Castlevania: Symphony of the Night FAQ/Walkthrough Version 1.7, 05/14/2000 by Brian Kern *'-.,.-'*'-.,.-'*'-.,.-'*'-.,.-'*'-.,.-'*'-.,.-'*'-.,.-'*'-.,.-'*'-.,.-'*' Welcome to the Castlevania:SOTN FAQ. This document was written for and by the creator of Alucard's Shield (www.afn.org/~afn17933/castlevania). Having taken time off to rest and write several other FAQs, I decided to revisit this project and add in all the frequently asked questions that I got, along with some additional information that I hadn't included before. Everything in this document should now be accurate. Frequently Asked Questions have been addressed and included. The walkthrough sections were rewritten for speed and ease of use, detailing every move you'd have to make to get through. This should be everything you need. ;) x-> Table of Contents Note. The sections are broken up by the main goal at that point in time. Castlevania:SOTN has extremely non-linear gameplay. While there are some areas that you must go to in order to get an item you need, you can, for the most part, play the sections in any order that you want. Some of these sections are longer than others. That can't be helped. I tried to break up the exploration of the castle as much as possible, so that you don't have to go for a long stretch without meeting another major goal. I. The Opening Legal stuff Errors, Omissions, Questions, Submissions II. Revision History III. Walkthrough - Normal Castle 1. Richter defeats Dracula 2. Meeting with Death 3. Defeat Slogra and Gaibon 4. First Maria Meeting 5. Defeat Doppelganger10 6. Meeting with the Master Librarian 7. Defeat the Hippogryph 8. Defeat the Minotaur and Werewolf 9. Defeat the Lesser Demon 10. Defeat Karasuman 11. Defeat Olrox 12. Defeat the Succubus 13. Defeat the Scylla Worm 14. Defeat Scylla 15. Defeat Cerebrus 16. Defeat Granfaloon 17. Defeat Richter Belmont IV. Walkthrough - Inverted Castle 1. Defeat Darkwing Bat 2. Defeat the Creature 3. Defeat Doppelganger40 4. Defeat Death 5. Defeat Galamoth 6. Defeat Beelzebub 7. Defeat Medusa 8. Defeat Akmodan II 9. Defeat the Doppelganger Heroes 10. Defeat Shaft 11. Defeat Count Dracula V. Miscellaneous information. What's a really good way to level? How many endings are there, and how do I get them? What changes when I beat the game? Are there any codes for this game? I heard you can keep your Alucard equipment! What good is the Alucart equipment? I heard about a hidden track...? VI. All-too-Frequently Asked Questions General ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Why don't I have 200%+ ? Can I play as Maria? I can't do it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ How do I open up the right statue in the Clock Room? How can I open up the grated passage in the Clock Tower? I have the gravity boots; how do I do the super jump? How do I use the Bat's Echo? How can I get spells to work? How do I use the Shield Rod? Why is my defense at 0?! Is this a glitch in the game? How do I get into the inverted castle? - Why does the game keep ending when I kill Richter? - Where are the Silver and Gold Rings? - Where are the Holy Glasses? Where is it?! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Where is the Spike Breaker Armor? - How do I open this wooden bridge in the Underground area? - Where's the Bat's Echo? Where is the Sword Familiar? Where do I get the second fairy/second demon? Where and how can I get ? Where and how can I get ? VII. Appendix sections 1. Experience system 2. Relics list ______________________________________________________________________________ I. The Opening x-> Legal stuff This FAQ is copyrighted material. LIMITED REPRODUCTION LICENSE: This FAQ may be posted, emailed, or saved to a disk without express permission, provided that the FAQ remains unaltered, and the full copyright notice is in place. Removing the copyright notice and rights disclaimer voids any rights assigned. Exclusions: This FAQ may not be used for promotional purposes, nor may it be incorporated in guides, magazines, secured websites, or in any state or place where a fee is charged in order to obtain the information contained within. All professional use rights are retained by the author. All copyrights and trademarks are held by their respective owners, when not specifically mentioned. Future revisions of this FAQ may be found at http://www.gamefaqs.com, and at Alucard's Shield: http://www.afn.org/~afn17933/castlevania x-> Errors, Omissions, Questions, Submissions For any changes to the FAQ, please send mail to . Please put something in the subject line that will clue me in as to what you need, and what game you're asking for, since I run several game websites and answer questions for several other FAQs. :) I try to always respond to email, so if something's on your mind, send away. Unlike larger game sites, I run this one by myself, as a hobby, and write the info that I put out. If something's wrong with it, I want to know, so that I can give my readers the best information available. ______________________________________________________________________________ II. Revision History v1.7, 05/14/2000, 9:37pm *sigh*, I can't put this game down now. I spent an hour killing Guardians and figured out the mathematics behind the Experience chart, so I wrote a section for it. Created an Appendix section, shuffled the Relics Chart down there, added breaks between the sections so it's easier to see when you're scanning through. Maybe after I add a monster chart I can put it down.. I'm not addicted.. I can stop whenever I want to. v1.6, 05/14/2000, 6:45pm Finished cleaning up. Added a FAQs section, rearranged some info, corrected a minor problem or two. Ready to post again.. hopefully I shouldn't need to update later. v1.5, 05/14/2000, 4:00pm Finished replaying the game - game time of just under six hours. Rewrote all of my information from scratch in order to make it accurate. Everything should be fine now. v1.4, 05/13/2000, 1:00pm Started redesigning with the new format in mind. I'm also rewriting my information for brevity, clarity, and ease of use. Adding a few new tricks, to boot. Hey, I haven't touched the FAQ in months, it's high time to give it something. v1.3, 04/30/2000, 7:45pm grr, forgot to convert my word wrap again. v1.2, 04/30/2000, 7:40pm wow. Someone pointed out an ugly mistake on my part; I didn't bother stating where the Guardians were in the "killing guardians for fun and profit" section. Thanks David! Ver 1.00 July 12th 1999 I've made probably a dozen fixes to various parts of the FAQ, and have a largish section to add in when I get around to it. bleh. Man, it's hard to keep up with the FAQ. :) Ver 0.95 September 19th 1998 Added in the last parts of the FAQ, and though I really really really want to go back over the format and make sure that everything looks good and is well laid out (i.e., I know it isn't), there've been a lot of requests for the file. So, we post the updated form and let people work their way through SOTN, answer questions, and hope we can find the time to fix the format and add some flashy stuff to the content (as though it needs it). Ver 0.9 August 16th 1998 Finished off the basic information. Started fleshing out some helpful tips on leveling, combat, and of course, the Alucard's Shield. Ver 0.7 August 14th 1998 Restarted the FAQ, stripped the design out and filled it with pure information. Started finishing off the information; hell, it's only been six months since I started the project, right? Ver 0.5, February 21st 1998 FAQ taken from its preposting text form, changed out to HTML, changed back to text because HTML isn't the right format for this, modifications performed on sectioning, positioning, and adding comments to the FAQ. Initial Posting. ______________________________________________________________________________ III. Walkthrough - Normal Castle Section: 1. Richter defeats Dracula You start off the game as Richter. Richter's Moves Default Controller Combination Move ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ F,F Run D,X Slide D,X,X Rising slide X,X Backflip D,U,X Super jump U,D,DF,F,Square Air Dash attack B,F,Square Sliding whip attack Hold Square, then D/B/U/F/etc. Twirling whip attack U + Square Special weapon use Triangle Holy Power of special weapons You can twirl the whip in all directions; it's great for Dracula's fireballs. Pressing triangle without having a special weapon will cause Richter's whip to be covered in flame, making his attacks stronger. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This area is very straightforward. Run up the stairs to the left and enter Dracula's throne room for a bit of melodramatic acting. Dracula -- After Dracula teleports in, get in close. You can't touch Dracula, so stand right in front of his cape. Attack with your whip and hold the button down in order to start twirling it. Try twirling clockwise, or up and whichever direction Dracula is standing, to hit his head. You have to hit his head to cause damage. Dracula will shoot his fireballs - the whip will take them out, don't worry about them. You can score between two and four hits on Dracula every time he teleports in. Every fourth teleport, Dracula will change tactics, and use lava balls instead of fireballs. Dracula will shoot two of them; one high, one low. They move pretty quickly. The best way to handle them it to move away from Dracula when he teleports in, and then kneel, facing away from him. The first lava ball will pass harmlessly overhead; jump, or do a backflip, to get over the second one. You should be able to beat Dracula's first form without taking damage. Once Dracula's life meter is gone, he turns into a large blue beast, remeniscent of the creature that you fight at the end of the original Castlevania for the NES. Dracula now has a tendency to jump around. He jumps high enough that you can run under him by hitting forward twice and dashing by. His main attack will be to spit fireballs at you. Fireballs come three at a time, angled down towards you on the ground. The first one goes at a high angle, the second at a low angle, and the third right at about 45 degrees. If you're far enough away, you can hop over the high one, and ignore the other two. Sometimes Dracula will also leap into the air, and drop a bunch of blue and green projectiles at you. These can be destroyed with the whip, and aren't a threat. I recommend using standard whip attacks. Twirling the whip as you did for Drac's first form is doable, but I can't recommend it, as it keeps you too close. It's easy to get hit that way. If you're really adventurous, you can try to get between the creatures legs. You can run in when he transforms, and follow him around when he jumps. This position makes you totally invulnerable to the fireballs tha the can use. :) It's a little tricky to reposition yourself when Drac jumps, but it's not impossible. If all of your energy is taken in the battle, Maria (who at this point in time is only 13) will appear at one end of the screen, and use her will to revive you. At this point you will no longer take any damage - you're completely invincible. Said Dracula, "No, this cannot be! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" This battle determines your starting stats with Alucard. The best stats are gained from beating Dracula without getting any hearts or special weapons, and without being hit. The worst stats come from getting everything, using everything, and getting stomped on badly enough that Maria revives you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 2. Meeting with Death Now you're Alucard. Here's a quick breakdown of his moves. Alucard's Moves Default Controller Combination Move ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Square Attack (right hand) O Shield (left hand) X Jump X,X Double jump (after leap stone) Triangle Slide backwards R1 Transform into the Bat R2 Transform into the Wolf L1 Transform into the Mist .. and here are his spells. Spells can be used at any time in the game; the only thing that you have to pay attention to is the amount of mp required to cast. Any spell can be used from the very beginning of the game - you do *not* need to purchase them from the Master Librarian. Alucard's Spells Default Controller Combination Move MP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ B,F,U,D,Square Summon Spirit 5 B,DB,D,DF,F,Square Dark Metamorphasis 10 U,D,DF,F,Square (+) Hellfire (Fireballs) 15 U(2),U,UF,F,DF,D,Square (*) Tetra Spirit 20 B,F,DF,D,DB,B,F,Square Soul Steal 50 + : If you hold Up while Alucard is casting Hellfire, you'll get the lava balls instead of the triple fireballs. * : The U(2) convention means "hold up for two seconds". ..and here's a list of special moves that aren't spells, but use MP. Each of these requires that you be in a certain state with regards to your form, equipment, or familiar. Special attacks Default Controller Combination Move MP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ D,U,X Super jump (after gravity boots) 3 Triangle Echo (as the bat) - Hold X,U,UB,B,DB,D,DF,F,Release X Wing Smash (as the bat) 8 Square Fireball (as the bat) 9 D,DF,F,Square Lunge Bite (as the wolf) 10 F,F (hold) * Invincible Charge (as the wolf) 5 D,DF,F,UF,U (2s),D,square Sword Brothers (sword familiar) 30 * : This only takes additional MP when you actually hit something. x-> Opening Corridor Walk to the right. The second room over has a giant rock in your way; break the left side of it apart with your sword, pick up the Castlevania Potroast[tm], and walk through the middle of it. Break the right side apart in the same fashion. This is the Rock Room, and will become important later when opening a secret passage. Keep heading to the right. In the third room, you'll fight three Wargs; if you shatter the small stone ledge leading out of the third room, you can pick up a free turkey. When you hit the fourth room over, you get to have a heart to heart chat with Death, who strips you of all of your equipment. Lament your loss, walk over to the right, climb the stairwell, and walk to the left. Hop over the opening in the bridge, and walk into the main entry hall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 3. Defeat Slogra and Gaibon x-> Entry Hall Keep in mind that you're totally unarmed, and walk to your left. Any enemies that you fight will have to be dealt with by punching them to bits. This isn't too tricky as the early skeletons have limited range. In the first hall, you ought to be able to pick up a Short Sword and a Red Rust from the skeletons, just by beating them to death. There are three exits on the left side of the room. Head to the middle one to find the first save point. To use the save point, stand in front of the floating shape, and press Up. Saving also recharges your magic and health to full, so it's even more important to do so often. Go back to the right, hop up to the top of the hall, and pick up the glowing Cube of Zoe relic. This lets you get things from candles, so now you can pick up hearts, special weapons, and the like. Walk to the left and go through the red door at the top of the hall. x-> Alchemy Laboratory Walk to your left, and hop up on the platforms. Jump on the switch to lower the spikes on the left side of the room, then walk back over and break open the ball to get a Hide Cuirass, your first wearable armor. Head back up and to the right over the platforms, and jump up to the next room. Walk to your left and note the spikes. If you jump up there normally you'll land right on them, so walk left into the ledge, and, while still holding left, jump up. You should be able to clear them. Smack the candle for a Leather Shield, and then hop up the platforms and walk left into the next room. Hop down into the recession in the floor, and smack the middle part of it with your sword. Break it open and drop down into the secret room below. At the bottom is a green tube; break it open to get a Life Max item. Hop back up to where you were. This time, destroy the wall on the left side of the recession. There's a ball inside that contains a Heart Max item. Get it, and return to the platform room. Hop up through this room to the upper left exit. There's another platform room just like the one you came from; hop through it to its exit as well. The next room has a block on the floor, between two sets of spikes. Hit the switch on the right, then jump up on the block and hop to the left. Hit the switch on the left, then walk back to the block and push it over where the spikes were on the right side. Go back over to the right, hit the right switch, and raise the block off the floor. Jump up on the block, and up the platforms to the upper right exit. Cut through the next platform room to the upper left exit, and pick up the Cloth Cape. Come back down to where the block was, but be careful; the block is back in the middle now, and the right set of spikes will be raised. Go to the upper left exit, and find yourself in another platform room. (whee!) Drop down, walk left, and start hopping up the platforms. Take the left exit and hit the save point, then keep hopping up. Halfway up you'll cross over to the right side and keep going up; at the top is a candle containing the Axe, and an exit leading to the right. Go on in, and take on Slogra and Gaibon. Slogra and Gaibon -- For future reference, Slogra is the skeletal bird-like creature; Gaibon is the flying bat-like creature. The Axe works great on both of them, as you can hit Slogra while he's being carried, and Gaibon whenever he's flying, which is most of the time. First, kill Slogra. Hit him while he's on the ground, and Gaibon will take him into the air. While he's there, you can jump up and throw the axe to score hits on both of them. Gaibon will try to drop Slogra on your head - just move. Every time Slogra lands, slap him with your sword before he can do anything. After a few repeititons he'll drop his spear, and come after you with his manly nose. Just keep attacking in the same fashion and don't let up until he's dead; he isn't difficult to