I sat down and played both of these again to consolidate my thoughts on them.
I voted for SCIV before, and I have to say I'd do it again. What follows, of course, is my subjective take on the two games.
IV's only real weakness...whether it's large or small...is that the enemies aren't aggressive enough, including the bosses which are just too simple. I totally agree that traditional Castlevania gameplay balances everything perfectly around a straight-forward whip, but there's no reason why they couldn't have tuned the enemies to be more threatening against the 8-way whip and struck an entirely new balance.
So I'm cool with the 8-way whip. In fact, even though it makes things too easy sometimes, it's also more stimulating than I used to give it credit for. One thing I noticed while playing these back-to-back is that IV has a higher frequency of "stuff" you can whip. You might still argue quality over quantity, but with the 8-way whip, there's quantity and good variety. Even in segments that aren't very difficult, there's a pleasant "cleaning house" kind of feeling to it. With better difficulty, it would have been awesome.
Dracula X's gameplay IS better overall, definitely. Enemy movements are so much deeper and demand so much more in the way of reaction-to-their-actions. Like I was saying before, the thrilling, well animated boss fights are probably the best in the old series. I love how for all the depth and difficulty, it's possible to get through every segment consistently without getting hit as long as you know what you're doing. That's good Castlevania gameplay in a nutshell.
Richter moves just a little better than Simon, too. He's faster, not quite as bulky, and he handles more nimbly on stairs.
The production of Dracula X feels much bigger and slicker. It packs some real "wow" moments, especially with the volume turned up. If it weren't Castlevania, it might be my favorite PCE game. But because it is Castlevania, I'm expecting it to have a certain dark sophistication to it, and I'm sorry to say I just don't get that at all. Instead, Maria the well-endowed 12 year old in a bright pink dress floats down and has a cutesy giggly chat with Richter, and I just wonder WTF I'm playing. The same thing happens when Annette cries "Save me, Richter!" while a soap-opera clarinet plays in the background. This isn't a Japanese-style vs. Western-style issue to me. Old school Castlevania really just shouldn't have damsels in distress.
Call me crazy, but I think Castlevania is best when there are no words spoken in the game at all.
What can I say about the music? Dracula X makes me tap my foot. IV makes me feel like I'm alone in Transylvania. As for graphics, you could say Dracula X has the sprite animation while IV has the background animation. But while IV's enemies look a little dorkier, its world also feels a lot bigger, and that's the clincher for me.
And one last thing that pisses me off about Dracula X. Why the hell can't I get a perfect ending in one go? It's not possible to save Maria AND go to level 3' to save the nun without dying or resetting the system. Why didn't they put Maria first in level 2?
I would really love to see a hack of Dracula X that puts all the stages back-to-back.
