After slaving through the original Castlevania game, I decided to skip Simon's Quest and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and head straight for Super Castlevania IV because it's generally regarded as one of the better Castlevania games in the series. Seeing that I started playing these games through Aria of Sorrow, I was still trying to get used to playing the "classic Castlevania" as opposed to what people like to call the "Metroidvania" games that started with Symphony of the Night.

Super Castlevania IV takes the formula of the original game and doesn't try to innovate the series through drastic gameplay changes, such as the RPG elements in Simon's Quest and the various playable characters in Dracula's Curse, but instead IV sort of aimed to refine the series' gameplay instead of invent large new gameplay elements or introduce gimmicks. I found this to be a pretty pleasant thing especially coming straight out of Castlevania; the original was very innovative and important for its time, but by today's standards the game's controls in particular are pretty dated and for some, very difficult to handle. Now, whenever you jump, you have some bearing over how far you jump instead of having a set distance that could lead to your death. Along with that is the incredibly entertaining ability to control the direction you can whip, and this gives you much more freedom in how you can approach attacking enemies. I feel as if the game itself is just a lot more free. You're able to do much more and you're in control of your actions in a larger sense than in the original. Along with these slight but important gameplay changes is the whip-swinging segments, which in brief moments like "the revolving room" can really highlight how creative the developers were with their level design. Ultimately, it sort of leaves me longing a bit for even more though, since there are some really nice gameplay elements that they could potentially incorporate with the whip since it's so prominent in this game compared to its predecessors.

The presentation of the game overall complements the gameplay pretty well. There's a lot of nice effects to whenever you strike something with your whip, the flashes and the sounds, and it's satisfying when you're just wailing on things. The music of the game is incredibly catchy and memorable and fits the situations of the game really well. Put in some throwbacks to older games and you've got a really memorable soundtrack. All the monster designs and sprites are nicely done, and sometimes there's some Mode 7 for certain segments like jumping on large chandeliers or running through a large revolving tunnel. These really envelop you in the game's setting and events leading up to Simon Belmont's confrontation with Dracula once again.
 
Probably the largest complaint I have with this game aside from the fact that story is virtually the same as its predecessors is actually the gameplay at times, where specific aspects of the game are simply too easy in comparison to the rest of it. While the actual levels themselves can be pretty difficult, especially anything that involves fatal platforming, when you reach the boss of the level it usually only takes your incredibly long and powerful whip and you mashing the X button a couple times to kill it. While I did say that it was satisfying to wail on enemies with your whip, it seems almost petty to kill bosses with that strategy over and over. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's almost optimal to exclusively use your whip in almost every fight in this game. The items that you get in the game have significantly less value and you never really have to worry about running out of hearts to use them unless you died and spawn right before a boss or something. But of course, then you can just use the whip and you're fine.

It's clear that Super Castlevania IV was made as an attempt to bring fans back to the franchise as well as expand its audiences, as the gameplay was refined to be much more accessible and entertaining by bringing some small gameplay changes. The great level design and intuitive controls give the game surprisingly substantial replay value, and the difficulty is satisfying enough for the hardcore fans to play while still being possible to advance through by those newer to the franchise. With all these in mind, Super Castlevania IV places itself among some of the more noteworthy titles in the SNES's library.