The SNES sucks and you suck for liking it. Nintendo<Sega

[SamuraiMegas]

Mmm, nice title. It gave me warm fuzzies inside.

[ZeroAX]

Me think some people have no sense of humor

[Dylan]

C4 does have diagonal whipping and most of the levels were in fact designed with this in mind. Not that it's my thing, but check out ANY speed run of C4 and all the jump whipping is diagonal whipping. Not just because it's faster but because it works.

The criticism of diagonal whipping is that it fundamentally changes the way Castlevania is played. The ability to angle your whip gives you much more in the way of offensive options in any situation, which changes the pace and flow of the game. The whip is now the optimal solution to everything, you don't have to select which offensive blind spots you want to be able to compensate for with the items. Nobody would bother adding something like the axe or the holy water to a game built on CVIV's engine because they don't even do their own jobs as well as the whip does. The whip's range is farther and whipping is faster than in the earlier games. One of the biggest gameplay elements in the early Castlevanias is that you aren't at an optimal offensive position in any given context, it's not a reaction based game. You have to compensate for missing tools by thinking two steps ahead, or you'll get in over your head very quickly. Castlevania IV completely reworked the gameplay to ignore these elements while still leaving in traditional items that were then robbed of their purpose.

However, I will say that as an action platformer CVIV is still a very solid game. Due to enemies no longer requiring caution and compensating to deal with the game has a faster and more action oriented pace. In a way it's a trade between technical gameplay and flashy action. The changes to Simon's jumping abilities also compliment these gameplay decisions, making his control more intuitive. In particular these changes benefitted the boss battles where Simon's lack of tools and mobility really hurt him in the earlier games. The boss segments were at times not well balanced with the tools that Simon had in those games, avoiding enemy patterns while finding safe times to attack was frustrating because Simon was not given abilities that suited him for reaction-based challenges such as the battle against Igor and the creature or the infamous Death. While the changes to CVIV can be shortsighted and do show flaws, they aren't entirely without merit in my opinion.

[Zing]

I thought this was a serious thread, but I see now it is all just a joke.

[Gunstar Green]

Ok, what I wanna know is; why anytime there was a dual-release for these systems, the SNES port usually seemed more polished; better sound, visuals, control.

Hmmm?

Okay... deep breath... I'm going to try to remain fair and unbiased in my opinions here:

While this is indeed the case with a lot of games, infact most of them, it's not the case with all of them. Usually this occurred because those games were originally programmed for the SNES and then ported to the Genesis without any concern that the Genesis and SNES have different strengths and weaknesses. The result was games with washed out colors and tinny music due to thoughtless conversions.

Konami was one of the companies that eventually caught on to this and cared enough to start making different games for the Genesis, like Contra Hard Corps and Castlevania Bloodlines, that catered to its style and ability. The result was awesome new installments in those classic series.

The Aladdin games are another example of two good games, two different versions.

EA games like the Strike series are optimized more for the Genesis and play better on it. The Takara ports of the SNK fighters are hit and miss (and none of them are very good compared to the real Neo Geo versions but I digress). Most are better on the SNES but I feel Fatal Fury 2 is better on the Genesis because the plane switching is intact among other things. I also like Samurai Shodown better on the Genesis. The SNES version includes Earthquake but at the price of having the game play in zoomed out perspective the whole time, and of course the SNES version's blood is edited out.

And speaking of blood there's always the whole Mortal Kombat is better on Genesis thing but honestly that's not really a big win considering Nintendo got its head out of its rear and allowed them to release a superior version of MK2, unedited (though the 32X has pretty much the definitive home release of MK2, but that's not important here).

The SNES Thunder Spirits is also vastly inferior to Thunderforce 3 which it's based on with loads of slowdown, worse music and somehow not as interesting graphics. The SNES is not a strong system for shmups in general and slowdown is a frequent issue. There are some real gems like the ones I named earlier and the SNES has the better SWIV game (Firepower 2000) but overall if you're into 16-bit shmups at all you probably have or want a PC-Engine and a Genesis for that.

I completely disagree about the SNES games having the better controlling versions unless you mean you prefer the controller itself. If anything this is one area where Genesis ports often came out on top with often more responsive controls and smoother scrolling. The Lion King is one title that comes to mind where you can argue that the sound and visuals are better on the SNES but the gameplay feels more natural on the Genesis.

Earthworm Jim is one notable example where the Genesis version came first and it's also the better version. The SNES version has stretched graphics and butchered music. The SNES version does have the better version of the sequel however.

As for sound in general goes it's really a matter of opinion. Personally I love the sound on both consoles, they each have their own style. I know a lot of people who hate all of the reverb in SNES music and feel it sounds very muffled though I'm not one of those people. If the developer put effort into making it sound good, it sounded good. If they didn't. It didn't.

And lastly even some of the games that are seen as the inferior ports like Sunset Riders and TMNT: Hyperstone Heist are different enough from their SNES counterparts that they're worth playing. As I mentioned earlier ZAMN is better on the SNES objectively but there are still a few reasons (like the Neighbor Radar) for some to prefer the Genesis version.

[Michi]

To each their own.

[Hobie-wan]

Play? Who plays games on Racketboy? I thought we only spent small fortunes to buy games, set them up on our selves and stare at them

Hey now, when I get a new cart game I clean it, play it a bit to make sure it works ok, attack the boxes in the closet so it can put it away, stare at my collection of cart games for too long as I put the boxes back, then shut the door to keep out naughty Mr. Sun.

Then I hop on here and talk about gaming.

[Gunstar Green]

Play? Who plays games on Racketboy? I thought we only spent small fortunes to buy games, set them up on our selves and stare at them

Hey now, when I get a new cart game I clean it, play it a bit to make sure it works ok, attack the boxes in the closet so it can put it away, stare at my collection of cart games for too long as I put the boxes back, then shut the door to keep out naughty Mr. Sun.

Then I hop on here and talk about gaming.

I wish I was less guilty of this than I am. I'm starting to slow down on the collecting and planning on getting to some playing soon though.

I keep saying to myself I'm going to sit down and beat _____ game but then I go on the Internet and get absorbed in forums and stuff and never get around to it.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Maybe that's why I don't post that much. I spend too much time playing through RPGs without ever doing side quests.

[Michi]

To some of us, Racketboy is treated as a side quest in and of itself.