Keeping the sense of "weight" the previous games had despite expanding so much the player's movement in general and their control of their jump arc specifically is pretty remarkable. SC4 rarely uses the new hardware to load the screen with enemies or flashy effects, and it rarely needs to. It seems that from moment 1 of having better-than-8-bit hardware available to them, Konami started progressing noticeably towards the complete gothic atmosphere they'd master in time for Rondo and Symphony.
However, despite the technical leaps and gameplay changes, the persisting fundamentals here start to show themselves once the player acclimates in a not-always-positive light. Enemy designs/behavior is rarely more complex than it was in previous games, and while that's mostly OK in the levels thanks to other obstacles and the fact that blazing through with your 8way whip once you know how to handle enemies just feels great, the same doesn't hold for the bosses. The boss fights in this game are just bad and probably the biggest thing holding this back from feeling like a MMX-level generation leap. Once again, get the item that's best for damaging bosses (this time it's the cross) and spam it until they die. If you want to whip only, you can, it'll just take longer. The continuing simplicity is just a weird choice when so many of the boss monsters are reused from previous games, it's like if the Super Mario World castles ended with the Lost Levels versions of the original SMB castle fights instead of actual new bosses. (To be clear, my gripe is not that this game is a sorta-remake of the first and as a result has some of its bosses, it's that the levels feel enough of the time like a new Castlevania for a new generation that the bosses being exactly the same sort of interaction -- with the same characters -- as the old makes them all the more disappointing).
I should probably also mention the music. It's, uh, really good. Except for that remix of Vampire Killer you'll hear for a couple minutes on the final stage, that's really bad. But most of the soundtrack uses SNES's capabilities so well for so early in its lifespan that I guess that's a case of it standing out for sounding more like what you'd expect a dev's beginner attempt at bringing their old series composition to new hardware than all the great remixes and new songs on the rest of the soundtrack.
However, despite the technical leaps and gameplay changes, the persisting fundamentals here start to show themselves once the player acclimates in a not-always-positive light. Enemy designs/behavior is rarely more complex than it was in previous games, and while that's mostly OK in the levels thanks to other obstacles and the fact that blazing through with your 8way whip once you know how to handle enemies just feels great, the same doesn't hold for the bosses. The boss fights in this game are just bad and probably the biggest thing holding this back from feeling like a MMX-level generation leap. Once again, get the item that's best for damaging bosses (this time it's the cross) and spam it until they die. If you want to whip only, you can, it'll just take longer. The continuing simplicity is just a weird choice when so many of the boss monsters are reused from previous games, it's like if the Super Mario World castles ended with the Lost Levels versions of the original SMB castle fights instead of actual new bosses. (To be clear, my gripe is not that this game is a sorta-remake of the first and as a result has some of its bosses, it's that the levels feel enough of the time like a new Castlevania for a new generation that the bosses being exactly the same sort of interaction -- with the same characters -- as the old makes them all the more disappointing).
I should probably also mention the music. It's, uh, really good. Except for that remix of Vampire Killer you'll hear for a couple minutes on the final stage, that's really bad. But most of the soundtrack uses SNES's capabilities so well for so early in its lifespan that I guess that's a case of it standing out for sounding more like what you'd expect a dev's beginner attempt at bringing their old series composition to new hardware than all the great remixes and new songs on the rest of the soundtrack.