beat. Gaibon then comes after you directly. He starts by flying in, then flying up and away at an angle while shooting five small fireballs. He'll then land, and shoot five more straight at you. The easy way to beat him is to avoid him until he lands, then run up close and kneel - his fireballs will pass overhead harmlessly. After he takes damage, he'll turn red, and get faster. He'll shoot five angular fireballs in fast succession, followed up by a giant, fast moving fireball. When he lands, he'll shoot eight giant fireballs at you. The funny part is that these too can be ducked under. Another good thing to remember is that *all* of Gaibon's fireballs can be blocked with your Leather Shield. So, don't run away; get in there and mix it up. :) Beating these two nets you a Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 4. First Maria Meeting x-> Alchemy Labs From Slogra and Gaibon's room, take the lower right exit. Walk through the next room to the lower right exit, and you'll enter a hallway. Go all the way to the end, and the next room has an elevator in it. Ride the elevator down. Walk to the left at the first stop, and pick up the Sunglasses from a ball. Go back to the elevator, and keep riding it downward. At the next stop, walk left, and smack the lever on the cannon with your sword. The wall to the left will be destroyed; walk over and pick up the Basilard. Walk back to the right, and take the elevator all the way back up. Walk back through the hall to the left, and into the platform room. Hop up and take the middle exit on the right for a save point. Go back out, and continue up to the upper right exit. Cut through the access hallway to another platform room. This room has two shafts to it. I recommend going up and down both sides for your clear percentage. Once you've completed it, take the red door on the right side. x-> Marble Gallery Walk right through the first room, and up to the large pit in the second. Drop down, but don't go back up yet. Over to the right is a save point. Walk back to the left and down the stairs, then left to the next room. Follow the staircase as it twists down. When you reach the bottom, walk to the left, and jump up on the platforms to get the Spirit Orb. The Orb lets you know how much damage you're doing to an enemy. Walk back to the right, through the exit at the bottom of the staircase. Drop down through the next platform room, and walk left. Be wary of the Goliath here; his ball and chain has a reach that's fully half the screen. If you don't want to be hit, when he winds up for a swing, make sure to walk to the right until his body is fully off screen. Take him down, and keep going left. Hop down the shaft, walk over to the right, and hop down the next shaft. Destroy or evade the Cthulu in this passage; he's easy to hit from behind, but he'll start shooting fireballs once he turns around. Walk all the way left and go through the red door. x-> Entry Hall Step on the switch to lower the rock, pick up the shield potion, and make your way back to the middle left exit for the save point. Go back up to the top of the room, and exit through the red door on the right. x-> Marble Gallery Go back through Cthulu and Goliath, and climb the long staircase back up to the pit that you initially went down into. Go back up the final staircase to the right, and you'll be on the left side of the Clock Room (another important landmark). Walk to the right, enter the Clock Room, and meet with Maria. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 5. Defeat Doppleganger10 x-> Marble Gallery When Maria leaves, follow her to the right. Go right through the first room. In the next room, keep heading right, and follow the staircase around. The second candle in the third room over has a stopwatch; remember this for later. Walk to the right, over the pink floor, and to the exit. Hop down the stairs in the next room and you'll find yourself at the Marble Gallery's Four Way Intersection. The lower left is a dead end, so hop down there for your clear percentage and return to the middle. Take the lower right exit, to enter the Eyeball Passage. `Hm`, you think, `I wonder why it's called that?` Pay attention to the background as you go through. ;) The Eyeball Passage is pretty long, but the enemies aren't too hard. Go all the way through to the right to the red door. x-> Outer Wall Hop to the right and break the vase open for a zircon. Hop down to the right and enter the next room. At the upper left is a knight with a huge sword. If you can get past him, the room to his left is totally empty! :) Actually, break apart the left wall for a potroast. Stand in the hold in the wall when you pick up the potroast. After about 30 seconds, you'll sink through the floor into the room below. Normally you can only get to this room by using the form of Mist, but the Mirror Cuirass inside is better than what you're currently using. The Mirror Cuirass also resists Stone. Hop back on the pink elevator and ride up to where you were. Keep heading down and roam around for your clear percentage. At the bottom of the Outer Wall is a room with a telescope. You can play with it by walking to it and pressing up. Hop your way back up to where you got the zircon. Continue up and left and take the left exit. Walk through the next room to the left, and you'll find an intersection. Take the lower left exit to reach a save point, then come back and head up to face Doppelganger10. Doppelganger10 -- The Doppelganger is a 10th level copy of Alucard. He can throw daggers (and does, often), attack with a sword, transform into mist (to evade attacks), and tranform into a bat (to do the wing smash attack). To kill him, lure him into a simple pattern; jump away. As you jump, the Doppelganger will jump to follow. Turn around in mid air and slash; you'll slam the Doppelganger, he'll fall, you'll fall. Jump away again, turn back, slash, land, repeat. At this point, you should have enough magic to be using Soul Steal - however, don't bother using it against the Doppelganger. He'll just turn to mist, wasting your attack. For beating the Doppelganger, you get a Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 6. Meeting with Master Librarian Walk to the right. Pick up the Gladius sword, and keep going. Hop up onto the ledge and start ascending the main staircase. Note the presence of the elevator to the right, and the red door to the left as you pass. At the top of the staircase, walk through the red door to your left. You'll be at the Scorpion Teleporter. Stand on the central platform and press up to teleport to the Horse Teleporter. x-> Entry Hall From the Horse Teleporter, walk to the right. Step on the switch and pick up the heart max item. The wall to your right will be lowered; walk through and note that you're back in the entry hall. Go back to the Horse Teleporter and press up to return to the Scorpion Teleporter. x-> Outer Wall Go back to the right from the Scorpion Teleporter. Follow the platforms up and to the left, avoiding the medusa heads. In the upper left of this room is a lever; walk into it to activate the power to the Elevator. Hop back down to the top elevator stop, and walk through it to obtain the Soul of Wolf. Go back up to where the elevator switch is, and get on the platform just up and right of it. Turn into the wolf and do a running jump to the left to reach the vase; break it open for a Heart Max item. Go back to the elevator and ride it (quickly) down to the bottom stop. Get out, walk down and left, then turn into the wolf. Run across and jump the pit to the right to reach the vase for a Life Max item. Get back in the elevator, ride up one stop, and walk down and left to the red door. x-> Long Library Walk left through the antechamber, and left past the main stairwell. Keep walking left through the next couple of rooms to find the Bronze Cuirass. Go back to the main stairwell and ascend. Follow the stairway up and around. You'll reach a point where you have a choice of going up or left. Head up and to the right. The chamber in the upper right contains the Fairy Scroll, which lets you see the names of the enemies you're fighting. Walk back down and take the left path. Follow the stairs down and walk across to the left through another couple of rooms to reach the Master Librarian. Sell any gems you've acquired, and purchase the castle map, the Jewel of Open (for the blue doors), and at least one library card. Then purchase whatever else you want, or what you can afford at this point. ;) I typically purchase the Sabre, because it has the same attack rate as the Mace, though it's a good deal cheaper. The Damascus Sword is stronger, but by the time I come back to the Master Librarian, I've already got better gear. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 7. Defeat the Hippogryph x-> Long Library Walk back to the right, and follow the stairs up. Keep heading right, follow them down, and work your way back to the Outer Wall. Hop up and right to the elevator, and ride up to the top. Jump up and left to the red dor, and take the teleporter back to the Horse. x-> Entry Hall Exit to the right, hop up to the middle left exit, and save. Then, hop up all the way to the top, and take the red door to the left. x-> Alchemy Labs Go through the alchemy labs until you're back to the entrance to where you fought Slogra and Gaibon - refer to the earlier section as necessary. Instead of going in, hop down and left to the upper left exit from this platform room. There's a blue door in the next hallway, which you can now open. Walk left from the blue door, and you run into Maria again. Talk with her, then head through the red door to your left. x-> Royal Chapel Walk straight across to the left to find a save point, then go back to the main room and jump up to the Royal Chapel Stairwell. On the left side is a vase with an aquamarine in it. Pick that up, then ascend the stairwell. At the top, walk right, and head through to the next room. This open area has a Puppet Sword in it. Ignore him and jump up the platforms on the left, then walk left. Do the hard jump left and back to the right to pick up the Goggles, then go back to the Sword room. Go through the lower right red door, and pick up the Knight Shield on the other side. This is the passage to the Colleseum area. Go back into the sword room, up straight up the right side platforms, and take the upper right exit. Walk right through the next room to enter the entrance shaft to the Royal Chapel Bell Towers. If you walk straight across to the right, you can visit the Chapel itself. There are two chairs here. To sit down in a chair, walk to it and press up. The following things can happen. Left Chair: - A man appears on the right side, sits down, and prays. After a moment, he gives you the sign of the cross, and drops a Grape Juice. This item only falls once. - A man cloaked in grey comes over, grabs the curtain, and laughs. He shuts the curtain, and a variety of weapons come through to stab you. Right Chair: - A woman appears, and shuts the curtain on the left side. She then rams a spear through you. - A lady dressed in red appears, and sits down. She begins crying, and dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief. (If you want it to look silly, sit around for a minute with the Fairy, and let her land on you. Then everybody's chillin'.) The woman cries forever. For reference purposes, the effects you get seem to be determined by game time and/or level. Walk back to the entrance shaft of the Bell Towers, and start climbing. When you reach the first tower, hop all the way up the left side, and then make a flying leap over to the right. Get up on the platforms at the top. The first passage to the left is the Spike Passage; stay out for now. Hop up the two bells, and go to the top of the tower for a Life Max item, a Strength Potion, and the Silver Plate armor. Hop back down to the right to the access hallway. Walk across to the right and enter the second bell tower. Hop straight up both bells and pick up the zircon at the top of the tower, then drop down and right to the access hallway. This hall dumps you right onto the Hippogryph. Hippogryph -- The Hippogryph has a few different methods of attack; It can swoop upwards, possibly striking you. It can lay eggs that hatch into babies, which will fly at you in an arc. It can charge back and forth along the bottom of the room. The Hippogryph will also fly around the top of the screen, then drop down and breathe fire at you. The eggs can be destroyed by hitting them with a sword. Don't be afraid of the fire; get right up to the Hippogryph and wail away. Just before it releases the blast, hit the Triangle button to dash backwards. You'll be just out of reach, flames lapping at your cloak, and in perfect range to launch another attack (as the Hippogryph usually breathes fire in bursts of two to four times). Beating the Hippogryph gets you another Life Max item. After smashing the Hippogryph, Maria enters and talks to you about Richter. Follow her out to the right. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 8. Defeat the Minotaur and Werewolf x-> Royal Chapel Go right from the Hippogryph room into another access hallway. This leads to the third bell tower. Head across to the right and hit the save point. Come back to the left, go up to the top of the tower, and pick up the Potion and utlass that are there. Drop back down to teh right and go through the red door. x-> Castle Keep Walk through this next area to the right. Ride the elevators to the top of this room. Take the right exit and pick up Tyrfing, the cursed dark sword. Go back to the left, hop over the elevators, and take the left exit. Hop through this room to the left, and pick up the Leap Stone in the lower left corner. The Leap Stone lets you double jump, opening up a whole new world to explore. Do a quick double jump to pick up the turquoise above you, then go back to the elevator room to the right. Take the red door in the lower right, and find the Lion teleporter. Ride the teleporters around to the Scorpion, and exit to the right. x-> Outer Wall Hop in the elevator, and ride it to the bottom. Go down and right, then fall down through the next room. Walk down and left to reach the red door that leads to the Marble Gallery's Eyeball Passage. x-> Marble Gallery Walk left through the Eyeball Passage, then left to the Four Way Intersection. Head up and right, and follow that passage to its end. After you go through the blue door, jump on the switch on the floor to open up the two pink floors that you may have noticed in other parts of the Marble Gallery. Drop down and walk one room to the right, and fall through the hole in the pink floor. There's a library card and an attack potion down there. Go back to the four way intersection and take the upper left exit. Hop past the open pink floor in this next room and keep heading left. Be sure to pick up the stopwatch from one of the candles before you head out of this room. Keep going left and follow the passages until you get to the Clock Room. Once there, use the stopwatch to open the upper right statue path. Hop up with the double jump. The first room contains the Alucart Shield and a Heart Max item. The next room contains the Alucart Mail and Sword. None of this equipment is any good, unless you want luck. :) Drop back down to the clock room. If the left statue is closed, wait around until a minute passes. When the statue opens up, jump up through that passage. Pick up the Life Max item and take the red door on the left. x-> Olrox's Quarters Hop up the stairs here and take the upper left exit. Follow the stairs up to the four way intersection, and take the lower right path, ignoring the phantasmal sword up above. :) Break apart the right wall at the dead end, and go to the right. Pick up a Cheese, Onyx, and a Broadsword from the vases here. Come back to the intersection and go across to the lower left path, and through the red door. x-> Colosseum For starters, hop down and take the first exit right to find a save point. Hop back up and walk left. Follow the shaft up, and take the left exit into the Broken Column Room. Walk on through, and drop down to the left in the next room. Ignore the passage to the right for now. Walk to the left, hop over the platform shaft, and step on the switch to open up the passage back to the Puppet Sword room in the Royal Chapel. Walk back to the right and drop down the platform shaft. The path immediately to your left is a save point, so hit it and save. Hop back up, walk to the right, and walk under the ledge to follow the path you ignored earlier. You'll pick up a library card just before entering the next room - the Arena. As you enter, Richter shows up and summons the Werewolf and Minotaur to do battle. Minotaur and Werewolf -- These two are tricky to defeat, as the majority of their attacks work together. The Minotaur will throw the Werewolf, who is an avid boxer, at your head. The Werewolf also likes to roll along the ceiling and have the minotaur do a massive uppercut to him; at which point both fall to the floor in a devastating wave of fire. The Minotaur is armed with a huge axe, just in case things get boring. The easiest way to drop these two is a concerted soul-stealing effort. The Werewolf will most likely die first, as it has the lower hp of the two man combo. The attack patterns change when only one partner is present. Beating them gets you another Life Max item. From the Arena, walk to the right, and hop over to get the Form of Mist. