I've never understood the appeal of Super Castlevania IV, personally. I've always felt that the controls feel gross and the aesthetic is garish and ugly. Even the music/atmosphere, which gets a lot of praise, doesn't do a whole lot for me.
Part of the reason the controls get so much praise is because they were a huge step up from the Castlevania III, which while a great game was undoubtably clunky. Same thing with the difficulty...CV3 is awesome but brutally difficult (at least the NA version is) while SCIV is less unforgiving.
In terms of the side-scrolling Castlevania games, I don't think SCIV has a challenger other than perhaps Chi no Rondo/Rondo of Blood on the PC Engine, though that one is also really hard.
I beat chrono trigger. man what an awesome game. definitely one of the best rpgs of all time.
My favorite video game of all time.
Same for me. For being a huge fan of the metroidvania 'genre' I'd never actually played the Vania portion of the equation, apart from a little bit of the original NES game when I was a kid. So when I got a Wii 10+ years ago and having always heard great things about IV I got it on the virtual console and... meh. Maybe it's the wrong one to go with if I want a Castlevania 'metroidvania' experience since it's just a straight platformer, didn't really see anything to great about it.
SCIV is absolutely not a MetroidVania. The first one of those I remember offhand is Symphony of the Night, which is one of the greatest games of all time.
Not sure if I really need to get one of these mini consoles though since I went through a bunch of my favourites on the Wii, but one thing I noticed is while I think a lot of them age well and are highly enjoyable I'm just too good at the games now. Not the Nintendo-hard games like Contra, but the Zelda, Metroid, and Final Fantasy type games. Like when I played Link to the Past on the Wii, even though I'd never touched the game for 10+ years I just ploughed right through it. I found that I remember about 50% of the stuff which made things much easier, but the other half I had completely forgotten offered no challenge either. I 100%'d the game without putting any extra effort into finding secrets.
So while straight up gameplay can still be a challenge the deeper stuff like how to find secrets or how to best utilize and exploit systems/strategies part offers me no resistance.
If you're referring to the original Metroid, that game makes you feel like a rat in a maze. If you think Contra is too difficult (IMO it's not) try Super C on the NES. It's far easier, to the point I have beaten it without a single death (or use of the spread gun) before and I'm not a retro gamer of great skill.
In terms of the retro FF games (you may or may not know all of this):
- the original FF on the NES is very buggy and grindtastic, play a remake
- FFII (the original Famicom version) is
BY FAR the worst FF game I've ever played. It makes Mystic Quest look like FFIV by comparison. I don't even think the remakes are worth playing though they are better than the original festering dung heap. Horrible.
- FFIII is great. The original version gets tough toward the end but it's by far the best of the NES/Famicom versions. If you like the job system it's definitely worth playing the original or DS remake.
- FFIV Japanese is my favorite in the entire Final Fantasy series.
- FFV is also great but if you don't like the job system don't bother.
- FFVI is great, maybe the best game in the series but it's definitely not my favorite.
This dislike of Castlevania IV is disturbing me. One of my favourite games ever!
I love it as well.
Oh well, I guess we all have different tastes. I myself have always hated Earthbound and I'm sure that's sacrilege to some lol.
I'm going to pretend I didn't read that, haha.
If I remember correctly, there should be a neat little mechanic that eventually kicks in, where it starts skipping random battles that you're overpowered for and just giving you the experience right away.
Correct.