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.

SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV - Study No. 5

What seems to be an abandoned mansion of perplexing contents, Stage 4 is our first all-interior level. Here, we'll see the stage architecture start to assume a more hostile attitude. We will also see one of the rare instances where the game's normally clear conveyance of room-by-room progression gets muddled. Stage 4's musical theme, "The Trick Manor," has the distinction of being the only other piece from SCV4 (counting "Simon Belmont's Theme") to appear in a future title (that being Circle of the Moon). "The Trick Manor" is actually two separate tracks: one that plays for the majority of the stage, and another that comes in around the tail end. The first half is rather novel in having a variety of tonal and non-tonal effects that function musically and have the presence of ambient noise; what is produced is a delightfully Halloweeny atmosphere of rattles and wiggles. The second half borrows a motif of the first (played upon an organ) for its unrepeated opener and proceeds to a repetitive string of anxious, incessant chords and an almost nonsensical woodwind melody flung out near the looping point. It's a nice complement to the weirdness that the stage delves into.

Two new enemies are introduced right away: the skeletal knight and the dryad. Skeletal knights, from CV3, are an improvement in SCV4 upon the normal skeleton if only because their method of attacking -- a single quick slash of their sword -- has more aggressiveness than that of the tossed bones. It still was an odd decision for Konami to let players duck under knights' swords, especially when the weapon at its lowest point is right on top of Simon's head. Dryads -- first showing up in Haunted Castle's stage 1 -- are humanoid creatures that sprout out of walls when players are at a certain distance away from them. Like some of SCV4's other monsters, there isn't a real challenge to dealing with the dryads; any threat they have is related to the surprise of their sudden emergence (and dryads, once they have emerged, can't do anything except make grabs at Mr. Belmont).

Stage 4 color- and texture-codes platforms -- those green bits in the screenshot above -- that flip about when they're landed upon from a jump or fall. It also provides an initial opportunity for players to understand these platforms' mechanics without fatal failure (making the lack of such features in the part of stage 1 with mechanically analogous platforms even harder to understand).

Hanging skeletons are another one of those Surprise! enemies, sprouting from walls in the background and swiping their hands about, an expression of joviality on their face that goes well beyond the usual eternal grin of skulls. Simon can crouch-walk under them; or, if players need a target to direct suppressed aggression towards, they can choose to attack. The skulls embedded in the wall, mechanisms or still-living deadheads, follow Simon's movement -- a decorative touch that specializes the setting's ambiance and reinforces Simon's physical presence.

The screenshot immediately above illustrates a part on the stage's second story where players must mindfully contend with isolated architecture. Simon is not a Mario or a Bill Rizer -- his body is weighted, heavy. There is a delay after he lands from a jump (especially if there's a height difference between the jumping and landing points). If you want to make a consecutive jump, this delay can be minimized only by a precise press of the jump button a split second after impact. Avoiding the pitfall here is a matter of being quick and conscious, making for a pleasant change of pace.

Screenshot #1 was included because it's a fraction of level design that's sort of inscrutable. The only flipping platforms that could possibly matter in this (monster-free) context are the first one above and below: the one above has to be jumped on to ascend to the third story, and the one below provides potential punishment of late reactions. So why are there the other four? Just for the pleasing visual arrangement that's produced? Mystery! Screenshot number #2 shows off a simple mix-up of the flipping platform, since, unlike the prior example, players must redirect Simon after the jump to reach the ledge on the right. Despite how ordinary this looks, Simon's attributes make it a quirky requirement, and I've had (rare, mind) moments of dying twice in a row to the platform.

As was done for stage 2, I've included a fairly obscured background above from stage 4's third story, seen outside the lancet windows. Aside from the wonderful, grave rendering of the night sky, there also are those purple forms of uncertain distinction below. They could be the tops of leafless trees, considering the height of the view. They could also be a crisscrossing field of thorn-like spikes lining the roof of an adjacent structure, or protruding from the ground far below.

A sudden encounter with a skeleton knight near a ledge -- which, granted, would be better if ducking weren't a way to avoid the sword (a much later stage, the clock tower/level A, has a similar set up with greater tension, thanks to how you get to the knight). Let's take a moment to admire, or just acknowledge, the bricolage-like interior. I'm especially fond of the wooden beams near the top of the screenshot that give the surface a skeletal, ribbed look; the contrast of the finely sculpted stones and the untouched masses in the lower right; and, earlier on, the bright orange shutters set in the dark-stoned walls. Although the textures overall are not especially ruinous, one gets the feeling, by seeing all of these details, of an almost makeshift evolution of the building's interior, as if disparate bits and pieces have been added over the years to replace or go over older parts.

Puwexil, the stage's mid-boss, typifies a common critique of the game's bosses, which is that, provided one has a healthy lifebar and an upgraded whip, one can stand their ground and slug it out to victory with around half of their lifebar remaining -- or more, if the cross/boomerang subweapon has been picked up. Of course, the (willful) loss of health is a punishment, but the game is just not equipped to make that loss feel worrying. Puwexil's order of business is floating about in its room, as spectral skulls are wont to do, projecting a segmented tongue (making it a possible point of influence for the Man Eater monster in Aria of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesia), and making destructible debris rain from the ceiling that looks suspiciously like giant almonds.