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 9. Defeat the Lesser Demon Go back left through the Arena, and head left to the platform shaft. Drop down and left to the save point you used earlier. Now, explore the Colosseum area. Since it's pretty straightforward, and there are a variety of enemies, I'll only tell you what items can be found on which levels. Level b1: - Left room : Save point (this is where you start) - Right room : Save point Level b2: - Left room : Shield Rod - Center room: Green Tea (right from shield rod) - Center room: Blood Cloak (left from heart max) - Right room : Heart Max item. Go back out of the Colosseum area to the right. x-> Olrox's Quarters Take the upper right path at the four way intersection. This leads to a room with two giants in it. Take them down and keep heading right. Keep going until you hit the red door, behind which is the Goat Teleporter. Warp around to the Scorpion and exit to the right. x-> Outer Wall Hop in the elevator, ride down one level, and then go down and left to the Long Library. x-> Long Library Work your way back to the stairwell that leads down to the Master Librarian. If you look up and left, you'll see two different ledges that you can't quite reach. Do a double jump to get up to the second one. The path leads to a save room. Go through the next room to the left, and keep walking that direction. You'll enter the upper library. Drop down and to the right, then walk left to encounter the Lesser Demon. Lesser Demon -- The Lesser Demon fights primarily by summoning other creatures to do battle. Typically this one will summon skeletons, mudmen (this is the only place you can fight them), and ectoplasms. The Demon can also shoot a green bolt of plasma while he's flying, but that's easy to avoid. The general strategy is just to pound him when you can. The Lesser Demon is invincible during summoning, so use your sword and Soul Steal whenever possible. Beating the Lesser Demon gets you another Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 10. Defeat Karasuman x-> Long Library Proceed left of the Lesser Demon's room. Drop down and head right. Break apart the statues to find a Takemitsu, Onyx, and a Frankfurter. Then, jump up against the grate and turn into mist. Walk to the right and pick up the Soul of Bat. Hop your way back up to the main upper library, and go up and left. Jump where you can, fly as the bat where you have to. Get to the upper right exit, and go through. The next room has a green candle, which has a Stone Mask in it. Walk into the bookcase on the right and push it out of your way to get to a secret room, which contains the Topaz Circlet and Holy Rod. Drop back down and exit to the right. Save at the save point, and keep going right. Instead of falling back down to the Master Librarian's staircase, do a double jump up and right, turn into the bat, and fly up to the higher ledge that you can reach. Go up and left from there to a room with an uncurse, a potion, and the Faerie Card. The Faerie Card lets you summon the fairy familiar. Run back to the right and follow the staircase out of the Long Library. x-> Outer Wall Hop in the elevator up and right, then ride to it to the top. Get out, and go all the way to the top of the Wall for another save point. Drop down one level and take the red door to the left. x-> Clock Tower Walk left into the main area, then turn into the bat. Fly up and right to a room at the ceiling. In that room is the Fire of Bat, which gives you a weapon to use while transformed. Drop down to the left, and make your way across the room. The door to the clock tower is in the middle left of this area. Make your way up the first part of the tower, and exit through to the right. Use the Bat to fly across the sky of the big room, and search the upper middle section thoroughly; there's a Shaman Shield, Bekatowa, and Ice Mail there. Once you've flown through and gotten your clear percentage up, go back to the upper part of the tower, and cross to the left. Drop down through this part of the tower. You might want to put on your Mirror Cuirass, unless you really like being turned into stone by medusa heads. As you drop down, check out the gears on the sides of the walls. There's one on the left, and one farther down on the right. Equip yourself a nice sword (the holy rod is awful for this), and slash at the gear until it "clicks". The gear makes a loud booming sound every other time so you'll know when you've hit it. Set both of these gears into position. Be careful; they can be knocked out of place by spells (like Soul Steal), special weapon attacks, or more hits with the sword. After setting both gears, drop down to the left, and go to the third part of the tower. This part of the tower has two gears as well. The first is in the lower left, and you'll have to jump in and out of water to hit it. The next gear is halfway up on the right side. Once all four gears are clicked into place, a passage at the lower left of this third tower will slide open. It's just under the water, so head down and walk left. You can pick up the Steel Helm, Gold Plate, and Star Flail. Go back to the third tower and hop all the way up. All the way at the top, the wall on the right can be destroyed, so knock it down and go through to the right. Follow the path around and go up, and take out the Cloaked Knight. On the left of this chamber is a Life Max item; on the right, a Heart Max item. Go back down the path to the third tower, then hop left across the top to get out of the gear rooms. Walk through this next room, staying at the bottom. When you get to the left wall, break it open and walk through to get the Healing Mail. Go back to the right and go right and up. Explore this room to get your clear percentage. Go back to the upper left, and do a double jump or fly up to the top of the room. Take the upper left exit. The next room is very straightforward, just proceed through to the left. Get ready to fight Karasuman. Karasuman -- Karasuman is a large winged demon, sort of a night-god of the ravens. He will float around the room. If attacked, Karasuman drops to the floor, and summons ravens from all around. Then, he'll leap up into the air and release a steady stream of them to attack with. This stream of ravens is very difficult to avoid taking damage from. However, the general strategy makes him easy. Use the holy rod (which does nice damage to him and knocks him around some) and attack. As he starts to fall to the ground, attack again, which knocks him into the air a little. Keep this up every time he nears the ground, and he'll never be able to summon the ravens to attack with. You should be able to beat him without taking damage. Beating Karasuman gets you another Life Max item. Grab it, and take the red door to the left. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 11. Defeat Olrox x-> Castle Keep You wind up back in the Keep area. Hop on the elevator and ride it up to the top. At the top, jump right to the save point. Come back to the left and jump up through the hole in the ceiling. Go up and right to find the Falchion. Drop back down to the elevator room, then head left. You should recognize where you are now - This is the stairwell that leads to Dracula's Throne Room. Use the bat, and fly straight up to the ceiling. Take the upper right exit from this room. This chamber has two Life Max items and two Heart Max items in it. Down in the lower right hand corner is the Ghost Card, which lets you summon the Ghost familiar. Acquire everything, and fly around to make sure you get the area cleared, then go back through the upper left exit. Fly over to the entrance of the throne room. Break open the vase on the table for a Heart Max item, then run around and leave. You don't want to go there just yet. :) On your way back to the right, jump up and slap the lower left corner of the stones that hang down at the entrance to the antechamber. The first time you hit them you will reveal a switch; the second time, you'll trigger a secret staircase to come down from the ceiling. Let the staircase descend, then follow it up for a Frankfurter, Potroast, Turkey, and Sirloin. Walk back and hop over the stairwell for a Resist Stone, Resist Dark, Resist Holy, and the Platinum Mail. Hop back down the stairs and walk right to the broken bridge, then fall down. Land, and take out all of the Flea Riders that come by. Go over to your left, where you got the Leap Stone, and turn into the Bat. Fly up, and you'll see that there's a small ledge area you can get to. Fly up to the right, land on the ledge, and change back. Pick up the Power of Mist relic. This lets you stay as Mist indefinetly. Fall back down into the room and exit through the lower right. Drop down and right through the elevator room to the red door. Proceed through to the teleporter, and take it over to the Goat. Exit to the left. x-> Olrox's Quarters Walk left, continue through the Giants Room, and get back to the four way intersection. Take the lower left path to the red door, and go back to the Colosseum area. x-> Colosseum Walk to your left, head up the first platform shaft, and continue left. Stand to the right of the first broken pillar in this room, and use Soul Steal. The ceiling directly above you should break away. Fly up there as the bat, and zip left to pick up the Holy Sword. After acquiring it, go back out of the Colosseum the way you came in. :) x-> Olrox's Quarters Go back to the four way intersection, head up and right, go back through the Giants Room, and stop just before the Goat Teleporter. Turn into the bat, and fly up the hole in the ceiling. The vases on the left as you ascend contain a Mana Prism, Resist Fire, and a Luck Potion. Now that you're up top, walk to your left. Hop over the hole at the far left end of the room, and break open the vase to get Estoc, a two-handed sword. Drop down through the hole. This is the Garden area. Stay up top and jump your way over to the stairwell at the upper left. You'll enter an access tunnel with an Iron Ball in it. When you reach the raised ledge, turn into the wolf, and jump over. Go through the wooden door at the end of the tunnel to reach Olrox's room. Olrox -- Olrox is another vampire that inhabits Castlevania. He is extremely powerful with his magic, and uses spells that even Alucard can't touch. He's so confident that when you walk in, he offers you a place to sit at his table. Olrox can fire an energy beam at you. He can also raise three or four pillars of screaming agony from the floor, summon purple bats to attack you, or call forth flaming skulls. Olrox will levitate and zip around the room when you get too close to him. The best way to handle him is to stay nice and close. If you keep on him, he'll normally jump up and float away, so chase him hard and don't let him get away from you. Unfortunately, after you deal sufficient damage, you get to realize that Olrox has another form to face. Olrox 2 -- Olrox becomes a large green monstrosity. You're already injured from the previous fight, and have no real way to fix that, so you might as well open up with a Soul Steal to regain some hp. Olrox will now attempt to punch you. He'll also spit a wave of fireballs that cannot be blocked by your shield. Olrox can fan the ground with a quick laserbeam, which then causes the ground so touched to erupt into fire. If he backs you into a corner, Olrox is likely to leap into the air and try to slap you on the way down. Switch over to a heavy weapon and use fast attacks to beat Olrox back. A good method is to take the Holy Sword and get right down at his feet; if you're wearing the Platinum Mail, he'll likely only do 1 point of damage if he runs into you. Stay right near him and slash at his legs. He won't be able to hit you with fireballs or his ground laser, which takes the worst bite out of his attacks. Also don't forget to use Soul Steal for healing purposes; you may well need it. For beating Olrox, you get another Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 12. Defeat the Succubus x-> Olrox's Quarters Take the bat and fly up and to the left from Olrox's room. Run down this room, and you'll find the Echo of Bat relic. This relic lets the Bat cast a sonic wave around him to locate walls in the dark. It comes into play in finding the Spike Breaker Armor. Go back to the right, turn into the Bat again, and fly right through Olrox's room. Work your way back to the upper right area of the Garden. Fly under the ledge, but as up and right as you can get, and you'll find a room with a save point. Come back to the left, and drop straight down to another platform. Take the path to the right, and follow it to a Garnet. Come back to the left and re-enter the Garden. Fly around the room for your clear percentage, then take the lower left exit. Follow the path to the left and pick up the Heart Max item. As you walk further left, the ceiling and floor will turn into grey stone. Stand on the left side of this bridge and use Soul Steal to break open the ceiling. Turn into the Bat, fly up, and walk right to find the Sword Card, which can summon the Sword Familiar. Drop down and left, and go through the red door. x-> Royal Chapel Destroy the small figurine holding up the pillar, and hop over to your left. You'll be back just before the first Bell Tower in the Royal Chapel area. Hop down through the entrance to the towers, and head to your left. Keep going left to the Puppet Sword room. Go through the lower left of the next two rooms to reach the Royal Chapel Stairwell. Use your double jump and Bat form to clear all the nooks and crannies that you couldn't get into before. Among the loot you can acquire is a Morningstar, Boomerang, TNT, an Ankh of Life, a Shiruken, a Magic Missle, and a Mystic Pendant. Exit through the red door after falling through the hole at the bottom of the stairwell. x-> Alchemy Labs Walk to your right until you get back to the platform shafts. Fly up and to the right, and through the upper right entrance to get to Slogra and Gaibon's room. Use the Bat to fly across to the upper right, where you can find a room with the Bat Card, for summoning the Bat familiar. Walk left and drop down to the lower right. Follow the path to the long elevator shaft, and ride it to the bottom. Run left past the cannon, and drop down through the next area. If you go into the room just to the right of the elevator that doesn't raise, you'll find another save point. Slide back to the left. Keep going left, jumping over the spikes, and jump up the four platforms on the left side of this room. When you reach the top, fly straight up with the Bat. You'll enter the Weapons Room, which has every special weapon in it. Take whatever you like, then exit to the right. Break open the ball to get the Skill of Wolf, which lets you perform the special lunging bite attack. Walk back to your left and drop all the way down into the main laboratory, then continue moving right. Drop down, slide left to get around the platforms, and exit through the door to the right. x-> Entry Hall Walk over to the right to where the stone on a chain is. Drop down and turn into the Bat. Fly down a little and take the passage on your right for a Life Max item. Head back left, drop down, and walk to the right. Fall through the hole in the bridge over where you met Death, and turn into the Bat. Fly down and left, and take the passage there for a Heart Max item. Drop all the way back down and walk to your left through the main entry hallways. Pass through the third hallway, then the second hallway (with the giant rock in it), then into the first hallway, heading left. Exit to the drawbridge room. Take down the Owl Knight, then turn into the Bat and fly straight up into the ceiling. The chamber up top contains a Life Max item, and the Power of Wolf relic, which lets you charge invincibly as the Wolf. Make sure to fly around the drawbridge room to clear it. Walk back to the right through the first entry hallway, and into the second. Turn into the Bat and fly straight up through the ceiling. Go up the flight of stairs and head left. You'll pass through a room with two giants; keep heading left. At the bottom left of the next stairwell area is a save point. Go up the stairs, to your left, and pick up the Holy Mail off a ledge. Work your way back to the second entry hallway. Stand to the left side of the huge rock and turn into the wolf. Dash to the right by hitting F,F, and when you come out on the other side, turn into Alucard. Then, turn into the Bat, and fly from right to left back through the rock. Turn back to Alucard. You should hear a passage open up. This secret passage is the most difficult to access in the game. Drop down and to the left, enter the cave, and pick up the Life Apple and Jewel Sword. Go back to the right and through the upper right of the second hallway. Go through the third hallway, fly up through Death's room, and get back into the main Entry Hall. Head to the lower left, through the red door, and ride the teleporter around to the Goat. Exit to your left. x-> Olrox's Quarters Go to your left, cut through the Giants Room, and get to the four way intersection. Drop straight down, and then follow the stairwell around to the red door. x-> Marble Gallery Head to your right, and drop down into the Clock Room. Turn into the Bat, and fly straight up the central shaft. All the way up top is a chamber. On the left is a Potion, Hammer, and Life Apple. On the right are the Gravity Boots, which let you do super jumps. Drop back down the shaft and exit to the right. Follow the Gallery around to the first pink floor, which should be three rooms away. Drop down and head right. Follow the staircase down and exit through the red door to your left. x-> Underground Caverns The vase up top has a zircon. Drop down one level of platforms and you can go left or right - go right, to the save room. Head back to the left, and exit left. Jump over the hole in the floor of the next room, and keep going left to find a Heart Max item. Break the left wall in the Heart Max room, and you can get the Bandanna. Come back two rooms to the right and hop over the hole in the floor again. Back in the main room, start working your way down, following the platforms. At the lower left is a hole, and as you step into it, you get dumped into a massive shaft. Turn into the Bat and fly across to the right to the passage there. Walk through the next room to the right, and enter the vertical room. Break open the vase for a Claymore, and work your way to the lower right. The next room