Super Castlevania IV: The 8-Way Whip and Why It Needs to Come Back

In light of the newly released Castlevania: Rondo of Blood on Nintendo’s Virtual Console, I wanted to go into a bit of a Castlevania spin for this entry.

To begin, I’m a huge Castlevania fan. I wasn’t always, though. No, my first exposure to it was back in the NES days, when the very first one was released. We had rented it through the local video store and, let’s be honest, I sucked at it. It was far too difficult for me to play. I was all of six or seven years old at the time, mind you, so I had good reason to be horrible at it. My older brother had a much better grasp of the game, and he seemed to enjoy it. I wouldn’t turn into a Castlevania nut until a few years later, when Castlevania 3 was released. It’s a great entry, and to this day one of my favourite video games.

So, yes, I’ve played most of the Castlevanias we’ve seen released over the years, with one or two exceptions (Judgment included). And, while most have taken and borrowed from the past, there’s one thing missing from them, an innovation that my favourite of the bunch introduced and was promptly left behind.

8-directional whipping.

See, while Castlevania 3 was an amazing game, and, with its branching pathways, was a precursor of sorts to the so-called Metroidvania way of play that we’ve seen dominate the series of late, made popular by the still-stellar Symphony of the Night from the PS One days, it would be Super Castlevania 4 that would mark my favourite and most-played entry into the series. From the graphics to the soundtrack to the levels to the enemies, the game’s near-perfect. It’s made even better by introducing the concept of being able to use your whip in every direction, delegating the sub-weapons to the R-button of the SNES controller.

It has yet to come back.

Certainly, there have been variations on it. Portrait of Ruin gives you diagonally downwards whipping while jumping, should you complete the “Defender of the Stairs” side quest. Even the Genesis game, Bloodlines, gave you diagonally upwards whipping, with sub-weapons again delegated to a separate button. But true 8-directional whipping hasn’t been seen since the first SNES entry.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why. I’ve pondered this. They’ve kept the other innovation from that title, the dangling and flicking of the whip, though I still think that Castlevania 4 did it best. Other innovations through the series, from Rondo of Blood’s gift of being able to pick up a lost sub-weapon if you accidentally grabbed one you didn’t want, to the exploratory level design and RPG elements of Symphony of the Night, have been kept and adapted for later entries. So why not this one?

It’s not as if today’s controllers can’t handle it. They all have more than two face buttons. Even the GBA, while it was limited to an A and B button, had the shoulder L and R buttons. Why hasn’t this been picked back up? Would it make the games too easy? Was it something that didn’t sit well with the fan-base? What happened?

I keep holding out hope that, one day, Konami will look at the design and reintroduce it to the handheld versions, or another downloadable retro-throwback. This gameplay element needs to come back. It was awesome back then, and it’s awesome now. It’s one of the innovations from that first SNES entry that needs to be brought into the light.

Just imagine it. There’s a bat coming at you, but jumping at the little bastard is just a bit too awkward. Diagonal whip! There’s a skeleton on the platform above you, a platform you’ll need to get to. Upwards whip! Climbing some stairs but there’s a bone pillar shooting flame at you, how do you take it out without exposing your head? Diagonal whipping! And those flame-throwing dragon skeletons, can you imagine how less of a pain they’d be?

Put like that, it makes the game sound too easy. I view it as the game evolving, because all you need to do is go back and replay Castlevania 4: it’s not an easy game. Just like most other Castlevanias, it’s a pretty damn tough game, 8-way whip or no, what with the multitudes of traps and environmental hazards: the advantages the whip gives the player have to be rounded out with the level design. Don’t take away the advantages of the whip, but build the levels and challenges around it.

Take level 4’s mini-boss, Puwexil: it’s a skull that falls from the ceiling and attacks by dropping chunks from the ceiling and... well... licking you with its tongue. He’ll also throw bits of bone or brain from himself. Upwards whipping will defend you from the falling blocks and hit him when he’s above you. It’s a boss that’s designed around the whip’s capabilities, and a tough one at that, until you get the hang of it. (or you have the right sub-weapon)

Another example of how the game uses the multi-direction to its advantage is the final boss: Dracula. At one point of the fight (arguably the easiest Dracula fight in the series, I’ll admit) he summons two pillars of flame; from the tips of the flame detach two elementals that fly at and chase you. The easiest way to take them out is by using the multi-directional whip. When you hit them, however, they plummet in the direction they were flying and cause another pillar of flame to erupt when they hit the ground. These are agile little elementals, and, even in death, dodging them is not easy. The whip is a tool, a useful one, that the designers built the game around, but it in no way replaces the skill required to get through it.

Hell, it even made whipping candles easier, as you could downwards whip them in mid-air without losing any forward momentum.

The 8-way whip needs to come back. It was awesome nineteen years ago, and it’s awesome now.

Does anyone else feel this way? Does anyone else keep wishing Konami would bring it back every time a new DS entry is revealed? Am I the only one who misses this innovation? Discuss, and let’s see if we can’t get this feature back into one of the best video game series out there!