Mega Castlevania IV - Sega Genesis Demo Overview

A WIP Genesis conversion of the SNES classic.
Adapted by - GameDevBoss, Segamer, and Vector Orbit.
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Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.
Ending Music during the credits is from Batman for the Sega Genesis.
SLX Logo
By: Jan Neves
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Intro by Evan S.
portfolio.tses...
Outro Animation by Kevin Bhall
KZbin Page - / nigh11
Episode Notes:
1. Footage captured from the Mega SG. Tested on Kega and real hardware.
2. Demo can be found here:
www.mediafire....

[@Gamevet]

The music is the most impressive part of this demo.

[@mx676]

Yeah, the music sounds really good. I want to hear more

[@JoLiKMC]

If I recall correctly, the music was tossed in from some fan recreation. I assume they got permission to use it, but I don't remember right off hand.

[@Carsonj13]

Let's be honest, the music would not have been this impressive had Konami done it themselves back in the day...

[@percyvolnar8010]

I think were actually hearing the snes music in this demo. The genesis is FM and there is no way in hell it could sound like this out of the box. Maybe they're using mp3s or some kind of compression.

[@MrSez1979]

Agreed

[@MoonSarito]

I just love how the Mega Drive community never dies and keeps bringing new games to the console.

[@SpencerMckenithWilliams]

@@MoonSarito you haven't seen anything yet. Sucks my chip came back from the foundry defective, but I am still on it.

[@TacoDiceCosas]

What a great effort. The soundtrack is especially amazing, that bass has a lot of punch.

[@PlumbDrumb]

Remember how Pigsy's Mega Drive version of 'Symphony of the Night' looked in it's early stages. It's in a different league now, looking great (special thanks to Pyron for working on the colors there - his 'Bloodlines' color hack is also magnificent! Try it out!). I'm sure the same amount of progress can be made here with Castlevania IV. It's all about how much effort the author wants to put into it.

[@derekbuckler9888]

The Sega Genesis, still one of the the best systems ever made. And even so many years later, great games are still being developed for it. But Super Castlevania 4 on the Genesis? Just plain awesome

[@RobertLewis85]

Castlevania Lord X WILL catch you next time!

[@cormano64]

😰

[@Pawnband]

I always preferred Castlevania Lord Rondo of Blood tbh

[@mrdeatheli]

Dude... I am beyond impressed! If this was just a tech demo, I'd be more than happy. I never needed this to be on Genesis, but I'll be kee9ng an eye on it. The graphics are spot on, but that soundtrack has me floored, and I'll be thinking about it for days! Thank you, Sega Lord X!

[@MKKTeam]

Im speechless. The music... How? How they got it SO CLOSE? SCV4 is among soem of the very best musics ever done on the SNES and this... is an amazing rendition!

[@bradenalthaus2167]

I totally agree! That blew me away!

[@xrror]

Yea I wonder if they're "burning" PCM samples to make some of those instruments. Not a complaint the result is awesome. Like others have said hopefully that won't come at a cost of cutting out when more sound effects are in but maybe that's not as much an issue on the Genesis/MegaDrive. I'm guessing a bigger reason this wasn't done more in commercial games at the time is it would blow through the cartridge space and on segaCD it would take up too much working RAM? But today's homebrew doesn't have to be constrained by that so I hope they keep rocking this soundtrack out!

[@TurboXray]

@@xrror It's EXACTLY what they are doing. This chiptune artist has LOTs of samples in their songs (you can see their other work does this as well). To the point where you'd need much larger than a 40megabit cart for it to complete this project.