is full of vases; there are four Meal Tickets and one Moonstone. At the bottom of this room you can go left or right. Head left to the save point, and heal up. Then head right to.. another save point? A *pink* save point? Try using it. x-> Nightmare You get treated to a totally surreal dream sequence involving Alucard's mother, Lisa. Laugh at the pathetic lies of the Succubus, and then engage her in righteous combat. Succubus -- The Succubus will take to the air immediately, and will try to blow some rose petals at you. If these hit, you will be cursed; but if you have the Fairy hanging with you, she'll probably use Uncurse items on you while you battle. She can also split into a screenfull of duplicates, which will hover up top and fire energy balls at you; as you hit them, the phantoms will disappear. When you find the real Succubus, the other fakes vanish. Sometimes the Succubus will fire a six-way spread of tentacles at straight angles from her body. They're pretty easy to avoid. The best way to beat her down is to get in, attack hard and fast. Keep doing double jumps and slashing with your weapon. Holy weapons work best. Feel free to use Soul Steal, too. After you come out of the Nightmare, you'll be rewarded with the Gold Ring, an important item if you intend to make it to the inverted castle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 13. Defeat the Scylla Worm x-> Underground Caverns Hop through the next three rooms, and then fall down the massive pit. As soon as you land, walk right to find a save point. Head to your left, and hop up the wooden ledge to enter a vertical shaft full of platforms and ledges. Start working your way up. Take the first path to your left, and hop all the way up to find a Life Max item. Drop back down, walk right, and resume climbing through this platform shaft. When you get to the top, walk left, hop up, and then walk right. Drop back down through the next room to fall down the massive pit again. Yes, that's right. The entire vertical shaft scene was for clear percentage. After you land, walk back to the left, past the wooden ledge. Hop down to the wooden box, and push it left until it's flush against the wall. This will cause water to pool up in the room with all of the spear wielders, drowning them. Keep heading to the left. Keep in mind that you can't go underwater without hurting yourself at this point, so just hop right along. The next room has the Underground Wooden Bridge in it. Cross over to the left. Keep walking left until you reach the Waterfall room. Fly over to the left and hit the switch. A Skeletal Ape will drop down and take out the floor under you with a flaming barrel. Pick up the Herald Shield, kill the Ape, and exit to the right. Drop down the Waterfall. When you reach the bottom, hop across to the right through the water, and enter the Waterfall cave. There's a Life Max item here. Continue left from the Waterfall, and eventually you'll reach the Ferryman. Just before you meet him, there's a passage leading up; go there. Walk up and left, and go through the red door. x-> Entry Hall Stand on the short lever, and you can lower the wall that blocks the passage left. Pick up the Life Max item. This passage leads over to where the Mermen are in the second entry hall, down where that really difficult secret passage is. You've been there, so turn around and go back. x-> Underground Caverns Walk right, drop down, walk left, and catch a lift with the Ferryman. His boat is very stable, so don't worry about jumping around on it. Keep an eye open for bats as you sail through the underground river. At the end, hop off and continue left to find the Merman Statue, which summons the ferryman. Hm? Didn't we just see him?! :) Note that the Merman STatue looks more like a Mermaid - maybe that has something to do with the summoning. ;) Head back to the right and ride with the Ferryman back to his starting point. Walk all the way to the right, back to the Waterfall, and fly up as the Bat. Walk four rooms to the right, all the way back to where you dropped down the monstrous pit, and drop down again. At the bottom of this shaft you can go to the right - don't bother yet. Instead, smash the floor open with your sword at the lower left corner. Drop down and head to the right to find - yay, another Ferryman. Hop on board, watch out for bats, and keep in mind that at several points you're going to have to duck to prevent being thrown off the boat. At the end of the ride, hop off to the right. Walk right through the next room, hopping to minimize the water damage, and then into the cave at the end to find the Holy Symbol, a relic which prevents you from being damaged by water. It's only coincidental that it looks exactly like a snorkel. Walk back to the left and hop on board with the Ferryman to trigger his movement and get him out of your way. Drop down underwater for an Elixir and more clear percentage. Follow the floor closely to get everything clear; I prefer to slide backwards through this whole area. Remember to hop up and get the Onyx off of the ledge, though; you'll miss it if you're always at the bottom. Right after you hit the narrow section, you'll find a Life Max item underwater. Further left, under where the Ferryman starts off, you'll find a Knuckle Duster. Walk back to the left and up through the platform shaft, then take the exit to the right. You'll be in a perfectly square room and you'll have to face off with a wannabe miniboss - the Scylla Worm. Scylla Worm -- The Scylla Worm is lame. It will strike at a moderate pace for the last place you were standing. Move, and hit it in the head with your sword. Wheeee. You might want to use this time to work on your tan; vampires are kind of pale. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 14. Defeat Scylla x-> Underground Caverns Keep heading right after the Scylla Worm. As soon as you enter the next room, it begins to fill with water - this might be a problem, but we already have the snorkel (er, the Holy Symbol), so don't worry about it. Pick up the Resist Ice down under the ledge, and swim your way back up and around. Walk all the way to the right in this room for a Scimitar, then go back to the left and take the passage leading up. Hop over to the right for a Potroast, then continue left to face off with Scylla. Scylla -- Scylla is named after a mythical monster that, paired with the whirlpool Charybdis, was supposedly responsible for the deaths of many ancient Greek travelers. Her body is made up of a trio of Scylla Worms that all attack in tandem, a trio of giant wolf heads, and the torso of a woman up above them. The Worms will attack in tandem. If you stand far enough back in the room, they can't hit you. Dispatch them at your leisure. The Wolf heads will howl, which causes rocks to fall from the ceiling. The central one will also charge up a large ball of water, and fire it at you. The Female will cause small balls of water to rise out of the pool below, which then over at the level of the platform in front of her. After a moment, these balls have faces etched on them, and they'll fly at you at high speeds. The Female can also summon up energy and cast a swirling air blast at you. Unfortunately for Scylla, by the time we've reached her, we're already too powerful for her to defeat. I recommend taking the Holy Sword and Holy Mail against her for maximum efficiency. Stand at the back of the room, and take out the three Scylla Worm heads when they near. Then hop up close, and jump up and strike the wolf heads until Scylla is dead. Alternately you can Soul Steal her a couple of times for a fast, painless victory. Defeating Scylla gives you a Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 15. Defeat Cerebrus x-> Underground Caverns The room to the left of Scylla contains the Crystal Cloak. Walk back to the right, drop down, come back to the left, and cut through the Scylla Worm's room. Hop back up and to the left. Walk left until you're just past where the four spear guards drowned, and drop down into the water. Slide all the way around to the right underwater and pick up the Nunchaku. Hop out of the water, head left, and jump back into the water. Raise that clear percentage. ;) In the next water section, drop all the way to the lower left for a Life Max item, and to the middle left for an Antivenom. Hop up and exit to the left. Now you're back at the Wooden Bridge. Walk a little further left, and see the Skeletal Ape. Lure him back to the right, carrying his barrel. When he gets close enough, trigger his attack and make him throw the barrel at the bridge. The bridge will be destroyed. Pick up the Life Max and Heart Max items, then kill the Skeletal Ape and keep moving left. In the next room on the left, slide backwards repeatedly in the fast current to get the Pentagram. Head left to the Waterfall. Drop down, and use the Bat and super jump to clear the entire Waterfall area. Some spots are very tricky to get into. :) On the right side, you can find the Secret Boots, used to discreetly increase your height. ;) No, you can't use them. Head left past the Waterfall, and cut through the room with the three Frozen Shades. Get back to the first Ferryman, hop on board to trigger his movement, and then drop underwater to finish clearing. In the room with the boat elevators, if you get up to the ceiling in the middle, you can find a candle that has a $2000 money bag in it. Come back to the right, up past the Waterfall, and right to where the Wooden Bridge used to be. Drop down through the floor, and take the red door to the left. x-> Abandoned Mine Drop all the way to the bottom of the shaft, and take the path to the right. It leads to a save point. Heal up, then hop back up to the Lion's Mouth. The first room to the right has a bunch of candles. The second room to the right has Cerebrus, the Hound of Hell, as its guardian. Cerebrus -- The three-headed dog was reputed to be the Guardian of Hades, keeping the gate involate from those who might enter. In this game, though, he's a pathetic gesture towards incompetance. If you're above Cerebrus, he will aim all three heads up at a 45 degree angle, and shoot a steady stream of elemental force at you. If you aren't at the right position. Cerebrus may jump around; he'll also jump when cornered. He jumps high, and you can walk under him. If you're standing level with him, Cerebrus will either fire a single blast of an element, or he'll fire a series, gatling-gun style. You can't block them with your shield. Here's the key; while you can't block with your shield, you can duck right under any level shots he fires. So, walk up close, kneel down, and whap away with your favorite weapon. If he runs, follow; if he jumps, follow. After manhandling Cerebrus, you'll get a Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 16. Defeat Granfaloon x-> Abandoned Mine Head to your right. You'll notice that the walls have gone kind of greenish. In the next room, at the upper right, there's a button on the wall. Remember where this button is for later. Fall down through this room, and exit through the bottom. This next room has an intersection to it. Walk to the left, and pick up the Demon Card for the Demon familiar. Activate him right away, and leave him on for the duration of the game, as he's so much more fun than anyone else. :) Go back to the right, and this time go straight to the right across the intersection. Take the red door, and you'll find the Snake teleporter. Go back to the left, and go back up through the intersection. Hop all the way back up to the button that you saw, and stand on the ledge just under it, with the Demon familiar activated. He'll get curious, and will trip the button with his spear. Walk to the right, through the passage with the Venus Weed. The Venus Weed and her ilk are some of the hardest standard monsters to face in this game. When you come out the other side, pick up the Ring of Ares in the lower right corner. This ring will lower your defense to 1, but will raise your strength and attack by 24. Break open the wall to the left for a Turkey, and then walk through the passage you've created. Pick up the four Peanuts, the Barley Tea, and the Power of Sire. Go back the way you came, and fall down through the Button Room to the intersection again. Fall straight down this time. Fall down through the next room. When you hit the bottom, go left and pick up the Karma Coin and Combat Knife, then go to the right. Walk right and drop down, and take the red door leading left. x-> Catacombs Hop down through the next area, and walk left. The next room left has a save point. Walk past it, and through the next room left, to the room with the Bloodstone. Kneel down where the bloodstone is, and strike the left wall to find a Cats Eye Circlet. There are only so many places where you'd want to restore Damage By Cat, but by God, we're going to be covered! :) Walk back to the right to the save point and heal up. Exit to the right, and go right through the next room. Pass through this auxillary catacomb passage to the right. The next room is the Catacombs Four Way Room. The upper right is a dead end. Make your way to the lower right exit. Go right through the next room, and you enter the Slime room. Walk all through here to get the clear percentage, then exit through the upper right to find the Dark Spike Room. Turn into the Bat, and hit Triangle to use the Echo. Use it liberally; it's free. Be very careful not to hit the spikes as you fly through, because if you do, you'll set off a chain reaction that will keep you getting hit again and again and again. The only way to stop being hit is to turn into Mist, and either float all the way through, or float into the middle of the spikes, then revert to the Bat for the echo. At the end of the passage is a lit platform that turns the rest of the lights on. Land on it, and exit right. Walk through the next room to the right, and on the far right side, hop over to destroy the vases. You can collect two Cross Shirukens and two Karma Coins here. Drop down through the floor, and make your way to the left. Keep going left, and at the far end of the passage is the Spike Breaker armor. Break open the wall behind it for a Library Card. Make your way back to the spike passage. Equip the Spike Breaker armor, and strut on through, invincible. This brings you back to the Slime room; exit through the lower left. Walk one more room to the left to come back to the Four Way Room; exit to the lower left from here as well. This brings us to the Coffin room. Break open each of the coffins with your sword. Some have Monster Vial 3's inside, some have Blood Skeletons. Make your way to the left. The next room has a Heart Max and Life Max item. Walk left again. This chamber has a pair of Grave Keepers and a Hellfire Beast. The Hellfire Beast can cause a pillar of fire to shoot up, and can also unleash an electric blast that hits well close up, and flies straight at long range. Cut through them and keep moving left. Walk left through the lava room, and wind up face to face with a Discus Lord. He throws a large bladed disc at you. Just avoid it and slash him to death. Hop up to the chamber above him for a Ballroom Mask, and a Heart Max item. Hop over to the left while still up top, and take out the left wall. Exit to the left and pick up the Icebrand sword. Head back to the right, drop down, take out the Discus Lord again, and walk left. Walk through another room with a lava floor to get to a green walled room with an intersection. If you walk left you can hit a candle for a whole $1. Go back to the right, and head up the passage. Up top is another intersection; go to the right, walk past the save point to the right, and pick up the Walk Armor, which gets stronger as you clear more. Walk back to the left, save, and walk left again to the intersection. Hop over and continue to the left. Hop left through the antechamber, and you'll enter a huge brick room with no sound - the home of Granfaloon. Granfaloon -- Granfaloon is one of the two most disgusting bosses in this game. It's made up of a collection of naked human bodies. You can hear the people scream when Granfaloon orders them to attack. To start, Granfaloon will attack by raising up bodies from the pile of skulls at the bottom of the room. They'll shamble towards you at a slow pace. Each body goes down with a hit. Granfaloon will then shake more bodies off of itself, flooding the bottom of the area with them. This is all it does, until you do some damage. Start out by attacking the sections on the right side. Grafaloon is totally segmented. If you hack your way through a portion of bodies, you'll reveal long tentacles that hold the structure together. These tentacles cannot hurt you if they touch you, so get in there and do damage. Break apart all of the sections of bodies. While you're doing this, and revealing more of Granfaloon, it will be trying to shoot you. Every few seconds, the stalk closest to you will open up and you'll see a giant eye on the end of it. This eye will then fire a powerful laser at you. Each stalk has a limited range of motion; it can't swing too far into another stalk's area. The eyes will attempt to swing the beam in one direction, to cover more area, and to raise its chance to hit you, but like I've said, that motion is very limited. The beams aren't hard to dodge. Once all of the sections are taken away. Granfaloon will cease trying to throw bodies at you, and will instead send three sets of ten curving beams towards you. It's hard to dodge all of them. In order to kill Granfaloon, you have to attack the centerpiece of its body. The best way to handle this beast is to get over on the left side and Soul Steal it to death. If you really want to fight it, try taking out all of the body sections except the top center one - you'd have to use the super jump, coupled with repeated slashes, to get it anyway. This way you'll just have to deal with the occasional falling corpse and easily avoided lasers, instead of having to dodge all of the