined efforts make for a welcome and interestingly messy scuffle. I've always felt that the nobelwomen/men had a sort of unsettling appearance (as much as a sprite from a 90s videogame can be unsettling) for their lack of facial features, even if Simon is similarly lacking.

Messing up the quickness of your jumps in the first screenshot either means needing to repeat a part of the stage or death, since the spikes underlining the platforms are instant-killers. On the third floor, players are met with another nice moment of tension due to good, simple enemy placement: a skeleton advances towards Simon, right next to a pit of deadly spikes. Brave or Grave.

Right after, we have our first encounter with a possessed coffin. It stands upright and shudders, giving us reason to worry, but it can't be attacked -- not until it's passed by, at which point it will give chase at such a speed that turning around to retaliate is ill-advised, unless you're holding the cross subweapon and preemptively use its boomerang behavior to hit the coffin twice. This chase scene is very short, but it does make players contend with skeletons to get ahead unharmed. You'll notice that the screenshot is of the Japanese version; this is to show that the coffins have a cross symbol on their covers that was removed in the EU/USA versions. Konami's occidental division was apparently deathly afraid of any outrage from Christian denominations regarding imagery. But the game is so very full of potentially objectionable elements, such as promoting the lifestyle of skeletons, that the imagined battle could never have been won without revamping the game on a fundamental artistic level. The aforementioned mouldings from CV3's entry halls can also be seen here.

Red skeletons make their return in this hallway, felled by a snap of the whip but rising again soon after to resume their patrol. To avoid getting pincered by them and whip skeletons, you'll want to keep moving. Mostly I've included a screenshot of this section because I think it looks great, especially with those scrolled capitals, the gray wall's shading that bolsters the foreground arches' presence, and the recesses holding bony remains. The foreground is its own separately scrolling layer.

A thunderstorm can be seen illuminating the clouds outside windows on the fourth floor. This could be the strangest example of level design in the game. Ghoulish hands reach out of the wall, flexing their fingers, and each one is coupled with frozen, flickering skeletal knight. The idea here is that getting grabbed by the hands causes a knight to come to life and attack. This can be dealt with either by whipping the knight before its sword's strike can land or by crouch-walking under the hands, thus circumventing getting grabbed. To me this is strange because the interactive terms are very vaguely expressed, most of all because you don't know what's going on with the skeletal knights when you first see them -- why aren't they moving? will they hurt me if I touch them? is the game glitching? I assume most players will crouch-walk their way through.

A rotating circle of coffins (note that the cross symbol is replaced by a rectangular impression) show the developers having a bit of fun, sort of in the same vein as stage 4's rotating room. The fifth floor is where the stage's most exciting action happens. I suppose it's meant to be a mishmash of a dining and dance hall. Details from the entrance return with new accents and inclusions that make for a more grandiose effect, like the coffered ceiling and the closer columns that appear to have detached shafts. As Simon advances, ghostly couples materialize and dance around the chamber -- a vivid concept (with apparently a lot of appeal, judging by fan projects) that wouldn't reappear until Aria of Sorrow. Simultaneously, possessed dining tables obstruct Simon's way, but they can be destroyed before they flip out if they're whipped from a certain distance. The trick here is to balance a need to keep walking, dodging, and attacking with having to occasionally stop to get the tables out of the way.

It's fairly doable to not get hit by the stage's boss, the Dancing Spectres, but this is, in my opinion, actually one of the game's most successful bosses. Besides serving as a kind of climax to the theme of waltzing spirits, the Spectres' behavior -- twirling about, thrusting forward with a rapier, and causing a trio of possessed arrows to appear -- necessitates full use of the arena. They flash in and out of sight, making the tracking of their movement more difficult than it would otherwise be. This fight is as much about getting your hits in as it is about staying a step ahead via the platforms (and after several prior cases of floating platforms, it's cool to see these blocks so nicely contextualized). Of course, the cross subweapon, as usual, is -- if you have it -- a tool of destruction, but I find it hard to get worked up about What-Ifs when the fight in this case is so fundamentally sound and thematically germane.

Next time, we'll be exploring a favorite stage of mine, the Unliving Quarters, or library.