[@THEmuteKi]

@@TurboXray A lot less of the soundtrack is sampled than you'd think. Like, you'd have to use samples for the percssion and probably *some* of the string sound are sampled too, but very little isn't actually FM. Even the piano (as heard in the first stage theme) is being approximated (very carefully! If anyone's going to have opinions on this project it's going to be me, and I've been impressed by it) by a more horn-like FM sound. It's mixed very carefully so it doesn't stand out as an obviously different sound, though I'd have probably done it with a more clavichord-like sound were someone to ask me to do a near-1:1 replica. I think the strings in the miniboss are synth as well. Combine a brass voice with the sort of lead that you hear in, say, chinatown in revenge of shinobi, and maybe mix in a little detune and you can get something that sounds almost 1:1 with the original (I suspect many of the sounds in that sample pack some early SNES games have -- a lot of the instruments that CV4 uses show up in Soul Blazer, for example -- were all sampled from production FM synthesizers, which the YM2612 can typically replicate pretty effectively).

[@superpowerman4354]

Bloodlines on SNES would be sick!!

[@DarkLink1996.]

Rondo of Blood on SEGA CD. ...Maybe CD32X. If Konami had been willing, we'd have had a translated version long before the PSP.

[@SamsterEntertainment]

Ahhh you have discovered this too. I can't wait for it to be finished

[@humblemudgames]

I love the creativity of modders. The fact that new games are coming to older systems today is so sick to me.

[@SpencerMckenithWilliams]

You think that's bad, just wait until I finish my prototype console. I plan to utilize the expansion port on the Genesis. I'm making a custom bus controller, interface, CPU and GPU chips for it, to try and keep costs down. Sadly my CPU prototype came back from the foundry defective. It was all over the place. Back to the drawing board long story short. I'm planning expansions to keep it alive for at least two generations. Modder friendly as well. Gotta keep it alive at least for only a very long time 😂😂😂😂

[@felix-ve8jk]

Old games coming to older consoles

[@SpencerMckenithWilliams]

@@felix-ve8jk well that's..... technically true. But I'm talking something more lit than Raedon, and more blast than the blast processing idea and the actual tegra combined. Well I am talking mad smack but I'm building it to technically be able to run that new dynasty warriors that's about to drop soon ( assuming it hadn't already. To be fair I've been working on this for about a year and a half with a faulty Risc-v CPU of my own creation.)

[@MrSamPhoenix]

Indeed! And I’d love for some folks to do a full port of the Mortal Kombat series with more ROM space.

[@MrSamPhoenix]

@@SpencerMckenithWilliamsCPU?!

[@vprime]

My favorite Castlevania EVER

[@liublanka3925]

When I got my oled steam deck and put my Sega genesis emu on it, I learned how amazing castlevania bloodline's is. It’s the best 2d castlevania next to SOTN. The music especially level 4 is grand master

[@nnnneeeeuuuu]

Wow after months KZbin finally recommended a new video of SegaLordX

[@manoftherainshorts9075]

Same thing for me, his videos stopped showing in my feed, I had to use a notification bell for all videos.

[@nnnneeeeuuuu]

@@manoftherainshorts9075 I know the algo learns by hours you're watching content, like on Sunday Happy Console Gamer always shows up and SpawnWave shows up every weekday morning, but Sega Lord X was always a constant. IDK what happened

[@Pegfoxx]

OMG I never knew the Genesis could do music so close to the SNES. I love Super Castlevania IV it would be awesome to play this Genesis version side by side with the SNES version once the Genesis one is fully available. Hats off to the developers who have started this version.

[@joshuasanderson7359]

That's the beauty of the synths - they truly are powerful when someone takes the time to get super familiar with them :)

[@AguilaDeOnix85]

Check out Monster World IV. That sound drive does that type of sound with ease.

[@FIDreams]

Castlevania SOTN for the Genesis. Look it up. :)

[@doomslayerdave]

Just another reason why owning the SNES was the best way to go during the early 90s. I was 11 in 1992 and Super Castlevania IV, Contra 3, SimCity, SMW, Street Fighter 2, ActRaiser... The titles from the launch window through the first year were godly. Genesis had great arcade style games but SNES had it all. Simulation, platformers, RPGs.

