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. 2.5

Incoming mini-post because there were several things I'd forgotten to mention in Study No. 2 that I want to touch on before I forget (okay, I wouldn't forget, but it's easier to formulate a new post knowing that I've gotten these bits out of the way, or at least approached them).

#1: Although I'd mentioned that stage 1's block 1-1 presented the skeleton enemy in its most primitive state, I did not mention that block 1-2 supplies several fully developed (let's call them aggressive) skeletons that throw bones and jump. Another comparison with previous games must be made. Aggressive skeletons in Castlevania and Castlevania 3 were the closest thing that Simon and Trevor had to doppelgangers. If you tried to outrun such a skeleton, it chased after your avatar at an equal speed; yet if you tried to confront this skeleton, it would retreat. All the while, the skeleton would be tirelessly throwing one bone at a time in your direction with very little pause after a throw so that it could continue along its advance or retreat with little downtime. Consequently, the best trick to defeating skeletons was to bring them towards you by retreating and then striking either at the moment that the skeleton's brief offensive action made it immobile, or, provided you were close enough, striking in the midst of its advance. Of course, you also had the options that the subweapons afforded, such as throwing a splash of holy water on the ground between yourself and the skeleton, retreating, and letting the skeleton take itself out by advancing over the water.

SCV4 removes that sort of inversely-mirrored behaviorism from its aggressive skeletons. Instead, they erratically walk to the left and right while facing you. Their movement is slightly slower than Simon, and, barring rarities, if they do jump to close a space between themselves and Simon, they'll only do it once. After they've landed, they're stuck to that surface. On top of this is their new bone-throwing pattern: like their patrolling movements, they don't really have a pattern. They'll throw a bone when they want to. What all of this means is that SCV4's aggressive skeletons aren't so aggressive, and their erratic behavioral elements aren't enough on their own to create sufficient tension. Stage 9 has a memorable moment with a hardier skeleton, but outside of that case, whose difficulty is bound to its unique spatial conditions, there's not a lot else. We should also remember that Simon can whip upwards in three directions. Ordinarily, if a skeleton were on a level above one's avatar, the player would need to reach that level to deal with that skeleton (a classic example is the first room of Castlevania's fifth stage), or utilize the axe subweapon if they had it. However, if a skeleton is on an upper level in SCV4, a player can whip above themselves and deal with the skeleton in a way that the skeleton can't respond to with matching competence.

#2: Simon can now adjust himself in midair following a jump. Previously, a jump in a direction meant that your avatar was unalterably going in that direction. It was a commitment, and like the left-or-right whipping it was a mechanical restriction that gave the games their peculiar challenge (unlike the restriction on whipping directions, the limit on jumping had some realistic basis -- unusual for action-platformer games of the time (and still somewhat unusual!)). Now, with all of these comparative criticisms it's important to clarify that SCV4's edits to the repertoire aren't problematic because they're disrupting "the way things should be." If the series had forever and exactly stood by the model of the NES games, there would have been stagnation (and it is arguable that some of that stagnation can be felt in parts of CV3, even during parts of apparent novelty). SCV4's mechanics are being criticized for their undermining of level design. It is also important to clarify that we're hardly to the point of a game like Symphony of the Night, a game whose bestiary is partially taken from that of a preceding game (Rondo of Blood), despite the level design having changed from an action emphasis to one of exploration, and despite the character being the opposite of the mechanical archetype of the Belmont. And it is lastly important to clarify that these criticisms -- either of SCV4 or SotN -- do not necessarily lead to wholesale damnation of the targets. It will be part of my task, in this tour of SCV4, to bring up positive points that make a case for the game's value, because I do believe that it is valuable. This will be a difficult task: SCV4's value, I think, lies beyond a hard analysis of how a given stage "works." Rather, it lies in the real-time act of playing, of absorbing its converging and accumulating atmospherics. This is a value that, in a sense, lies beyond words and beyond defense.

~

#3: This is a preemptive comment, since the material being used for it comes in part from SCV4's second stage. ActRaiser was released for the SNES on December 16, 1990. SCV4 was released on October 31 of 1991. Two screenshots from the former can be seen above two of the latter.  I use ActRaiser as a comparison for its stages' similar thematic emphases and the small span of time between it and SCV4 (true, a year in the 90s meant more for videogames than it does in the 2010s (this is not to say that it took a year for SCV4 to be developed; more likely, it was half of that), but not to the extent that the comparison can be undermined). I'd like readers to look at ActRaiser's screens and notice several things: 1) the binary division between a foreground and background, 2) the simple manner in which the grounds' features are layered, 3) the minor number of discrete details, and 4) the foreground's "literal" colors ("brown things" are brown; "green" things are green). This forest's landscape can be quickly understood: a grounding dirt path, occasionally capped by short grass, its cross-sectioned side pure black; bushes and tall grass lining the side of the path furthest from us with little done to mask where the tiles end, giving their lines a domesticated appearance; the bold bodies of trees rising up from these bushes or tall grasses, each of whose crown of foliage is often individualized from others'; and lastly, the background as a single scrolling unit that, to embolden the foreground, devotes its real estate to minimal details and a limited palette of pale greens and dark blues.

And then we have SCV4. Curious, almost animalistic clumps of dirt lead the foreground; behind them are straight shots of grass that are a mixture of green, reddish-brown, and ocher. This vegetation more resembles a lane of tightly packed, ribbed virescence. The path has a central tread of spotty dirt lining it with breaks in between of grass. Behind this is what appears to be an elevation of dirt supporting yet more, and messier, grass. From here, trees with purplish trunks rise up. Their leaves aren't so different from those of ActRaiser's, but it's hard to tell them apart from the (bluer) leaves of the trees behind them, and their masses are interwoven. Also note the reddish, unexplainable diagonals embedded among the leaves. Deciduous trees' purple trunks behind the first row sport bulbous forms that make each resemble a baring of internal organs. Between them and the frontal trees are periodic orange masses that must be mounds of dirt and rock. Most distantly is a row of coniferous trees. All of this detail is confined to two layers (meanwhile, above, four layers of storm clouds roll on by). The second screenshot of SCV4 has been included just to show what the foreground, and those "animalistic clumps of dirt," become once Simon has walked far enough: a subterranean cross-section that seems more akin to the bumpy, scaly hide of some creature.

If there is another Super Nintendo game that matches the oddness, "tasteless" density, and knobby grotesqueness of what's just been shown and described of SCV4, I'm not aware of it.  I have, now and then, seen its visuals written off as ugly. What I want to propose here is that that isn't an adequate dismissal. SCV4 has moments that I would call beautiful; it also has moments that I would call ugly. There is no part of me that wants to re-brand these ugly moments as "beautiful" for justification, because their ugliness, similar to a painting by Francis Bacon or Philip Guston, is their justification. To me, SCV4's look is representative of an enthusiasm for the new, powerful technology of the SNES, an enthusiasm that wasn't so concerned about checking itself or being levelheaded, and which was filtered through the artists' interpretation of what Castlevania was, or could be. There is a baroque fecundity in this ugliness, and it is found in no other Castlevania game.