curving blasts that Granfaloon will throw. For beating Granfaloon, you get a Life Max item, just like you do for almost every other boss in the normal castle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 17. Defeat Richter Belmont x-> Catacombs Walk out of the lower left exit from Granfaloon's room. Walk left through the next room, then head up and to the right to find the Black Sword, Moremegil. At this point, equip a Library Card, and teleport yourself back to the Long Library. x-> Long Library Walk to the right, and make your way back out of the Long Library. When you reach the intersection at the bottom of the last flight of stairs, turn left, and go back to the room where the Bronze Cuirass was - this is right underneath the Master Librarian. Look up and notice that there's a long vertical shaft that goes straight up to the Librarian.. hmm, time to have some fun. ;) Stand under the shaft, and do a super jump straight up. When you hit the Librarian's chair, he'll drop a Life Max item, which you immediately grab. Walk back to the right and leave the Long Library. x-> Outer Wall Hop up and right to the elevator. Ride it to the top, then go up and take the red door to the left. Teleport around to the Goat, and exit to the left. x-> Olrox's Quarters Fly straight up the shaft, walk left, and down through the far left hole to reach the Garden area. Exit through the lower left, and follow the passage to the red door leading left. x-> Royal Chapel Hop over the statue on the left, and then ascend the first Bell Tower. Take the passage leading left. Equip the Spike Breaker armor, and walk up to the mist grate. Pass through, walk through more spikes, and open up the blue door. Walk left again, and you'll enter a room with Maria. She'll give you a quick emotional speech and run off. Walk to the left of this room to pick up the Silver Ring. Walk back through the spike passage, drop all the way down the bell tower, and walk right to the red door past the statue. x-> Olrox's Quarters Run right through the long passage, to the Garden area. Fly to the upper right, fly up into the access passage, walk right, and drop all the way down the long shaft. Then, walk left, away from the red door. Pass through the Giants Room, and get to the Four Way Intersection. Drop down through the floor of that room, hop down the stairwell, and take the red door to the right. x-> Marble Gallery Drop down and right to the Clock Room. Equip the Silver and Gold rings. When you come off the equipment screen, the clock will flip out and chime 13 times. The floor will then open up, letting you drop down below. Do so. Immediately to your left is a save room. Walk back to the right for two rooms to find a Life Max item and a Heart Max item. Walk back to the left and take the elevator down. Once the elevator stops, move either left or right, and fall straight down. Then, move back towards the center, and an elevator will take you up to meet Maria, again. She'll chat with you and hand over the Holy Glasses. The elevator goes back down. Walk to the side you didn't fall down and fly up for the clear percentage, and get back to the Clock Room. If the left statue is in the way, wait for it to open. Hop up past the left statue, and go through the red door. x-> Olrox's Area Zip up the stairwell to the four way intersection, go through the upper right, go through the Giants Room, and run through the red door at the end of the passage to the teleporter. Teleport your way around to the Lion. Exit to the left. x-> Castle Keep Hop up on the elevators and get just under the shaft that leads up. Do a super jump and you can cut through the stone ceiling to get to the elevator room with all of the flaming lion heads. Take the elevator up to the top, and then exit right to the save point. Equip the Holy Sword, Holy Mail, Holy Glasses, and then save. Go to the left, hop over the elevator and head left again. Fly over the broken bridge, and enter the throne room, to begin the battle with Richter. Richter Belmont -- Richter will open up with the Holy Cross attack; the special execution of the Cross weapon. He will then use the Cross, Holy Water, Axe, his air dash, and his whip. If you do sufficient damage to Richter, he'll laugh at you, and then begin attacking harder. Now, he'll open up with Hydro Storm. He will then use the Cross, Holy Water, Axe, a close range lightning blast courtesy of the lightning special weapon, and a long range rainbow colored blast courtesy of the rebound stone, followed up by his slide kick. From this point forward, Richter's whip is powered up and on fire. What you do here depends on how you feel. If you want to kill Richter, equip Mormegil, and beat him down. At 100 damage per strike, it's the best choice. On the other hand, if you want to get to the inverted castle, leave the Holy Sword on. Richter guards perfectly against it, since he's immune to Holy attacks. With your Holy Mail on, most of Richter's attacks will hit for 1 damage. Attack the green ball floating around (which you'll see once you're wearing the Holy Glasses), and crack it open to reveal Shaft, who's been controlling Richter. Richter will profess his sorrow, and Alucard will manfully ignore it. The only thing you get from this battle is the ability to enter the Inverted Castle. ______________________________________________________________________________ IV. Walkthrough - Inverted Castle Before I begin a detailed listing of the Inverted Castle, let me make a few things clear. 1. If you want to go back to the normal castle, there are two ways to do it. The first is to stand on the teleporter behind Dracula's Throne Room, and press Up. The second is to use a Library Card, which warps you back to the Long Library in the normal castle. 2. Once you're back in the normal castle, you can only get to the inverted castle by returning to the teleporter behind the throne room. 3. All of the secrets that were in the normal castle are in the inverted castle. That said, the object of the inverted castle is to fight and kill another series of bosses in order to obtain the pieces of Dracula. They're located in the same places as bosses were in the normal castle. I've tried to list the fastest order for taking them with a minimal amount of backtracking. Let's get started. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 1. Defeat Darkwing Bat x-> Castle Keep Start jumping to your left. The vase on the table has a zircon. Drop down the secret stairwell, and head down and right for three Life Max items, three Heart Max items, the Royal Cloak, and the Bastard Sword. Hop up and around to the left, and fall down to the ceiling. Walk to the lower left to the exit. The chamber here has a Resist Fire, Resist Ice, Resist Stone, Resist Thunder, and a High Potion. Clear the room, then head back to the right. Go straight up to where the broken bridge is, and start flying around the room for clear percentage. In the upper left corner, where you found the Leap Stone, you can get a Garnet. Turn into the Bat, fly just under the Garnet ledge, and shoot the wall three times to open up a hole with the Sword of Dawn in it. Fly over to the left wall, and take the exit just below the bridge. Drop through the hole in the floor and walk left for a Library Card. Go back to the right, and up, and then head left to the save point. Go back out to the bridge area, and fly up and to the left. Walk through the left exit to the elevator room, and walk left again to find the Lightning Mail. Come back to the right, go straight up in the elevator room, and take the red door to the left to open up the Lion Teleporter. Come back to the right, go back out to the bridge room, and fly around to the lion elevator room, where the save point was. This time, go to the upper left, and through the red door. This dumps you in another area, and straight into a boss fight. x-> Clock Tower Darkwing Bat [Karasuman] -- Darkwing Bat is just a large vampire bat. He will try to fly into you, and slap you with his wingtips, primarily. He can fan his wings to attempt to throw you into the wall with the wind, and he can curl into a drill which flies back and forth around the room. Fortunately, Darkwing Bat is slow. You can walk or slide under him while he's flying. If he does the wind attack, duck, and hold still. If he tries to hit you with his wingtips, move. If he curls into the drill, jump. Just slash away. He isn't fast enough to get away from you, so this should be no problem. Use Soul Steal if you want - personally, I used the special ability of the Sword of Dawn to summon half a dozen warriors to my aid, and let *them* kill him for me. I was that bored. For beating Darkwing Bat, you get the Ring of Vlad. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 2. Defeat the Creature x-> Clock Tower Walk to the left from Darkwing Bat's room. Go straight left through this long room, and you'll enter a room where large guys throw bombs at you. Go to the upper right corner and break open the right wall to find the Moon Rod. Come back to the left, then proceed through this room to the upper left exit to enter the third part of the clock tower. Due to the large number of Medusa heads you're going to encounter, you may want to switch back to the Mirror Cuirass armor. Walk straight across to the left and break the wall apart to enter the secret passage. Follow it left, down, and right, drop through the hole in the floor, take down the Cloaked Knight, and grab the Life Max item and Heart Max item here. Return to the bottom of the third clock tower. Work your way up. Try to kill all of the Cloaked Knights before dealing with the gears on the walls. Hit them into position until they click, just like before. There's one halfway up the left wall, and one all the way in the upper right, which you'll have to either fly or super jump up to in order to hit. Set these two gears, and take the upper left exit. Kill all of the Cloaked Knights nearby, and reset the two gears here; one is high on the left wall, the other is just down and right from it. These are much easier to hit. Once they're set, exit through the upper right, and go straight across to the secret room behind the grate. Pick up the Diamond, Life Apple, and Sunstone, then go back out to the left, and through the upper left exit to the second clock tower. Drop straight down to the bottom, and exit through the lower left. Remember to switch back to some real armor. :) In the first clock tower, jump and fly your way up for the clear percentage, and exit through the upper left. After you're in the large open room, drop down to the ceiling. You're going to have to fly around to clear this one. In the lower left is a room with the Dragon Helm, one of your original pieces of equipment. Fly up to the center of the big room to the three small ledges for a Strength Potion, Smart Potion, and the Luminus. Make your way to the red door in the upper left. x-> Outer Wall Walk left, drop down, and walk right to the save point. Come back to the left and start making your way up the wall. The vase just under where the elevator power was turned on has a Garnet. Head right through the first red door you encounter to open up the Scorpion Teleporter. Keep heading up. You can't use the elevator now, so hop around and wipe out the stupid skeletons while avoiding the giant invincible skulls. Take the next red door to the right. x-> Long Library Hop straight across and keep going right to get to the room above the Librarian. Drop through the hole in the floor into his room, and break open the statues for an Opal, Turqoise, and a Library Card. Exit to the left. Walk left and drop around to the right to head in to a save point. Continue right to the upper library. Drop down to the lower left, and break open the green candle in the bookcase room for a Neutron Bomb. Push the bookcase out of the way and walk left for the Badelaire. Come back to the right and fly to the upper right. Pass through the Lesser Demon's room, hop up and around to the left, pass through the mist grate, and pick up $250 and a Staurolite. Work your way back out through the middle left and into the lower library again. After the save point, walk left, drop down and right, and walk right to the room there to find a Resist Fire, Resist Ice, and Resist Stone. Clear the rest of the library. You might want to spend a little time here fighting Schmoos, the flying ghosts, since they can drop Crissaegrim, the strongest sword in the game. Whatever you do, make your way back out through the red door in the upper left of the library. x-> Outer Wall Head up and to the right. Go through the passage on your right, pick up the Shield Potion, and walk right again to face The Creature. The Creature [Doppelganger 10] -- The Creature is some funky dude with a huge hammer. He only has two attacks. The first is to curl into a ball and roll around the screen. This has a moderate speed, but it's easy to jump over. His other attack is to try to slap you with his hammer. He only uses the hammer when you're at close range, because he can only swing it at close range. He has to wind up for a second before using it, too. The best way to beat him is to walk up close and strike away. When he's ready to swing the hammer, drop back a couple of feet, then move in again. If he goes into the ball, jump over. Beating The Creature nets you the Tooth of Vlad. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 3. Defeat Doppelganger40 x-> Outer Wall Slide to the right, then hop up and right to the save point. Go left, then through the upper left exit. Walk left through the room full of Paranthropus skeletons. Exit through the left of this room. Walk straight left, hop over to the vase, and get the Luck Potion. Continue up the Wall, take out another vase for a Life Max item. Ignore the red door for now; head up and around to the right to the room there. Break open the upper right corner of this room to find a Dim Sum set. Walk back to the left and head up through the final area of the Outer Wall. Use mist as you head up and right to pass through the grate, and pick up a Shotel and a Hammer. Walk back to the left, through the grate, up, and to the left. In the top dead center of the room, just under the stone platform hanging by a chain, is a Heart Max item. Head up to the Telescope room, then drop back down the other side to get the rest of the Wall cleared. Come back to the red door that you skipped, and take it. x-> Marble Gallery Head through the eyeball passage to the right. It's a little slower now that you're walking on the ceiling. As you enter the main Gallery, watch out for the corners on the floor - a lot of them have spiked rollers lying in wait. When you drop down to the floor, they rush out and stab you. Fly up through the first pink ceiling for an Iron Ball. Drop back down and walk right to the Four Way Intersection. Go to the lower left, walk left, go through the blue door, and pick up the Meal Ticket. Return to the intersection and go through the lower right exit. Walk right until you see the second pink ceiling, then fly up through it. Follow the staircase around to the red door. x-> Underground Caverns The first vase has a Zircon, and the first path left leads to a save point. Walk straight across to the right, and keep going right, to find a room with a Life Max item. Break open the wall on the right to find a room with a Diamond. Come back to the left, fly up through the hole in the ceiling, and head up and around to the left to start climbing the huge platform shaft that leads into the caverns. Equip the Topaz Circlet for this area, since every balloon that you destroy will release a ton of small projectiles. If you have the cirlcet on, these will heal you, instead of poison you. As you approach the top, a path leads right. Follow it, and drop down through the next room to find an Opal. Hop back up and take the upper left exit, then resume going up through the platform shaft. When you get to the top, walk left, and fall back down the massive shaft to get the points you didn't clear. Fly back up to the left and take the passage at the bottom of the massive shaft. Head all the way left to a vase, which has a Heart Max item, then start going up. Take the upper left exit. Hop up through the vase room, collecting five Meal Tickets as you go. At the top of the room, head left to the empty room, then back across to the right to the save point. Return to the massive shaft, and do super jumps all the way to the top. Immediately to your left at the top is a save point. Come back to the right, and fly straight up. Take the left at the top of the passage to face off with another Doppelganger. Doppelganger40 [Scylla Worm] -- Doppelganger40 attacks the same way as he did earlier. Most of the time, he'll stick to sword attacks, since his sword can now poison you and turn you to stone. The Topaz Circlet can be used to negate poison, and if you have the Fairy present with a few Hammers in your inventory, she can break you out of stone as well. So, that negates the main attacks of our friendly vampire. Jump away to make him jump at you, then turn in mid-air and slash. It's just that simple. I like using the Holy Sword on that evil bloodthirsty demon of the night. :) For beating the Doppelganger, you get a Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 4. Defeat Death x-> Underground Caverns Walk left from the Doppelganger's room, and hop up to pick up another Zircon. Drop through the floor on the left and turn into a bat - you don't want to visit with the horde of Dark Octopi that are down there. :) The far left of this room has a vase with a Potroast. At the far right is a chamber with the Dark Blade. Make your way back out, and get past the Doppelganger room heading right. As you enter the platform shaft, hop up and right and break open the ceiling. Head up and around to the left to enter the second Ferryman area. As you progress left, fighting Blue Venus Weeds, drop down under the ledge for an Elixir. Head all the way left to get the Force of Echo