Aside from the wonderful, grave rendering of the night sky, there also are those purple forms of uncertain distinction below. Despite how ordinary this looks, Simon’s attributes make it a quirky requirement, and I’ve had (rare, mind) moments of dying twice in a row to the platform.Īs was done for stage 2, I’ve included a fairly obscured background above from stage 4’s third story, seen outside the lancet windows. So why are there the other four? Just for the pleasing visual arrangement that’s produced? Mystery! Screenshot number #2 shows off a simple mix-up of the flipping platform, since, unlike the prior example, players must redirect Simon after the jump to reach the ledge on the right.
The only flipping platforms that could possibly matter in this (monster-free) context are the first one above and below: the one above has to be jumped on to ascend to the third story, and the one below provides potential punishment of late reactions. Screenshot #1 was included because it’s a fraction of level design that’s sort of inscrutable. Avoiding the pitfall here is a matter of being quick and conscious, making for a pleasant change of pace. If you want to make a consecutive jump, this delay can be minimized only by a precise press of the jump button a split second after impact. There is a delay after he lands from a jump (especially if there’s a height difference between the jumping and landing points). Simon is not a Mario or a Bill Rizer – his body is weighted, heavy. The screenshot immediately above illustrates a part on the stage’s second story where players must mindfully contend with isolated architecture. The skulls embedded in the wall, mechanisms or still-living deadheads, follow Simon’s movement – a decorative touch that specializes the setting’s ambiance and reinforces Simon’s physical presence.
Simon can crouch-walk under them or, if players need a target to direct suppressed aggression towards, they can choose to attack. Hanging skeletons are another one of those Surprise! enemies, sprouting from walls in the background and swiping their hands about, an expression of joviality on their face that goes well beyond the usual eternal grin of skulls. It also provides an initial opportunity for players to understand these platforms’ mechanics without fatal failure (making the lack of such features in the part of stage 1 with mechanically analogous platforms even harder to understand). Stage 4 color- and texture-codes platforms – those green bits in the screenshot above – that flip about when they’re landed upon from a jump or fall. Like some of SCV4’s other monsters, there isn’t a real challenge to dealing with the dryads any threat they have is related to the surprise of their sudden emergence (and dryads, once they have emerged, can’t do anything except make grabs at Mr. Dryads – first showing up in Haunted Castle’s stage 1 – are humanoid creatures that sprout out of walls when players are at a certain distance away from them. It still was an odd decision for Konami to let players duck under knights’ swords, especially when the weapon at its lowest point is right on top of Simon’s head. Skeletal knights, from CV3, are an improvement in SCV4 upon the normal skeleton if only because their method of attacking – a single quick slash of their sword – has more aggressiveness than that of the tossed bones. Two new enemies are introduced right away: the skeletal knight and the dryad. It’s a nice complement to the weirdness that the stage delves into. The second half borrows a motif of the first (played upon an organ) for its unrepeated opener and proceeds to a repetitive string of anxious, incessant chords and an almost nonsensical woodwind melody flung out near the looping point. The first half is rather novel in having a variety of tonal and non-tonal effects that function musically and have the presence of ambient noise what is produced is a delightfully Halloweeny atmosphere of rattles and wiggles. “The Trick Manor” is actually two separate tracks: one that plays for the majority of the stage, and another that comes in around the tail end. Stage 4’s musical theme, “ The Trick Manor,” has the distinction of being the only other piece from SCV4 (counting “Simon Belmont’s Theme”) to appear in a future title (that being Circle of the Moon). We will also see one of the rare instances where the game’s normally clear conveyance of room-by-room progression gets muddled. Here, we’ll see the stage architecture start to assume a more hostile attitude. An abandoned mansion of perplexing contents, Stage 4 is our first all-interior level.
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