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"Super Castlevania IV" is an easier, more chill and relaxed game. "Castlevania Dracula X" is a more difficult, more fast paced type of game that requires faster reflexes and reaction time. So, the difference in walking speed always made perfect sense. Richter is supposed to "feel" more reactive, more pumped up with adrenaline, because Dracula X is a hardcore challenge requiring fast reflexes. the walking speed in both games are perfectly matched with the gameplay and design elements of each respective game.

this hack makes the walking speed feel really strange, and it just feels less responsive, and "Too Slow". it feels like Richter is walking on a sticky floor, like you need to press down harder on the DPad to get Richter to move forward. it really does not look or feel right at all, and it most definitely doesn't match walking animation of other Castlevania games.

it seems odd to me that anyone would be thinking about "correct walking speed" as an issue relating to gameplay. in case anyone was unaware, there is a popular activity, at least in western culture, called "Speed Walking" or "Power Walking", where participants intentionally walk at speeds much faster than normal walking. There is not such a thing as a correct or incorrect way to walk. people can walk as fast or slow as they need to.

slowing down walking animation in Dracula X seems like backwards thinking. if it's that noticeable that walking is slightly different between both SNES Castlevania games, then why not create a hack for Super Castlevania IV that Speeds Up the walking in that game, and makes it as fast as Dracula X. why change Dracula X's good animation just to match Castlevania IV's already "Too Slow" and sluggish animation. if anything, Castlevania IV is in desperate need of QOL improvements.

In response to a previous review, no this hack is not weird at all. It makes perfect sense actually. Richter walks faster in Rondo, but his animation is slower paced compared to Dracula XX. The original walk animation for Dracula XX is pretty fast, for an actually slower walk. That made no sense at all, and he looked like he was rushing while moving at a snails pace. This hack balances it out a bit and gives him the same normal walking animation as Rondo, which looks better for his slower walk. Only improvement from here would be to increase his walking speed to Rondo's pace, or give him an even slower animation to better match his walk. Here's a breakdown to help some of the confusion:

Rondo of Blood Walk Animation: Normal Walking Speed: Normal

Dracula XX Walk Animation: Fast Walking Speed: Slow

Dracula XX after hack Walk Animation: Normal Walking Speed: Slow

It is surprising how very few classic games match the walking or running animation with a proper speed. You can get used to it, but you only need to put 16 and 32 bits Megaman games at slow motion to see what I'm talking about, and how weird it feels.

On the other side is Aria of Sorrow, in which the main character has so many running animation frames that he feels like he was rollerskating.

Also we got Super Metroid or SOTN, in which animation and speed match with absolute perfection.

So, despite the misunderstunding of other reviewers, this hack does exactly what it says. Even if most Castlevania games have a weird walking animation, and Dracula XX is not precisely the best game in the series, Richter's animation feels a bit more in line with his slow speed (he's walking, after all).

A simple and nice hack. It does not change things much, but the changes are indubitably improvements.

In Rondo of Blood, Richter walks a bit faster, while his walking animation is slower than in the original Dracula X / Akumajou Dracula XX. The result is that Richter looks like he walks effortlessly in Rondo, while he looks like he's struggling in Dracula X, a bit as if he's stuck in quicksand (moving his body more, yet not advancing as fast). This patch fixes the walking animation speed to better match the actual walk speed, which looks and feels better. Richter's actual walk speed is left untouched.

Maybe the author could have made Richter walk faster too to match Rondo, but this might have adverse effects considering the game was not designed for or playtested with a higher walking speed, while this hack is guaranteed not to break anything.

Lastly, the crows used to have a bright brown color that looked out of place, which I guess was an oversight in the original game. This has also been fixed.

So I've tried to see the difference in the walk animation, and as I can tell no adjustments were made. Richter still walk as he did prior to the patch. To call it a visual hack can be misleading as the crows' colors were the only visual changes. If it were where they added different character sprites in for example Rondo of Blood Dracula over this version, then yeah that'd be a visual hack. Being a hard-core Castlevania fan, this is a pass for me.

If you're a Castlevania purist, you've probably noticed this detail in Richter's movement speed. It really seems that it advances slower by having faster movements. This Tweak normalizes the speed and equates it to the original version. I have tried it and indeed the improvement is appreciated. What I would like to add finally is that it would be interesting to port this Tweak to the North American version of the game for those of us who want to have the game with the American translation.

Thanks for this little improvement!

Really? Make "walk animation slower so it is more on par with how it is in Rondo of Blood"? I don't mind the idea, if it wasn't for a fact that Richter's walking speed is faster in Rondo than in Dracula X. I really compared them and he is really faster in Rondo. So to make a hack where the walking animation is slow for an already slow walk speed is just weird. Again, I don't mind the hack itself, but it's just weird.