relic, which lets you do damage with the Bat's echo. Make your way back to the right, paying special attention to all of the water areas above you. They're hard to clear - try using the super jump in conjunction with the form of Wolf to get as close to the ceiling as you can. Clear all of this underground lake, and pick up a Mana Prism while you're here. Walk right, and drop all the way back down to the top of the massive shaft, then head right. Go past the spear guard room, hop up through the water, and follow it up and around to the left to get a Heart Max item. Come back right and down, and keep heading right. Remember to clear all the water overhead as you go; the first patch is empty, the second has a Life Max item and a Potion. Keep going right - ignore the hole in the ceiling for now. Walk across the bottom of the Waterfall room for a Garnet. Head to the upper left of the Waterfall, and pass through to the cave behind it for the Osafune Katana. Hop back over to the right and keep going right. Skip the hole in the floor. Be sure to clear the water overhead. You're now back in the first Ferryman area. The $2000 bag is very easy to get now that you're on the ceiling. Keep going all the way to the right, and pick up the Alucard's Shield. -- Notes on the Alucard's Shield -- Allow me to digress briefly here on the uses of the Alucard's Shield. If you wear the Alucard's Shield all by itself, it's a heavy defensive item that's strong against all attacks. It's the best shield you can wear. There is, however, a finer use for it. Equip the shield rod, and press Square and Circlet at the same time. If you remapped your controller, these are the buttons for the left and right hand, so you'll use the Rod and Shield simultaneously. When you do, the Alucard's Shield will begin to levitate. All of the shields in the game will appear, circle around the Alucard's Shield, then vanish in a flash of rainbow light. From this point forward, the Alucard's Shield is now a formidable weapon. Hold the shield in front of you and walk into something. You will cause more than 250 damage four times per second. In addition to this high rate of fire, every time the Shield strikes something, you will gain one heart, regenerate 8 hit points, and be invincible for about one and a half seconds. This means that you can hold the Shield in front of you and completely eradicate anything in your path, from normal creatures, to bosses, to Dracula himself. This takes all of the challenge out of the game, just like Crissaegrim does. That's why I include it. ;) I like stomping things without mercy. The only real drawback to this attack style is that you have to get within touch distance of an enemy. Sometimes that isn't practical, like with Guardians or the Blue Venus Weed - so you might want to keep your favorite sword, or the Crissaegrim, handy to deal range damage, and just use the Shield to walk all over bosses. After a time, all of the shields will appear again, and will vanish. Alucard will say "What?!", and then the Shield is just a shield once more. You can reactivate it at any time with the Shield Rod. -- End Note -- Walk back to your left, and fall down the hole in the floor. Walk to the right, and out the red door. x-> Entry Hall Hop on down to the huge rock in the second entry hall. Break the sides off of it for the Potroast, then fly through from right to left as the Bat. Change to the Wolf, and walk back from left to right. Change back to the Bat, fly to the upper right, and enter the secret passage that's so difficult to open. Acquire the Zircon, Opal, and the Beryl Circlet. Drop back down to the bottom right of the second hall and fall through the hole in the floor. Work your way around to the right to find a save point, then drop down to the right for a Fire Boomerang. Come back up and left, and get into the second entry hall, then walk to the right. Walk through the first entry hall, heading right, and get to the drawbridge room. Drop all the way down to the roof, and go into the small chamber there to get a Hammer and an Antivenom. Fly up to get your clear percentage higher, then go back to the left to the second entry hall. Exit through the upper left and return to the Underground. x-> Underground Caverns Walk left and up through the hole, then left again until you reach the Waterfall. Fall down, taking care to clear any areas you missed, and walk left when you hit the bottom. Keep going until you reach the hole in the ceiling, then go up, and head through the red door in the upper right. x-> Abandoned Mine This room has Gaibons in it, but considering your level of equipment, they should be no problem. Go all the way to the top and left to the save point, then drop back down and go through the lion's head passage. This passage has a collection of Slogras, which are just as easy to face. Walk through to the left, and get ready to deal with Death. Death [Cerebrus] -- Death has three main forms of attack. First, he'll summon flying scythes to harass you. They're slow, and can be destroyed by a sword hit. If you let the battle go on, Death will cast two large green balls of energy at you. They move very slowly and turn to chase you no matter where you run. If you get cornered, they'll just slowly run into you, causing damage over and over. Death can call these energy balls back, and create giant magic circles in the air with them. These circles then give rise to glowing skulls that fly at you from within, and cause damage on contact. The general strategy is to just jump and slash. Despite his impressive attacks, Death isn't that powerful.. yet. He transforms when beaten into a much stronger form. Death 2 -- The second form looks like a cross between Anubis and a sadistic nightmare. Death now has a large semi-skeletal form with giant blades for hands. In this form, Death only has two attacks. If you're at range, he'll throw one of his hand-blades at you in a curving pattern. If you're close, he'll raise both hands up, and bring them slashing down to cut you up. The neat part here is that when Death isn't attacking, the only part of him that can cause damage is the very center of his body, just about the level of his hands. You can slide through his tail, even walk into the blades on his hands without effect. Don't be afraid to move around him. The best way to take him out is to lure him to the bottom of the room, and stand close, hitting with your sword. When he brings his hands up to slash, turn around and backslide through him, then hit him from behind until he turns around and repeats. If Death throws one of his hands, you can move, but try to get behind him instead of above. If you go above, he's likely to keep throwing his hands, and they're much harder to avoid. Beating Death nets you the Eye of Vlad. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 5. Defeat Galamoth x-> Abandoned Mine Turn on your Demon familiar, and walk left from Death's room. The Demon will throw the switch in the lower left. Walk through the room of Slogras, and hop to the upper right of the next shaft, killing Gaibons as you go. Break open the upper right wall and go through the passage, picking up a Green Tea, to find a Power of Sire and a Life Apple. Walk back down to the Button Room, and work your way up. Try not to get hit by *too* many of the bats. The next room up is the intersection. Walk left through the red door to open the Snake Teleporter, then back across to the right to find the Alucard's Sword, your original weapon. Come back to the left, and fly up through the intersection. Fly up through the next room, and at the top, head right for a Power of Sire, then across to the left, up the narrow passage, and through the red door. x-> Catacombs Jump up to the top of the first room and head right. Go past the save point to the right, pick up the Magic Missile and break open the wall behind it for a Buffalo Star, then come back to the save point and heal up. Cross over to the left, and fight off a few Salomes, young witch girls that ride broomsticks. When you kill them, they'll turn into cute little cats with witches hats. :) Throw on your Cats-Eye Circlet and let them run over you to heal for 120 several times over. Keep going left and you'll hit the Four Way Intersection. Take the upper left exit to what used to be the Slime room. Clear it and walk down to the lower left. Equip the Spike Breaker Armor and tear through the spike room, and keep going left. At the far left of the next room are a pair of Karma Coins, a Resist Fire and a Resist Thunder. Fly up through the hole in the ceiling. Head to your right, cutting down fast-regenerating Blood Skeletons as you go. One room over you'll find an Elixir; break open the wall behind it for a Library Card. Go back the way you came, take the upper left exit from the Slime room, get to the Four Way Intersection, and take the upper right exit. Pass through another room of weaker Blood Skeletons, and head right for a Life Max item and a Heart Max item. Keep going right, cutting through the ice caverns, and drop through the floor. Open the vases for a Shield Potion and an Attack Potion, then move over to the right and break open the wall. Hop up through the passage to the right and into the chamber there to find the Necklace of J, another piece of original equipment. As a side note, the Necklace of J gives you 5 more defense. If you really want to laugh at that, go fight some Cave Trolls in the Underground Caverns area. Sometimes they'll drop the dwarven necklace Nauglamir, which gives you 15 defense. Walk back to the left, hop up through the hole, and continue over to the right through another ice cavern. In the next room, we're back to green stone decor; hop straight across to the right for $1, then come back to the left, drop down, head left past the save point, pick up the Diamond, come back to the save point, and heal up. Walk two rooms to the right, and engage Galamoth, one of the hardest boss fights in the game. Galamoth [Granfaloon] -- Galamoth is huge, and very powerful. He has four main attacks. The first it to lunge forward with his sceptre, and blast lightning at the ground. It covers a large range under his sceptre, and a bit in front, and as such is very hard to avoid. His next attack consists of raising the sceptre and firing a set of energy balls at you. These cause good damage, and can't be blocked. Fortunately they only reach through most of the screen. His third attack is a wave of lightning energy, fired at the level of the ledge on the left. If you're standing on the ledge, you can jump over it. If you're on the ground, you can duck under it. This one's easy. Galamoth's last attack is an afterthought. If you're on the ground striking at his knees, he's liable to whap you in the head with the sceptre. :) Galamoth doesn't move much, so you shouldn't worry about being run into. He will cause damage if you touch him. Fighting Galamoth requires knowing how to counter his moves. For his lightning sceptre attack, you have to be up on that ledge on the left side. The lightning doesn't extend that high. When he starts using energy balls, retreat to the back of the room on the left, where they can't reach. When he uses the lightning wave, you should be able to jump or duck and avoid it. With those simple counters, you've rendered Galamoth ineffective. Whatever you do, do *not* try to get around behind Galamoth. When you manage it, he'll simply turn around, and attack from the left side of the room. The downside is that now his energy balls are completely within range, and you can no longer hide. This battle is best fought from the left. Since you can't jump his sceptre when he lunges, you might want to spend all of your time up on the ledge on the left, just waiting for him to get close enough to slap with a weapon. But really, the best way to fight him lies through clever use of equipment. Equip the Beryl Circlet, which heals lightning damage; now two out of three attacks will work for you instead of against you. The only thing you have to run from is the energy ball attack, and that doesn't even reach the left side of the screen. No problem. Equip your favorite weapon, and settle in for the long haul of wearing down Galamoth's defense. Another good way to face Galamoth is by activating the Alucard's Shield, and tearing him up. This is the fastest method, and since you're rendered invincible as soon as you start hitting, you can't really die. My favorite equipment for fighting him is the Crissaegrim, the Alucard's Shield, the Beryl Circlet (for healing), the Walk Armor (highest def), the Royal Cloak (best cloak I've got!), and any highly defensive artifacts - I used Nauglamir and the Necklace of J while writing. Physical contact with Galamoth caused 1 point of damage. ;) For beating Galamoth, you get a Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 6. Defeat Beelzebub x-> Catacombs Head to the upper right of Galamoth's room for a Heart Max item and a Life Max item. Work your way to the right, down, and back left for the Ruby Circlet and the Gas Cloud relic, which lets your Mist form cause damage. Get back to Galamoth's room, then go left, up, and left through the ice chambers. Go back to the Four Way Intersection, take the lower right path, walk through to the right, drop down, and hit the red door to the left. x-> Abandoned Mine Fall down, walk right, and fall down through the next couple of rooms. Fall down through the room with all of the bats, and exit to the right. Walk through Death's room, the room full of Slogras, drop down from the lion's head path, and take the red door in the lower left. x-> Underground Caverns Walk left, drop down, and walk right to the Waterfall room. Hop up to the top, walk right, and fall through the hole in the floor in the next room to the right. Drop down and walk right to the red door. x-> Entry Hall Walk to the right, drop straight down when you enter the second entry hall, and then walk left to the third entry hall. This room has the Dodo, the only one in the game, and if you kill it enough times, you might get a Lapis Lazuli. Keep going left, hop across to the staircase room, drop to the bottom, then jump back up to the top after clearing it. Walk right to the room where you first met Death, and fall down and right to the passage that's above the bridge. Head in there for a Life Max item, then walk left, fall through the hole in the bridge below, and walk right to the main entry hall. Start off by dropping straight down and to the left, and fly into the passage there. Pick up the Talisman, then come back to the right, and head for the upper right of the room. Go through the upper right exit to the red door, and open up the Horse Teleporter. Come back to the left, drop down one level in the main hall, and take the middle right exit to the save point. Come back left again, drop all the way down, swing left for the Heart Max item, and then take the red door to the right. x-> Alchemy Labs The labs are now filled with big beasties. Hop through the lap, staying up top, and get to the upper right. Break open the ball there for a Resist Dark. Come back to the left and drop down through the floor. Work your way into the far right of the next room, picking up the Mana Prism from the candle, and drop down through the platforms. Fall straight through the floor to the Special Weapon room, and then walk left. Take out the glowing ball for a High Potion. Come back to the right, hop up through the ceiling, and walk left. Hop up over the pillar and continue through the lower left exit, past the cannon wall, and into the elevator shaft. Fall down and hold right to reach the first landing; the chamber inside has a glowing ball, which contains the Goddess Shield. Grab it, hang left, and drop down to the bottom of the elevator shaft. Super jump your way back to the top, and head right. Walk back past the cannon wall, hop over the pillar, and make your way to the right. Jump up over the hole in the floor and exit through the right side passage. Use Soul Steal in this next platform shaft, and break apart the ceiling and ride side wall. Hop up through the ceiling, and go to the top of the room for a Katana. Hop back down and to go the right, and break open the ball to get a Heart Max item. Walk back to the left, and drop down through the platform shaft, exiting to the lower right. Go from the upper left of the next shaft to the lower right, and exit. The next room is tricky due to the invisible Bitterflys. Keep attacking to kill them. Hop down to the left, watch out for spike rollers, and take the lower left exit. Drop down through the platform shaft, exit through the lower right, and break the ball in the next chamber for a Life Max item. Hop back up the platform shaft to the Bitterfly room, and get to the upper right corner. Drop down, and exit through the lower right. In the next platform shaft, go all the way up top and come down the right side. Take the middle right exit, and save. Come back left, drop all the way to the floor, and take the lower left exit to fight Beelzebub. Beelzebub [Slogra and Gaibon] -- The other candidate for "Most Disgusting Boss", Beelzebub hangs suspended from chains in the middle of the room, and covered in crawling maggots. The maggots are poisonous. Beelzebub only has one real attack; he summons giant flies to his aid, which circle him and then attack you by trying to fly into you. The flies can be destroyed by sword attacks. As a side attack, Beelzebub's maggots will fall off and crawl at you. If you're wearing the Topaz Circlet, the maggots will heal you for five each, so you don't have to worry about them. There are two ways to fight Beelzebub - an easy way, and a hard way. The hard way is to fight him as you're intended to - by attacking his legs, then his arms, then his torso. As you attack, pieces of him will fall apart, and when he loses a limb, Beelzebub will summon more flies to his aid. Eventually you'll have to deal with a flying carpet of them while trying to damage their master. The easy way is to stand under