[@Mr.Atari2600]

1992 is also when the Sega Genesis had Sonic the hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage 2, World of Illusion, Ecco the Dolphin, TMNT: Hyperstone Heist, Thunder Force 4, & Shining Force.

[@gummislayer1969]

"IMPRESSIVE!!! MOST impressive!!!" - Darth Vader 🤓🕹️👏🏾

[@steelcurtain187]

This is a thing of beauty 🤩

[@SRC267]

Nice new intro , great port too of CV

[@jasonking3182]

A full version of Rondo of Blood on SNES would be amazing

[@warchild9381]

It's on there, it's called Dracula X.

[@rgbarrios0331]

​@@warchild9381 It ain't the same game

[@jasonking3182]

@@warchild9381 it’s a good game but it’s now we’re near Rondo of Blood

[@elcidleon6500]

@@rgbarrios0331 - Well, a bit of hacking would surely help it complete the game, if people bothered to do it, though...

[@anthonygange2550]

I never understood why it didn’t come out on sega cd or ps1

[@tomevil6]

Awesome, thank you!

[@percyvolnar8010]

Were you around back when castlevania 4 released on the snes? No matter how many 'unofficial ports' of this game is released decades later, nothing beats that particular moment in time. What a time to be alive!

[@junothescarecrow]

I'm curious how they are gunna do the mode 7 parts 💀

[@thebuccaneersden]

Ya, for sure, although with clever programming techniques and good artistic vision, it has been possible to make approximations of what the SNES was capable of… or at least something the exceeds what people expected the Genesis was capable of. adventure of Batman and Robin comes to mind as an example.

[@nefariousmex2352]

Probably wont be able too they'll compensate somehow

[@ostiariusalpha]

The Genesis/Mega Drive can't do dynamic "Mode 7" effects like the rotating hallway easily (though it _can_ do them in software if you don't mind it being noticeably slower), but the coders have found a bit of a cheat that can replicate it rather closely. Using clever palette cycling tricks, you can simulate that rolling curvature look without needing Mode 7 hardware.

[@Canadian_Gamer]

This is incredible to see. I have actually fallen in love with the dithering, reduced color palette, and GEMS sound driver of the mighty Sega Genesis as the years go by. The console has aged like a fine wine, it gets better with age.

[@markula_4040]

I recently saw something where someone is porting Bloodlines to the SNES. I don't remember much except it got rid of the backdrop on the HUD so the level now uses the entire screen which I appreciated since it's a pet peeve of mine for Genesis games. You should cover that too if you haven't already.

[@SegaLordX]

I would love to cover it once something playable is available.

[@DesertRainReads]

Right, I'm waiting for an update on that project as well. Looking forward to seeing what they do with Bloodlines SNES.

[@ichemnutcracker]

I wish more commercially released Genesis games had this kind of audio quality. I really love what they did with the soundtrack here. It manages to sound more like a re-mix rather than just a pale imitation. Very impressive!

[@georged7627]

You had me at Mega 🙏🏽

[@juiceala]

Not to demolish your expectations but once sfx are added the music will be hit... Still, up to this point Batman was the game that first impressed you with the Mega Drive sound chip, perhaps this game did the same?

[@SegaLordX]

I doubt the music on sample here uses everything the console is capable of at this early stage. We'll see.

[@ironkong26]

yes! i been waiting on this. i saw a demo for rondo of blood for the genesis on youtube but it never moved past the intro stage with death. looking forward to seeing where this one goes

[@volvoguy804]

Good start

[@peacefulscrimp5183]

When the SOTN demo first saw light it was just the background scroll and alucard doing a walk animation. This looks amazing 😮

[@mjdf122]

Sega Lord X Castlevania Edition

[@phazonclash]

Very impressed by how great the music sounds the Genesis sound chip! The music in that game is really awesome

[@DarthEquus]

The music almost made my head explode from how good it is.

[@STR82DVD]

Excellent gameplay lad.

