Konami certainly made an impression with the Castlevania games on NES, so it was a given that the beloved vampire-hunting series would make the leap to the 16-bit consoles that followed.

If you'd like to learn a bit more about the series' 16-bit entries, we'd highly recommend checking out the new retrospective history video (above) from the Splash Wave channel. These videos have great production values and are well worth a watch for fans of the series. This one concentrates on Super Castlevania IV for the SNES and the Sega Megadrive / Genesis entry Castlevania: Bloodlines.

Super Castlevania IV is considered by some (including its director Masahiro Ueno) as something of a remake of the NES original for the new generation of hardware, although with its sumptuous visuals, reworked mechanics and startling 16-bit soundtrack, it has a very different feel to its 8-bit counterpart.

Castlevania: Bloodlines, or Castlevania: The New Generation as it was known in Europe, has the distinction of being the first series entry to grace a Sega console. In Japan it was called Vampire Killer and the game is probably most notable for adding canon connections between Castlevania and Bram Stoker's novel by making John Morris the son of Dracula character Quincy Morris.

Let us know if you learnt anything new about these two fan-favourite Castlevania games with a comment below, and check out our ranked list of the best Castlevania games on Nintendo consoles if you really fancy reminiscing.