With Puwexil out of the way, we're confronted with a situation that's worth talking about for a couple of reasons: it's a unique portion of level design, and it has played a large, almost single-handed part in perpetuating an opinion that CV4 is a "tech demo" in the most obtrusive sense of the term. Here, Simon ascends a staircase, and then has to latch onto a hook as the entire room rotates 90 degrees counterclockwise. When it stops, players drop to a platform and fend off, or avoid (less easy to do), Medusa heads that come from the left and right sides of the screen. As usual, this would be a more compelling situation were there stricter limits to Simon's offense (and if the platform were smaller), yet it still demands a decent level of rhythmic attention to be overcome -- unless you're a Super Speedrunner who's found the perfect place to let the whip droop. Soon, the Medusa heads cease, and the room rotates one last time (again 90 degrees counterclockwise), and has the player wait for a path of bricks to bridge itself from the left towards Simon, who then must swing from the hook -- without grazing the row of spikes below -- and land on it.

It's reasonable to criticize this portion for the way that it mismatchedly stands out as a detached set piece in a game that, overall, flows from one point to the next; and also for the fact that hanging onto a hook and waiting for a room to show off its ability to rotate isn't very exciting. Once these criticisms have been voiced, though, we can also admit that the set piece is over in less than a couple of minutes, and, in its uniqueness, can't be turned into an extended criticism of the game as a whole. The "tech demo" critique is one that, I think, can be much more aptly applied to a Castlevania game such as a Bloodlines (and I'll aim to show this in the respective articles).

We exit the rotating room from the left, but drop down into the next chamber as we would if we were exiting from the right. If you're worried about this becoming a trend, don't be (and if you want to witness a game that suffers all over from mindless stage progression, see Dracula X). This chamber -- a barrel vault made into an entire unit and given the power to rotate one way and the other -- is, realistically, the last time the label of "tech demo," applied with a sneer, can be put on CV4. If there's annoyance from the background's lack of an interactive function, and its heavy toll on the framerate, one can perhaps appreciate that they don't have to wait around for anything to try to impress a 1991-audience. We can walk ahead at our own pace, just making sure to avoid skeletons that burst and fall from the ceiling. Here is also where the second part of "The Trick Manor" begins to play. In my opinion, this is a charming slice of the game, if only because of course the room is the way it is simply due to someone at Konami wanting to show off that special effect.

Block 4-4, stage 4's conclusive block, is a sort of disheveled maze set inside a cavernous environment. Other than a bat or two fluttering near the start, and several bone pillars at the end, this place is monster-free. To reach the boss, players navigate a mixture of rising platforms and static architectural clumps. The ideal path is, in fact, very brief -- a few struts, crouch-walks, and jumps away -- but the seeming variety of routes can prompt novices to wander. 4-4's main threat is crushing adventurers between rising platforms and ceilings, a couple of which are lined with spikes. You'll have to get an idea of how structures' shapes converge to know when and where it's safe to move. Continuing the stage's trend of oddness, this block houses a shaft that, for whatever reason, infinitely loops until it is exited from (you can see the zone in question here; it's the vertical stretch with no apparent top or bottom). I think it would've been nice if this block were longer; something is lost between the hugeness of the backdrop and the interactive space's smallness.

Taking the correct path leads us to a snippet that references a feature of Castlevania's second stage: a trio of spiked mechanisms moving up and down. It's nothing that a modicum of patience can't solve. Past this, players are confronted by a stepped mass of stonework that rises towards a toothy ceiling and reappears below to continue the pattern. Surviving this ascent means boarding the mass as soon as it's accessible and ceaselessly walking right. Now, there is nowhere to go but up a small series of alternating staircases, since the mass we boarded sets itself up as a permanent wall once we've disembarked. Three bone pillars guard the way -- although, as I suspect readers will intuit, these fellows come across as space-fillers, and not as an unassumingly legitimate pre-boss barrier. Note that the background, originally scaly rocks of green, has transformed into an enormous brick wall ventilated by massive arches; and outside is a still pine forest stretching to the horizon.

The music fades out, the backdrop dims to pure black, and two platforms that float up and down appear, setting the stage for stage 4's boss, Koranot. Although it's a better effort by the developers when compared to prior bosses, it's not a total success. Koranot starts out as a towering golem whose size diminishes and walking speed increases as it takes damage. Its methods of attacking, as it patrols the floor, are tossing bricks at the player and jumping up and down to make a hail of stones (with safe spots in between) drop from above. There is, for sure, an immediacy and activity to this fight that's been missing in the others. What it lacks, though, is a fitting usage of the space that's been given. The platforms are a weird decision: Koranot doesn't advance far enough to the left or right to make them structural safe-havens (most mysterious is the right platform, considering that Koranot can't be gotten past without the player taking damage). The fight with Koranot, as it is and as it could be, is similar to the fight with CV3's cyclops; but that fight had risks associated with the space and player's actions. The cyclops patrolled the entirety of its room, and getting in position to hit its weak spot -- its head -- meant exposing oneself to its erratic behavior. It certainly wasn't a highlight of that game's bosses, leaning to the side of attritional design, yet it had an element of danger that the fight against Koranot, with the inexplicable platforms and overly-safe left side of the screen, doesn't have.

I may as well say right here that, relative improvements aside, CV4's bosses don't come into their own until the late part of the game. So be prepared!

Next up is stage 5 -- a short, sodden path that will lead Simon into the castle, and whose main purpose is atmospheric.