Beelzebub and to one side, and do a super jump upwards. Slash his head and torso region, and leave the rest of him alone. His body can't hurt you, and the maggots will heal you, so you might take a little damage from the flies. If you take down the torso, the rest of him dies, and the fight is over, without having to deal with a dozen flies chasing you around. Beating Beelzebub gets you a Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 7. Defeat Medusa x-> Alchemy Labs Run down to the lower left of Beelzebub's room to find the chamber with the Ring of Arcana, which makes rare items show up more. Come back to the right, and fly to the upper left exit of the room. Walk to the left, hop straight across to the upper left exit, and clear the access passage to the elevator. Walk back to the right, and drop down to the middle left exit for a save point. Come back to the right, drop all the way down, and take exit in the lower left. Follow the access tunnel through to a platform room. In the upper right is a ball with a turquoise; fly all around this room to clear it, then go back out through the middle right, through the access tunnel, and to the upper right of the platform shaft. Slide through to the lower right of Beelzebub's room, enter the platform shaft, and go up the right side to the first exit. Walk right, through the blue and red doors. x-> Royal Chapel Pick up the Heart Max item that's just sitting around on the platform. Move straight across to the save point, then come back left and drop down to the main stairwell. On the right is a vase with a Zircon. As you go down the stairwell, jumping around to clear everything, the vases will give you a Heart Max item, a Shiruken, TNT, a Diamond, a Boomerang, a Javelin, and at the very bottom of the area, a Fire Boomerang. Slide through the left exit, drop down, and head left into the Spectral Sword room. Continue through the lower left exit, hop straight across to the Royal Chapel, the drop down to the start of the bell towers. Head left to see the passage with the red door, then turn around, and drop into the first bell tower. Stay to the right and go through the first passage. Equip the Spike Breaker armor, get all the way to the right, and acquire the Twilight Cloak, which you started with. Come back to the left and fall all the way to the bottom of the first tower for a Life Max item, a Smart Potion, and a Mana Prism. Hop up and take the left exit. Go through the access passage to the second bell tower. Fall down to the bottom, pick up the Talwar, and take the left exit. Go through the access passage, and get ready to fight Medusa. Medusa [Hippogryph] -- Medusa, Queen of the Gorgons, and the source of stories of ancient valor. She's remarkably easy for all of her reputation. Her main attack is her stone gaze. Medusa will hold her shield up, and slide away from you. When she lowers her shield, she uses her gaze to try and turn you to stone. If she succeeds, she'll then call down lightning to blast you while you can't move. If you remain encased in stone, she'll use her stone gaze on you again (which now causes damage), and repeat the pattern. If you get too close, Medusa will instead swing her sword at you. She swings at about head height, as though she were trying to decapitate you. Fighting Medusa is easy. Her stone gaze can be blocked by any shield. If you're wearing the Mirror Cuirass, you'll take 1 damage, but you won't turn to stone. The best way to fight her is to hold your shield up, and walk forward slowly. Medusa will constantly try to slide backwards away from you, right up until she's backed into the ledge on the far side of the room. Move closer, inch by inch, until she begins to swing her sword. Once you're close enough to trigger her sword attack, you can put your shield down; Medusa will swing her sword, and nothing else. If you position Alucard to stand about even with the white pillar in the painting in the background, she'll just swing and swing and swing and not be able to hit you. She'll still be within sword attack range, though. The only thing to keep in mind is that if you hit her, and she screams, she'll do a stone gaze attack immediately after she stands back up. To avoid it, all you have to do is kneel. So, walk up to her, kneel down, and slice away. She won't be able to harm you. For beating Medusa, you get the Heart of Vlad. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 8. Defeat Akmodan II x-> Royal Chapel Walk to the left and go through the access passage. Fly straight across as you enter the third bell tower to the save point. Drop all the way to the bottom for a Magic Missile and a Bwaka Knife. Take the red door on the left. x-> Castle Keep Run straight across to the left, and throw open the red door to the Lion Teleporter. Hop in and ride it to the Horse. Exit to the left. x-> Entry Hall Walk left, hop across to the left side, drop down to the lower left, and go through the red door to the left. x-> Marble Gallery Walk to your left, hopping over spike rollers and killing skeletons. Drop down to the bottom of the shaft, then walk right, drop down past the platforms, come back to the left and pick up a library card before exiting on the left side. Drop down through this next shaft, which is *full* of Medusa heads, and exit to the right. Zip across to the right for a Potion, then come back up and left, drop down the shaft, and follow the staircases, picking up an Antivenom on the way. Just before you drop to the main gallery, take the left passage to the save point, then come back to the right and drop down. Walk left to enter the outer clock area, and fight some Guardians for experience. Go left, through the clock room, and keep going left to get your clear percentage up. Drop through the staircases to the second pink ceiling (the first one you reach), then turn around and go back to the clock room. Be careful, as there are a lot of spike rollers in this area. Back in the clock room, drop down through the central shaft to another Special Weapons room. Grab a stopwatch, then head left for a Heart Max item, and right for a Life Max item. Fly back up the shaft, use the Stopwatch in the clock room, and drop down the lower left side. Pick up the Resist Fire, Resist Thunder, Resist Holy, and Resist Dark. Wait for the lower right statue to move, then drop down into that area, and take the red door. x-> Olrox's Quarters Drop down along the stairs to the Four Way Intersection room, and take the upper left path to reach a room with several vases; collect the Opal, High Potion, and the Sword of Hador. Come back to the intersection, take the lower left path, and follow it to the red door. Hop through to open up the Goat Teleporter, then come back to the right and drop down the hole in the floor. Grab the vases on your way down for a Shield Potion, Luck Potion, and Mana Prism. When you hit the floor, equip the Spike Breaker armor, and make your way through to the right. Break the vase for an Aquamarine, and fly up into the Garden area. Stay on the bottom and run straight to the right through a trio of Karasumans. Enter the access passage, make your way to the right, grab the Shiruken, and go through the wooden door at the end. Slap down Akmodan II. Akmodan II [Olrox] -- Akmodan shuffles around the floor, looking tired. The dust that comes off him is poisonous. He will try to hit you by throwing his hand a short distance in front of himself, and by grabbing you. If he grabs you, he'll sling you around and toss you into the wall. When you hit him there's a good chance that you'll release a poison cloud. The Topaz Circlet works wonders for dealing with that. The best strategy is to equip your favorite weapon and the Topaz Circlet, then slash away. If he releases poison, who cares? When he shambles close, do a double jump over him and repeat from the other side. It doesn't get much easier. For beating Akmodan, you get the Rib of Vlad. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 9. Defeat the Doppelganger Heroes x-> Olrox's Quarters Walk straight to the right from Akmodan to pick up a Heart Max item. Walk back to the left and get into the Garden area. Fly to the upper right and take the exit. As you walk down the passage, you'll find a Life Max item, and after that you're in the stone bridge room. Strike at the floor under the third candelabrum to break open the secret passage, drop down, walk left, and pick up the Heart Refresh. Hop back up, walk right through the red door. x-> Royal Chapel Walk to the right as far as you have to in order to get your clear percentage filled out, then go back to the left. x-> Olrox's Quarters Walk left to the Garden area, and fly through to up your clear percentage. Follow the middle left exit back to the Alucard Mail, and the lower left exit to a save point. Walk to the right, drop down and through the floor, and back to the left across the spike room. Jump up through the long vertical shaft, and hang a right past the red door to get back to the Four Way Intersection. Take the red door in the upper right. x-> Colosseum Walk through to the right, slaughtering Werewolves. Stay on the bottom, and drop down on the right side. Keep moving right into the Broken Column room, and use Soul Steal just before the first column in order to break open the secret passage in the floor. Drop down, move right, and pick up the Fury Plate. Come back to the left, go up through the ceiling, and move right through the Broken Column room. Keep moving right, take down some Minotaurs, and walk right to the red door. x-> Royal Chapel This puts you back in the sword room, but was necessary for clearing purposes. Go back. x-> Colosseum Walk to the left, fly up the shaft, take the first right to the save point. Go left, drop back down, walk left, and jump up onto the ledge. Keep moving left and enter the main arena, where you get to fight three very old friends. Doppelganger Heroes [Werewolf and Minotaur] -- There are three coffins in this room. As you enter, they close, spin, and out come the three heroes from Castlevania III for the SNES: Grant, Sypha, and Trevor. Grant will crawl along the ceiling and throw daggers straight down at you. He will also drop straight down from the ceiling and try to slash you wish his sword. He can also throw daggers while sitting on the ground. Sypha will float around at a mid-height, and cast an ice spray down at you. Trevor stalks on the ground, using his whip, holy water, a variant of the cross weapon, and the dagger weapon. He can jump, if he needs to. None of them is particularly strong, so pick one that you want to kill, and get down to business. I usually start with Sypha, so I'm not sure what her later attacks are. As you kill off heroes, the other two begin to use more of their attacks on you. When you get down to the last hero, he'll use all of his power against you, but it just doesn't matter, because they're weak. Killing the Doppelganger Heroes nets you a Life Max item. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 10. Defeat Shaft x-> Colosseum Head to the left, hop into the elevator shaft, and do a super jump. Aim to the left and head into the passage. You'll find a Heart Max item, a Life Max item, and another Heart Max item. Continue left, hop across under the White Dragon, and hit the save point. Go up the shaft and to the upper left for an Aquamarine, come back to the right and cross over. Follow the path right, hop by another White Dragon at the top, and head to the upper right for the Gram sword. Come back to the left, drop down and hang right to hit the passage halfway down the elevator shaft. Head right through the Werewolves and Minotaurs, then up the shaft, and to the upper left for a Buffalo Star. Come back across to the right and stay up top for $1000 and a Zircon. That covers the Colosseum, so walk left, drop down to the bottom and fight off the Minotaurs, walk left and hop up to the ledge to the Arena, cross through to the left, hop left through the elevator shaft, mist through the grate, and keep going to the upper left. Exit through the red door. x-> Olrox's Quarters Run straight up the middle of the Four Way Intersection, hop up the stairs, and go through the red door. x-> Marble Gallery Hop up into the Clock Room. Now that you have all five pieces of Vlad, the hands will flip out, the clock will chime 13 times, and the upper passage will open. Fly up. Take the left passage for a Heart Refresh, the right passage for a save point, then come back to the elevator. Ride up, and go to the left, then up the side. Walk up to the edge of the hole, then walk back left, drop down, cross all the way to the right, jump all the way up, and come back to the hole from the other side. This way you can get more of the area cleared without having to end the game prematurely. :) Drop down the hole, and you get to deal with Shaft. Shaft -- Shaft floats around in a glowing ball, and summons up a set of green spheres to help him. These are the same as the sphere that was controlling Richter. The spheres have three main attacks. Two will charge up with fire, and dive towards a corner of the room. If you're kneeling in the corner, they'll miss you. These two fireballsthen blast fire directly back across the room, covering a good spread. After that, two green balls will start glowing red and black, and will bounce around off the walls. When they hit you, they cause damage. These are slow and predictable, and are easy to avoid. Finally, two balls will move to the side walls, charge up, and fire a huge electricity beam between them. The balls then slide up and down on the walls, covering the entire room with a beam of electricity. Shaft can damage you when you step into the ball he flies around in, but the green balls can't harm you unless they're in the process of using an elemental attack. Who needs strategy? :) For a final boss, this is very easy. Start off by equipping the Ruby Circlet. When the fire balls come, they'll heal you. Jump up and slash Shaft while he floats by. After the fire isgone, switch to the Topaz Circlet. Dodge the energy balls, while hopping around and slashing Shaft. Next comes the lightning attack, which you'll be healed by (thank the Beryl Circlet for that). Shaft remains still while the lightning is being used, so leap up and cause most of your damage here. After that, the pattern repeats, so just switch between the right circlets. When Shaft dies, he brings forth Dracula. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 11. Defeat Count Dracula Dracula -- Dracula shows up and banters with you for a minute, then attacks with a hideous body. Here's the attack series. First, he opens up with the claw attacks, Whichever hand you're standing closest to, Dracula will swipe at you with. The hand moves a little further than half the screen. You'll have to jump to avoid it. Next, Dracula summons a boss creature such as Karasuman, which he then crushes violently between his hands. He sucks up the blood, and retreats to the background temporarily. From the background, Dracula casts forth a large magic circle, aimed at your position. You can jump away from it. Dracula comes back to the forefront, and then the three heads in the middle of his body will attack. They attack from left to right. The necks aren't too long, to just try to stay away from them. Once each head has attacked, all three will extend, and cast a rainbow triangle between them. These triangles fire out at you, causing more damage. When Dracula comes in, he's the full width of the screen. It's hard to avoid hits, so equip yourself to such a level that you can't be damaged well. None of Dracula's attacks are elemental-based, so your circlets aren't going to help out. (No, Dracula does not do cat damage.) Equip the Alucard's Shield, the Walk Armor (should be plenty strong by now), the Twilight Cloak, the Dragon Helm, and the Necklace of J. Pick another accessory of your choice (I used the Nauglamir for the extra 15 defense), and your favorite weapon (I was using Gram at the time). Stand in the middle. Double jump straight up while slashing to dodge the hands. You can slash almost any part of Dracula to cause damage, so don't discriminate. After four hand attacks, Dracula will summon a boss that he'll smash. Do a double jump and turn into the Bat, or do a super jump followed by a double jump in order to avoid the hands. When Dracula dives to the background, walk over to one side of the screen. He'll cast the magic attack; backslide all the way to the other end of the room, so that the shot misses you. When Drac comes back down, slice him up as best you can. The heads attack from left to right, and can only cause damage while they're extended. Leap around them while slashing. When they move out and start casting the triangle - well, that one's hard to avoid. I guess it's a good thing that your defense is high at this point, hm? :) After the triangle attack, Dracula starts over with the claws. Repeat the above strategy until he's dead. Alternately, you could use the Alucard's Shield, and beat him in a matter of seconds - it depends on how much of a challenge you want. Once Dracula is defeated, listen to the ending dialogue, and check out the truly poor music at the end of the game. ______________________________________________________________________________ V. Miscellaneous Information What's a really good way to level? