Racing against the black car in the original Ridge Racer remains one of my bestvideogame memory. There was an aura of mystery about it, the sudden intrusion of a narrative element at the very end of a racing game even heightened by the marvelous dramaturgy of the race: the black car giving you a one lap head start, it jumping out of the starting block, later rushing past you, the night falling in the third lap where you try to drive perfectly, anxiously checking the back for these headlights that almost always arrived too soon. Thrilling stuff. Memorable stuff.
PS: The Super-CD version of Dracula X is a billion time better than the SNES one, because of the branching paths, the in game cut scenes around boss fights and the dozens of secrets (short cuts, hidden prisoners, hidden characters, hidden moves, etc), but Castlevania IV remains one of the best, if not the best, Castlevania ever for it's inventiveness and it's brilliant soundtrack (Masanori Adachi & Taro Kudo, also behind Axelay's music). Strangely, these twogames, possibly the best two of the franchise, are singularities in the galaxy of Castlevaniagames(another singular game being Simon's Quest).