[@RobertStack123]

Good evening Sega Lord X

[@javonjames4573]

The soundtrack alone is why this game will always have a special place in my heart😅

[@sureberferber9101]

If you're looking for some new retro Video Game Music remixes, please check out: Bandcamp - Retro VGM 2023 Volume 1 / Retro VGM 2023 Volume 2 / Castlevania 2023. (All remixes are from the 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit era of gaming.)

[@Moravia90s]

Incredible work. But man, when you got to the music part I was in denial (in a good way) about just how good it sounds. Seriously, how did they do it???? Best of luck to the devs on this project.

[@IDieHardForever]

yeah that looks way better than I might have thought

[@GuyManley]

Between this and the Symphony back port to the Genesis. We got some banger home brews coming out.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

I'd love to see a Symphony of the Night port to the SNES

[@javonjames4573]

Super Castlevania IV will always be my top favorite

[@tequilamokinbrd]

That music is WAYYY better than it has any business being.

[@fusionspace175]

I can appreciate this, but I enjoy making papercraft, glue, and paint replicas of existing toys like the TMNT Turtle Wagon or Kenner's Hall of Justice.. I'm not sure who else this is for except those with a strong love of participating in representational art creation.

[@markganus1085]

castlevania + sega genesis/mega drive = WIN

[@JoLiKMC]

I really do hope this project pans out. I think I'd enjoy walking *"through a room!"* in Sega 16-bit style.

[@moot6794]

The music is insane

[@Monhamd1000]

Looking forward for this port getting completed.

[@Spellfork]

This is great, love it when people set out to do these retro ports for old consoles. Not to take away from anything done by these devs, music sounds great and once the controls are fine tuned it will be magnificent. There is another Castlevania port project for the Genesis that needs to get it's deserved exposure, that being the Symphony of the Night port made by Pigsy's Retro Game Dev, he and his colaborators have been at it for some time now and to be honest it's starting to look and sound impossible for a Genesis game. I mean porting 32-bit graphics and remaking CD audio and managing to get it looking and sounding so good as they have is a marvel. Please give it some well deserved exposure and love. Thanks for showing this, great vid!

[@GlerpidyGlarson]

I love that damn intro

[@atolm1]

The music sounds incredible! Ugh, I love this game. I'm super excited to see it on Genesis.

[@DCMCOSPLAYdotCOM]

Visually this is about what I expected other than more bones flying out of defeated skeletons. But that soundtrack... just... just how?! Ive never heard a Genesis sound like that. Now if only I could find a perfect modded rom of Super Castlevania IV, in english, uncensored, and speed hacked for no slowdown....

[@videogameobsession]

I like how Konami prioritized each of their games based on the best qualities of the consoles, such as high colors, lush backgrounds, excellent music instrument sample quality, Mode 7 effects on Castlevania IV, and many onscreen enemies, fast platforming on Bloodlines. I'm guessing they won't be able to add the ability to have Simon enter the gate to go behind the fence layers. Also, I have no idea how they would pull off some of the later levels, Some of them use Mode 7 quite extensively (including a boss or two). It looks like most of the work went into the first level, which looks great! Level 2 looks a lot like some later NES games, which is also kind of cool in its own right. :) It would be cool to have some additional characters or alternate music added too.

[@CMCAdvanced]

This is the sauce, right here. Hacks are the future, homebrew is the future. The past is the best future

[@JohnnyRebel1776]

If this is ever completed i will definitely buy a hard copy if available.

[@lesterrr12312]

daaam!! i thought it was SNES music playing in the background, but then it got louder and it's practically one to one! very impressive.. also the lack of parallax in the unfinished levels reminds me of those less-than-polished Genesis games, haha! also also, because the port is more vertically stretched out, it could even scale better on wider screens, which could be handy!

[@roberto1519]

The Mega Drive seems to always surprise us some way or another, I mean, it's an affordable home console from 1988, a few weeks ago, we received Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and now listen to how nice this demo sounds, it's really great stuff.

