For a 1991 game I think it's a very well made game makes the most of the 16-bit games during that era looks crap, for someone who started with the earlier Castlevania games like Castlevania 1, parody games(boku dracula kun, Konami Wai wai world 2) and Bloodlines, I think Super Castlevania 4 is the most definitive interpretation of a Castlevania game, the more appropriate setting and audio like music, the haunting atmosphere, the way graphics was made makes this game evolved and stepped up into a more serious horror feel as opposed to a unintentional cartoon like 8-bit games. The 8-way whip is totally great and possibly the best feature ever conceived throught the Castlevania series, I don't really mind if it makes the subweapons useless actually I didn't ever noticed it until someone came up like egoraptor, to be honest even in Rondo, Bloodlines and even Dracula X SNES I didn't used much of the subweapons without ever having a trouble or frustration.
Some says Super Castlevania 4 is too easy, yet Rondo and Bloodlines which they think is more challenging is just having the same difficulty as Super Castlevania 4 IMO, I think Rondo is way more easier than Super Castlevania 4 which is why I was torn between those two games as my favorite game in the whole series, I won't count the SOTN by the way since while it's a great game on it's own it doesn't feel the same way as the classic ones which I prefer more over the Metroidvania style games. If everyone prefers a more challenging Classicvania games then how come Haunted Castle and Castlevania Adventure which is way more harder than Rondo or Bloodlines have a bad reputation so far?