Super Castlevania IV/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Anticlimax Boss: Dracula. While he is hard, he's not the hardest boss in the game, is easier than his version in other games, only has two forms with one lifebar as opposed to the previous game's three forms that had their own lifebars, and his "second form" is just his normal self without his mask on, while the only new attack he gains in that "form" is an easily-dodged lightning attack. However, it does take two or three hits to take down a single point of his lifebar.
    • Ghost dancer boss isn't that easy by itself, but by the fact that you can max out your health and whip in a room before the boss fight, and even if you lose, one of the walls contains the 1-up that will reappear after your death.
  • Awesome Music: Many of the songs, including but not limited to: Theme of Simon, Treasury Room, and Bloody Tears.
  • Breather Level:
    • Stage 5, the entrance grounds to Dracula's Castle, is the shortest and easiest level in the entire game, with only two blocks and some minor enemies to face down.
    • Stage 7, The Library, is also one of the easier levels in the game, especially in contrast to how grueling stage 6 was.
    • Stage 9 is a walk in the park compared to the last stage, which was basically a torture chamber filled with instant-kill traps.
  • Game Breaker:
    • The omni-directional, flailable whip. Makes a joke out of most enemies, and it's your main weapon.
    • It makes the Axe, generally one of the better weapons since it hits flying enemies, practically useless. It should be pointed out that the omni-directional whip does not necessarily make the game easier, especially on the second loop.
  • It's Easy, So It Sucks: Due to the omni-directional Vampire Killer and the Jump Physics, some Classicvania fans deride this game for being too easy. This is the reason why every subsequent game has reverted to the less controllable jump from earlier games. Additionally health-restoring powerups are a lot more plentiful and easier to find, you can sustain a lot more hits before dying, and enemies are generally weaker in this game, dealing less damage and taking a lot less hits to kill, including even the Axe Armors that are Demonic Spiders in other games, exacerbated by how powerful your Whip is in this game. Then there's the bosses, which tend to be a highlight of the other Classicvania games and can be murderously difficult, are very weak in this game, when you can defeat most of the bosses by just mashing your Whip at them with no regards to dodging their attacks, killing them before they're able to kill you as long as you made it to them with enough health (which with the aforementioned sustaining less damage from hits and plentiful health powerups, should be the case most of the time). Even the harder bosses like Death and Dracula pale in comparison to their versions in other games.
  • Nausea Fuel: Stage 4-3. The spinning background can make many gamers dizzy. Also, it lags.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: Oddly enough the omni-directional whip, despite it averting Denial of Diagonal Attack and giving the player ultimate control over their weapon. The main reason is that it pretty much obsoletes the subweapons other than the Cross with a Double/Triple shot, when subweapons are seen as a crucial part of the Castlevania gameplay. The Axe in particular gets made useless by the Whip when the Whip eliminates its main usage of hitting enemies above you. Additionally the Whip, your basic weapon, being so powerful is a large part of why the game is a lot easier than other Classicvanias, especially when the enemies and bosses were made a lot weaker in this game.