[@Nobunaga1983]

Mega castlevania looks so much cleaner and smoother

[@alexzapf6422]

How is the music this good. Damn.

[@nickparsons337]

I'm certainly impressed to see a version of this on the Genesis; especially done with such a level of brilliance and attention to detail from these intuitive devs; but I still have to side with the original SNES release. The difference between how this plays between the two different cpu's is rather significant.

[@videogameobsession]

These ports are always interesting. I hope the Shinobi arcade port gets finished someday. It was looking uncannily close to the arcade original.

[@jimedd2561]

My favorite Castlevania...yes

[@teamdoa]

Pretty bold to take his one on as there is tons of Mode 7 in later levels.

[@violator1017]

Developer here : Why the hell they used the H40 mode of the MegaDrive when the H32 mode exists on the system ? For those who are not familiar with the hardware, H40 mode is the 320x224 resolution mode and the H32 the 256x224 one... This is a really bad choice because the developers could have match the exact same resolution found on SNES... :/ Now, the music rendition IS INCREDIBLE ! What a banger !

[@z80player]

En mi utópico mundo la niebla sería transparente (viendo la última demo técnica de los fantasmas de super mario world en Genesis sería posible), y Konami debería apoyar el proyecto, y venderlo como DLC en el recopilatorio de Castlevania para consolas actuales.Muy buen video Lord X.

[@jamesburchill7522]

Damn. Already the porn bots are showing up. You've arrived, man.

[@igodreamer7096]

I love its potential. Let's wait and see how it will turn out. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

[@bobbydazzler329]

What would be interesting is how this version deals with the mode 7 parts like the rotating room and the chandeliers

[@pliniomsann]

I desperately wanted a turtles arcade game for the Sega Master System :-(

[@shenglongisback4688]

That demo of Castlevania and Turtles are awesome looking

[@Mankey619]

This is how I imagined what Castlevania 4 wouldve looked like if it were on the Gemesis. Definitely shows such difference in the graphics and music department here. SNES is definitely the superior version.

[@Chalkaspis]

If it's to be completed, it will take years. If it's to prove the modder's skill for hire, 😋

[@MegaManNeo]

The looks fine to me and so is the music, really. The rest still needs improvement but they are getting there.

[@MrMartellSincere]

Love Castlevania games

[@darktetsuya]

looks promising so far! I assume the 'whip-spin' also wasn't implemented yet (if they can, even?) but that aside everything else looks and sounds legit, even in this early development stage!

[@bahamutdragons]

It's cool, but I feel like they haven't tackled the tough stuff yet, like the growing bosses, the rotating room (both of them), the big candelabras, no swinging, etc. It's a prototype so I'm not criticizing the devs, it takes time to get everything done, it just feels like the actual challenges, the technical stuff that made Super Castlevania IV shine even years later, has yet to be implemented and feel like it'll be the true test for the Mega Drive.

[@francoalmiron5107]

It's impressive the work that comes out of the fandom!

[@Truxzord]

5:51 The music gives Streets of Rage vibes 😮

[@JohnnyThousand605]

This is looking very impressive indeed. I will say - and I know this is heresy but - my ideal Castlevania would have the graphics and sound from the Mega Drive game and the moment to moment mechanics of the SNES version

[@kathleendelcourt8136]

The difference in resolution between SNES and Mega Drive will cause issues. They're reusing the SNES assets so there are 2 solutions, preserve the aspect ratio which means stretching them and causing the same visual glitch as SotN on Saturn, or stay pixel perfect at the expense of the correct aspect ratio. They chose the latter, hence the wider field of view and the "squished" looking backgrounds, but at least pixels aren't uneven and the image looks clean.

[@jamesburchill7522]

That music really is impressive. I wonder what the rom size will be when it's complete

[@Adamtendo_player_1]

Well Mega Drive version gonna be way bigger than the 8 megabit ROM of the original SNES version.

