Castlevania: Belmont's Revenge Boss & Enemy FAQ v.1.1 15/07/06 anthony draco This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. Copyright 2006 Chonlachai Ratanasiri. All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. --- Interesting Facts --- Vampire Killer (Normal Whip) deals 0.5 point damage. (Don't live with this.) Circle Tip (Vampire Killer + Iron Ball) deals 1 point damage. (Live with this, at least.) Fire Whip (Vampire Killer + 2 Iron Balls) deals 1 point damage, and shoots out fireball. Fireball deals 0.5 point damage. Holy Water deals 1.5 points damage. Flame from Holy Water burns and stays even on floating platforms. Flame from Holy Water is also a light source. Axe goes through anything, but deals 1 point damage. To effectively whip a candle and grab an item floating mid-air, jump first then whip right after you jump. Don't whip first. You can deal damage to a boss by just standing AT him and whip. You can just jump AT a candle, whip, and get the item fallen right there, right that instant. When you whip, you ARE the whip. Items fallen will fall through any floating platforms. They do, however, stay on spike beams that move in and out for you to stand on. There is some meat hidden in corners above doors, steps. Try whipping these corners to break them and get the meat, especially when you're in Plant Castle. Some ropes are attached to false ceilings. You can go up these ropes further. They're usually found where the Falling Eyeballs are. Some ropes can lead you backwards, far backwards. Sometimes, candles don't mean items. They can also mean light sources. You might want to leave some of them intact. This is a secret so many people have missed, especially in Rock Castle. --- The Effective Use of Lives and Continues for Beginners --- Use first set of lives to get to the first half of the stage. Use the second set of lives to get to the boss, learn the way, and see what he's like, or better yet, how he attacks. Don't worry if you die. Use the third set of lives to get to the boss and defeat him. If you need a lot of tries to fight the boss and you happen to lose a life, suicide until you game over and gain more lives. Then try to make it to the boss with that very first life. --- Normal Enemies --- These are the enemies you will most likely have problems with: Slugs: Found only in Rock Castle. In rooms with stalactites, you'll find them curling in their shells and walk only when it's dark. It's easier to just avoid them, not letting them come out in the first place. In rooms where they appear, you'll find that there are candles at every certain interval. They're for you to whip, yes, but not carelessly. They're there to light the room as well. Do not whip one unless you see the next candle on the screen. That way, you can ensure you'll always have the light. If you whip every candle out, the room goes dark, you won't see pits around you, and they walk everywhere. Good luck with that... Another method is Holy Water, since it bursts into flames when you use it, you can light the room to see your way. But it's not at all lasting and Heart consuming. Save it. Another interesting fact is that you step on this kinda enemies' shells without taking damage while they're curling still. Knife Throwers: Look like a monkey. You're most likely to take damage from a knife at least once, but that's all you should take. If you're approaching them from a screen-length rope, don't jump off the rope. Stay at the height of their mid- jump and whip them when they're near. That's where their knives won't touch you. If you're approaching them from the ground, walk under them when they jump over you, turn back and whip them when they land. They'll jump over you again. Dodge using the same way and whip again. Three Circle Tips will kill him. Frogs: They're abundant, but found most in Rock Castle. You need Fire Whip to deal with them easily, but any whip is fine. Either you whip them while they're still in the crack, or approximate where they land and fire or whip them. Jumping around trying to whip them, or trying to run away from them is a complete suicide. They're much faster than you. Golems: Hardly a problem. They dissolve and form again after you whip them once. Keep whipping and you'll eventually kill them, but you can't just whip them to death fast and that's annoying. Holy Water will purify their muddy body and send them to afterlife in one hit. Hands(?): Don't know if they're hands, but they sure look like one, sticking out of the ground. They shoot out balls. Don't touch those. They away your whip upgrades. Whipping their mouth both damage them and prevent their balls from reaching you. It's the smartest place to hit. If you're lucky enough to be close to them once you enter the screen, whip them to death aiming for their mouth. If you're away from them, however, be calm. Don't approach them head on. Chances are that they'll send balls out to greet you. Stay in a safe distance and observe the balls trajectory. Choose a safe place where balls will fly towards your whip and whip out the balls first. Once clear, you know what to do. When you're lower than these enemies, keep them just right within your whip range and aim for their mouth, or the areas right in front of it. You'll destroy the balls coming out, and at the same time, deal damage. If you're above this enemy, throw Holy Water twice. If you're separated from them by a wall, long distance, or a ceiling, use axe. It goes through anything. Fire Whip works perfect from the distance. Aim for their mouth, of course, to shut them up, and keep shooting until they're dead. Giant Bats: Unless you have no choice, whip them with Circle Tip. This will