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Far and away the easiest way to increase your levels of power in the game is to take down the awesome Guardian monsters. These beasts inhabit the rooms to the left and right of the clock room in the inverted castle, and are nowhere else. The rooms will be laid out as follows; on the left and right sides will be a Guardian, pacing around and looking extremely tough (much like the Armor Lords). In the middle of the room, and prone to joining the guardian on whatever side you enter, is one of the Giants, either Blade or Gurkha. The Guardians are not easy to kill by any stretch of the imagination, even with the Alucard's Shield. The Guardians use hard hitting wide range power to stomp Alucard into a little quivering pile of flesh pudding. You can tell what attack they'll use by how they gear up for it. If they rear back, and start an advance, they'll use a flurry of swordstrikes aimed at head level. It's not wise to jump into this. If they rear waaaay back for a second, they'll probably use a long overhand sweep that carries them forward a step. This is also not advisable to try to get past. If they cross their sword down to the ground in front of them, they'll be using a ground-based flame attack. This can be jumped, and is a good time to start the attack. The best way to handle them, though, is to walk in swinging a sword. Normally the Guardians will put up an invincible shield in front of them. Walk up with the Alucard's Shield out, and hit their shield in order to engage your invincibility. Then walk on through, plant the Shield in them, and let it eat them up. Guardians are Level 60, and have a base experience of 1500. How many endings are there, and how do I get them? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are four endings. Ending #1: Kill Richter Belmont without the Holy Glasses. Ending #2: Get the Holy Glasses, wear them, and kill Richter anyway. Ending #3: Get to the inverted castle, and beat Count Dracula with less than 196% of the castle cleared. I may be off on this percentage. Ending #4: Get to the inverted castle, and beat Count Dracula with more than 196% of the castle cleared. This is the best ending. What changes when I beat the game? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ After going through and saving with a very high percentage - and if you followed the walkthrough, you should be up in the 200% range, unless you missed something - and have beaten the game in order to make your save program have a Clear designation, a couple of things happen. Stop by the Master Librarian in the normal castle. If you talk to him, a new menu option will appear - the Sound Test. You can use this to play any of the songs in the game. If you go to purchase from him, you can now buy the magic spells you haven't used, and the Duplicator item will be listed. The Duplicator costs $500,000, and if you equip it, you can use single-use items indefinetly. Also with the Master Librarian, you'll find that your enemy list should be complete, and that you can now pull tactical information on any boss in the game, if you didn't already know how to fight them. At the bottom of your System menu (from the Start screen), you'll have an option called Time Attack. This screen shows how long you spent getting to various checkpoints throughout the game. It's also the basis for my table of contents. :) When you start a new game, these functions will still be enabled, provided that the save with the Clear designation is on the same memory card. Are there any codes for this game? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sort of. Here are a couple of codes that you can use when starting a new game. Set the name to one of the following. RICHTER : This lets you play as Richter. Things are much harder this way. :) X-X!V''Q: You'll start with 99 luck, and a Lapus Lazuli item. All of the rest of Alucard's stats are terrible, though. AXEARMOR: You'll start off with the Axe Lord Armor in your inventory. I heard you can keep your Alucard equipment! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yes, sort of. As far as I know, this trick only works when using the Luck code. Go from the start of the game through to the third entry hall, and kill the Wargs that are in it. Slap open the step for the turkey, then unequip everything. Re-equip the Alucard Sword, Twilight Cloak, and Necklace of J. Your defense should be at 12. Walk left, out of the room, and come back in. Kill the first Warg, and walk up to the second one. Wait for him to growl and duck his head, then jump forward at him. He should lunge under you. Turn around, and stand still. Let the Warg hit you, and you should be blown completely across the room to the right, through the room where Death is waiting, and into the stairwell beyond. Go up the stairs, walk left, hop across the hole, and -do not fall down- otherwise Death will steal your equipment. Go through to the left into the main entry hall. Go save your game, then get up to the upper left of the room, go through the red door to the Alchemy Labs, and then turn around and come back. Drop down and work your way back to the right. Hop over the hole in the bridge, come down the stairwell, and then go left to where Death should be - except now, it's Slogra and Gaibon. Whip up on Slogra, and eventually the two will fly off. It's important that you do this, since if you don't fight this optional battle, Death will be waiting for you later, and will happily steal your equipment later on. After you've beaten Slogra and Gaibon here, resume play as normal. What good is the Alucart equipment? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you wear all of the Alucart equipment at once, you get a healthy luck bonus. Sadly, this is offset by the fact that the equipment is *terrible*. I heard about a hidden track...? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Most people with computers figured this one out a while back, but it bears repeating. If you throw the Castlevania:SOTN disc into a computer CDROM drive, or a stereo CD player, you can play a hidden track. It's a pretty good techno mix of one of the songs. :) ______________________________________________________________________________ VI. All-too-Frequently Asked Questions This section deals with the main questions that I've had to answer and re-answer, thanks to this walkthrough and my website. ;) __General_____________________________________________________________________ Why don't I have 200%+ ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Odds are likely that you haven't found every secret passage, or that you haven't fully cleared all areas. The most common areas to miss are the water areas in the inverted castle, notably in the Underground Caverns. Another good place to miss a spot is any large open-air room, like the Garden in Olrox's Quaters, the entry room in the Clock Tower area, or the giant staircase in the Royal Chapel. Can I play as Maria? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Only in the Japanese version, which this walkthrough wasn't written for. :) __I can't do it!______________________________________________________________ How do I open up the right statue in the Clock Room? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Normal walkthrough, Section 8, Marble Gallery, paragraphs 3 and 4. How can I open up the grated passage in the Clock Tower? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You have to set the four clock tower gears into position. (Normal walkthrough, Section 10, Clock Tower. Reprised in Inverted Walkthrough, Section 2, Clock Tower.) I have the gravity boots; how do I do the super jump? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Normal walkthrough, Section 2, at the very top. There's a command listing, followed up by a special move listing. Look up the super jump in the table. Does it take longer for me to type these instructions than to just tell you? Yes! But there's principle at stake. How do I do the Bat's Echo? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check the same place as for the super jump. How can I get spells to work? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Normal walkthrough, Section 2, at the very top. Not only is there a command listing and a special move listing, there's a spell listing. Spells require MP. That's the only prerequisite. If you can't do the spell, you either don't have the number of magic points required, or you aren't doing the controller sequence properly. How do I use the Shield Rod? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Inverted walkthrough, Section 4, skip down to the Notes on the Alucard's Shield section. It details the whole process, as far as it goes with the Alucard's Shield. You can use the Shield Rod with any shield, though. Why is my defense at 0?! Is this a glitch in the game? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Odds are likely that you equipped the Ring of Ares, which has a monstrous defense penalty associated with it. Check your equipped items. How do I get into the inverted castle? - Why does the game keep ending when I kill Richter? - Where are the Silver and Gold Rings? - Where are the Holy Glasses? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To get to the inverted castle, you need to save Richter from Shaft. (Normal walkthrough, Section 17, Battle with Richter.) The game ends when you kill Ricther because that's one of the four endings you can get. Check out the list of endings in the Miscellaneous section for more detail. The Gold ring is with the Succubus (Normal walkthrough, Section 12), and the silver ring is with Maria (Normal walkthrough, Section 17, Royal Chapel area). The Holy Glasses are down under the Clock Room (Normal Walkthrough, Section 17, Marble Gallery). __Where is it?!_______________________________________________________________ Where is the Spike Breaker Armor? - How do I open this wooden bridge in the Underground area? - Where's the Bat's Echo? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Spike Breaker Armor is down in the Catacombs. (Normal walkthrough, Section 16, Catacombs.) To get rid of the wooden bridge, you have to bring a Skeletal Ape over and let him destroy it with a flaming barrel. (Normal walkthrough, Section 13, read the two parts for the Underground Caverns.) The Bat's Echo is in Olrox's room. (Normal walkthrough, Section 12, Olrox's room.) Where is the Sword Familiar? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Sword Familiar is in a secret room, just off a passage betwen Olrox's room and the Royal Chapel. (Normal walkthrough, Section 12, Olrox's Quarters.) Where do I get the second fairy/second demon? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You don't. They're only in the Japanese version. Where and how can I get ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Skip down to the Appendix section and find the Relics chart. Where and how can I get ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Read the FAQ, and see if the item is listed there. If you want to know all of a certain item, like the shields, pull down a monster listing from http://www.gamefaqs.com, and check to see which ones you have. If the item isn't mentioned in the FAQ anywhere, look on the monster list and see what drops it. Go off and start killing that type of creature over and over. It helps be using the Ring of Arcana. Luck also plays a part, so try wearing a Lapis Lazuli, or using the Luck code in order to find those ultra rare items. In the meantime I'm working on a creature list of my own. Hang in there. ______________________________________________________________________________ VI. Appendix sections These sections will detail any large charts or other information that I compile into this FAQ. I had originally intended to stop writing without including this information, but I couldn't. :) I'm an addict. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 1. Experience system The experience system in Castlevania:SOTN is governed by your level. The game applies a formula to determine how much experience you're actually going to receive. It's hard to express this as a mathematical equation, so I'll list the chart as it applies to Guardians, and explain what's happening. First of all, there are two different math formulas. One is applied when you're of a lower level than your enemy, and the other is applied when you're of a higher level. Guardians are Level 60 enemies, and have a base experience of 1500 (as reported by the Master Librarian). Here's the experience gain for the levels immediately above and below 60. Experience Mathematics ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lower ... Exp. Difference Formula 4575 -6 (54) 3660 + (3660 / 4) : -5 and lower use the same formula 4575 -5 (55) 3660 + (3660 / 4) 3660 -4 (56) 2928 + (2928 / 4) 2928 -3 (57) 2343 + (2343 / 4) 2343 -2 (58) 1875 + (1875 / 4) 1875 -1 (59) 1500 + (1500 / 4) 1500 0 (60) 1500 1000 +1 (61) 1500 - (1500 / 3) 666 +2 (62) 1000 - (1000 / 3) 444 +3 (63) 666 - (666 / 3) 296 +4 (64) 444 - (444 / 3) 197 +5 (65) 296 - (296 / 3) 131 +6 (66) 197 - (197 / 3) : No limit on how low experience drops ... Higher ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In order to figure out exactly how much experience you're going to get, apply the formula. If you're a level below the enemy, take the base and add in the base divided by four. Repeat for every level below, using the new base exp for each level, until you get the figure for five under - that's the experience cap. You get the same at five below that you do at twenty five below. Unfortunately, the reverse isn't true for how much exp you lose when you're at a higher level. Start off by subtracting one third of the base experience, and repeat with the next levels exp as the base for every level up you go. As you gain levels, your experience will fall steadily, until you are getting 1 experience point per kill. You can't get 0, so the game gives you 1. The Guardians bottom out when you hit level 76. At this point, assuming that you can clear the Guardian room in eight seconds, and turn right around to clear it again, you would spend 16 hours and 45 minutes of gametime trying to level. Gametime - not counting when it's paused, not counting time lost if you get hit, not counting meals and bathroom breaks and the like. One level per full human day. :) Another good reference point - at 1 exp per kill, you would have to kill 15,000 monsters of any type in order to level. In my entire game, up to level 66, with 200.6% cleared, I killed a total of 3,025. So, once you start getting into the mid to high 60s, you might want to lay off of leveling, and just go finish the game. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section: 2. The Relics Chart This chart is to answer a frequently asked question - where to find all of the relics. The "section" column refers to the section of this walkthrough. In that column, "N" means "Normal walkthrough", and "I" means "Inverted walkthrough". The number immediately following is the section number where you can find the steps to locate that particular relic. The Relic Chart ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Relic name | Location | Section | Effect | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Soul of Bat | Long Library | N, 10 | Turn into a bat | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Fire of Bat | Clock Tower | N, 10 | Shoot fireballs as bat | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Echo of Bat | Olrox's Quarters | N, 12 | Use radar as bat | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Force of Echo | Underground Caverns | I, 4 | Attack with echo | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Soul of Wolf | Outer Wall | N, 6 | Turn into a wolf | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Power of Wolf | Entry Hall | N, 12 | Run swiftly as wolf | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Skill of Wolf | Alchemy Labs | N, 12 | Swim/lunge bite as wolf | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Form of Mist | Colosseum | N, 8 | Turn into mist | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Power of Mist | Castle Keep | N, 11 | Stay in mist form | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Gas Cloud | Catacombs | I, 6 | Turn into poison cloud | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Cube of Zoe | Entry Hall | N, 3 | Makes items drop | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Spirit Orb | Marble Gallery | N, 4 | Shows enemy damage | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Gravity Boots | Marble Gallery | N, 12 | Super jumps | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Leap Stone | Castle Keep | N, 8 | Double jumps | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Holy Symbol | Underground Caverns | N, 13 | Stops water damage | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Faerie Scroll | Long Library | N, 6 | Display enemy names | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Jewel of Open | Long Library | N, 6 | Opens blue doors | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Merman Statue | Underground Caverns | N, 13 | Summons the Ferryman | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Bat Card | Alchemy Labs | N, 12 | Summons Bat Familiar | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Ghost Card | Castle Keep | N, 11 | Summons Ghost Familiar | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Faerie Card | Long Library | N, 10 | Summons Fairy Familiar | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Demon Card | Catacombs | N, 16 | Summons Demon Familiar | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Sword Card | Olrox's Quarters | N, 12 | Summons Sword Familiar | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Heart of Vlad | Royal Chapel | I, 7 | Blocks curse status | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Tooth of Vlad | Outer Wall | I, 2 | Strength +10 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Rib of Vlad | Olrox's Quaters | I, 8 | Constitution +10 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Ring of Vlad | Clock Tower | I, 1 | Intelligence +10 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Eye of Vlad | Abandoned Mine | I, 4 | Luck +10 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ______________________________________________________________________________ Creation date: 09/19/1998 Last revised : 05/14/2000 Please visit Alucard's Shield, home of this walkthrough! http://www.afn.org/~afn17933/castlevania ______________________________________________________________________________