[@TurboXray]

@@Adamtendo_player_1 with the number of samples the artist used to get past the limitations of FM, it'd be bigger than the largest 40meg released cart. Probably 80 megs.

[@herbaldragonX]

Sorcery!

[@superjupi]

I'm mostly just surprised that they didn't follow Capcom and use the 256 pixel wide display mode. it would make porting assets accurately and gameplay feeling 'right' so much easier, and with a free performance boost. Yeah, it would make any dithering effects look worse on a real Genesis over composite, but it would make side-by-side comparisons look more impressively accurate instead of derivative.

[@Eltro920]

They're gonna need to set the screen resolution to 256x224 so that it matches SNES more closely. Right now the graphics look vertically stretched on Genesis.

[@johnsimon8457]

Genesis can play back samples as music Given enough rom space. Listen to the Overdrive 2 soundtrack, there are lots of samples. But I’ll allow that fm synth was rarely used to its full potential when the genesis was commercially viable

[@CynicalMisanthrope-b3p]

I wonder if we'll ever see a Phantasy Star 1 remade for the Genesis, complete with 3d mazes?

[@southbronxny5727]

The improved Genesis FOV is great but the SNES closeup improves emersion into the game.

[@LuisAFigueroa]

This is a game that Konami could have easily porred to the Sega CD.

[@LordelX]

Interesting. I’m more interested in the Mega Drive / Genesis version of Symphony of the Night.

[@gabrielepasquali5479]

If these games were developed on megadrive in the 90 it was hard the comparation for snes

[@mrnicktoyou]

The SNES runs at 256 x 224 and they could run the Genesis version at the same resolution so it matches better. Instead, I can see it's running at 320×224, as most Genesis games do.

[@joek5882]

Impressive...very impressive. I just don't think this is something that's really needed. Both Castlevania games on each system have their own unique charm...and nothing will beat the nostalgia I feel whenever I play a round on my original SNES cart. I think what's needed is a genuine effort to make a substantial port of Rondo of Blood...the most annoyingly neglected Castlevania game ever! The CD tracks will never be matched, but a modder such as this one here has the skills to make a port on the SNES much closer to the actual game than we got from Dracula X. If this were to ever be finished and available, I just don't think I'd go out of my way to play it...because the original left nothing to be desired. 🤔

[@Steven-ph6pp]

Has that snes reverb sound that it uses, and that's what you get when you don't use the gem sound driver.

[@bananonymouslastname5693]

I am stunned at the music translation here. I mean, it's a completely unnecessary port, but that sound is the thing that just knocks me on my rear. Whoever is doing that would have been a monster in the heyday of the system. Crazy.

[@danmakuman]

And wait untill you listen his Mega Man X2 covers for the MD. His channel is Vector Orbitex.

[@deathscythe9158]

I don’t know if you’re aware of this Sega Lord X, but there’s also a port of Megaman X for the Genesis. I would like to hear your thoughts on it.

[@OldSchoolRetroGamingFan]

What display aspect ratio (DAR) have you set the simulated TVs to in the side by side here, because it doesn't look like a traditional CRT 4:3 to me (although maybe it is), and certainly not the 8:7 DAR/perfect pixel setting that would show the SNES visuals in perfect proportion? For an example of how the SNES version would look at an 8:7 DAR/perfect pixel, I would recommend checking out gameplay footage by World of Longplays or xRavenXP. Those are good examples of how you could set the display aspect ratio when you play the game on any modern device like the SNES Mini, 3DS, Switch, and any clone consoles and PC emulators.

[@TheProgressiveStyle]

i think that the scrolling is a bit odd, i hope they will fix it with the final release!

[@MagisterHamid]

Seems to be running in a higher resolution compared to SNES? It lacks the cloud transparency effects though.

[@Eric-Retro-Stuff]

The Genesis version looks higher resolution? It shows more of the play area.