kill them in one hit. But getting close to them will make them fly, so jump or get close and whip fast. If you hit them with a fireball, or normal Vampire Killer, they'll break into two bats... Axe them. Period. Boomerang Reapers: Probably the strongest and the most dangerous enemies in my opinion. They throw boomerangs at you. Whip them fast before they throw one. Watch for their stance and see if they aim high or low when you dodge. Duck whip if they aim high, and jump if they aim low. Remember that the boomerang will return. Low will come back high, and high will come back low. Jump over low and duck whip under high. --- Bosses --- I know that this is Boss & Enemy FAQs, but I'm adding the details of items available in the area before bosses as well. Because every time you die fighting a boss, you'll start there. --- Crystal Castle's Boss --- You don't need sub-weapon at all, not even any whip upgrades. He has blind spots at two corners of his stage. Stay closest to the corner when he takes full form and his thunder won't touch you AT ALL. Whip him when he's an ice hexagon to damage him and turn back to the corner when he takes full from. You can even fight this guy and come out completely untouched. --- Rock Castle's Boss --- Have Axe ready before you reach this boss, but it's not a must. When you hear the music change, Axe won't be available anymore. You'll find an Iron Ball before his room in case that you die fighting him, but it's tricky to get it. It's available only when you can hit the first candle during the long fall down towards him. To time right, don't whip right when you're at the candle. Whip some way above it. You do need the Iron Ball here or you won't survive. The last candle during the fall is Holy Water. But it's useless here, don't trade it with Axe. First form, he's slow. Just whip him until his armor breaks. He occasionally pokes you with his sword though, be careful. Try slashing him before he corners you. And don't take damage here, it's not that hard. Second form, this is a little difficult. He jumps press and send air-waves from his sword. Always stay on the ground. This is where Axe comes in. Keep yourself out of his jump distance and Axe him when he's away or when he's in the air. When he lands right in front of you, keep whipping. When he's on the ground, he sometimes sends air-waves at you. Just duck. You're sure to be jumped on by this guy. He will be extreme if you keep trying to avoid additional damage after he jumps on you by running away from his touch. He has extremely wide body and long sword range. Don't waste your time. Look at it this way: when he jumps on you, he gives you invulnerability at the cost of some health. :D Stand ground and keep whipping after you're jumped on. Now, instead of you running, it's him jumping away. Cool, eh? :O BTW, ignore the ropes. Useless... --- Cloud Castle's Boss --- An Iron Ball is available after the music change, if you need it, it's right below where you start. Just walk down the first platform, then down there again to get it. But there're also Hands around, waiting to take it away. Try to keep your Ball intact. :D This boss' weak points are either of its skulls. They share the same health bar. Once you activate the fight, start whipping the lower head non-stop. When ribs stop shaking, that's the sign of the rib transfer. The longer head will send ribs flying around, transferring them towards the shorter one, in this case, the lower. Back all the way towards the lower platform and duck right next to it before all this happens. That's where the ribs won't hit you. After the transfer is done, keep whipping the lower head right in front of you. At times, they'll shoot some kinda pellets at you. But if you keep whipping the lower head, the pellet from that head will be whipped away at once, never make it to you. Axe the pellets from the upper head, since they come only from above. Or you can just ignore the pellets from the upper head. Don't worry. If the boss is lucky enough to survive you and make it to the second rib transfer, dodge using the same corner, and stalk the lower head back. Smash it. If the boss still miraculously lasts, keep dodging ribs and pellets from the upper head and smash the lower head until the boss is dead. --- Plant Castle's Boss --- Axe is a must. But you don't need it from the level. The candle above the pit, right next to a rope, above the Rolling Eyeballs is Axe. To avoid taking damage from the Eyeballs, after you jump over the pit, go right first to stop the Eyeballs from streaming in. Kill the Hand. Then jump up the rope to get it. You'll get an Iron Ball and 5 Hearts along the way to the boss after the music change. Your place in the boss's room is, of freaking course, the middle platform. The boss' weak points are either of its heads. With Axe, you can reach almost anywhere in this room without even moving. Hit them with Axe when their heads are out of your whip's reach. Jump whip them when they're within your reach, or namely, when your platform is up and either of them are forward. Mind both heads though. Try alternating between both heads equally. They shoot out pellets. When either opens its mouth, try to jump whip that way to sweep the pellets out in one whip. The pellets deals only 2 points damage, but can make you fall down from platform and hit the tridents. Not to mention that it's so hard to get back up. More than likely, you won't have enough health to last when you're back up. Dangerous. Axe can't reach them only when they're away and the platform is down. Don't waste your Heart. You have 10, that is, if you die and start from the boss area. You can even kill them with Axe alone if you don't miss at all. Axe-happy! --- Castlevania's Boss #1 --- There's an Iron Ball after the music change, along with some Golems. You can kill them, or just whip and run. It is imperative that you have the Iron Ball, since this fight is a damage race. When you start this fight, your territories are marked with solid brick, so stop running only when you're on it. In this fight, you must keep running. The weak point is the head. The trick is to take lead, not to fall behind. If you fall behind, you'll be squeezed by the screen and the boss' body. His body width is extremely wide. You'll take at least 2 hits before you can get away, I can promise you that. When the fight starts, two free whips at his head are a must. Then run ahead. Then you're on your own. These are the tricks: Try to stay close to the right half of the screen. You won't have to run much to take lead, and thus, avoid a lot of risks of getting hit. When he pops out of the ground, whip him from the front, not from behind. Run over where he's coming out then turn back and whip. Or jump over that place if you don't think you can run through before he pops up. Then turn back and whip. Jump over his tail to advance fast when it's low enough. Try to get two whips out of each opportunity if you can. If you're right next to the right edge of the screen, and his head is nowhere to be seen, whip ahead, off the screen. He's showing up right ahead. Two whips. Period. When you're caught and there's nothing else you can do besides whipping, just do it. That's the only thing you can do. When you're caught between his body, his head, and the screen closing in, and you know that you won't make it without getting hit, be decisive, take damage and run through. This fight is a race, my favourite, and an exciting one too, a race until either dies first. RUN, BABY! RUN! --- Castlevania's Boss #2 --- Extremely difficult. If you don't need any help at all, above, I'll bet that this is why you're here. But if you can read his pattern and his blind spot, you can hunt him for fun. Iron Ball is available before him. So is Holy Water and some Hearts. Everything you need if you die. There are three ground platforms. Your safest places are right next to the middle platform on either side. I say safest, because even there, he can still reach you. But you won't survive staying anywhere else. When you wait there, duck all the time. >From that safe spots, jump in place and whip him once when he tries to get on that platform, then duck. He'll whip, whip, whip. After this, there are two possible ways he can go. Down towards you, you're out of luck, you'll take damage, but this doesn't happen often. Quickly jump out from that safe spot and run to the other safe spot. Up over your head, you're lucky, you take no damage. This will happen most of the time. Quickly jump on the middle platform, stand right next to the edge you've been hiding, then throw Holy Water down at him for extra 1.5 points damage. Then run to the other safe spot. Repeat the steps starting from the safe spot until you defeat him. Mind the swords he throws. Sometimes you have to let the opportunity to whip him go and stay low. You'll make it, promise. --- Castlevania's Master --- All weapons and upgrades are available before him, and you can also continue right before him. All this, for a reason. He's extremely difficult. His only weak point is his head. He has only one attack but it's hell to dodge. He teleports around and eight orbs will spin around him and blast out spirally, clockwise, in every direction. He has only ONE fix pattern of teleportation in every fight though. And that's how you're gonna attack him. You can learn the pattern, attack him and dodge his attacks yourself, but instead of providing the safe locations for the spots from which he attacks, I'll guide you step by step through: There are 8 platforms in total. Each in the places of 8 main directions, so I'm going to use N, S, W, E, NS, NE, SW, SE as references to platforms of each directions. When it starts, jump on SW and stay farthest to the left edge as far you can go, then duck. Wait for his attack to pass. (Keep pressing left to go farthest, you won't fall.) Jump on W and go closest to the left, then turn back in place. When he appears right in front of you, whip his head like mad. If do it correctly, he should have two points less than you. Don't worry about the damage. As soon as the Master disappears from SW, run for your life towards E using the low road going through S. Stay closest to the right and wait for his attack to pass. Run for N before the Master appears at NE, blocking your way. Turn back and whip his head once. Then run for NW, leave one leg on its left edge, then duck there. Wait for his attack to pass. Run for your life back towards E again using the high road going through N this time. Stay closest to the right edge then duck. Wait for his attack to pass. Stand up again and turn back in place. Whip like mad again when the Master appears right in front of you. Again, ignore the damage. Run for your life towards SW using the low road again. Duck at the left edge of the platform and wait for his attack to pass. Wait for him to appear again at S. Jump whip him once or twice. If steps above are done correctly, it should leave him two points max. Take them out here and end it all. --- Credits --- My aunt for letting me play this game while I was at her house when I was 7. People on Castlevania: Curse of Darkness board, namely AnotherGamer, Starion, and death_ballad for helping me to identify this old school, long-forgotten game. My luck for bringing this very old, second hand, cartridge game back into my life. Zargap for beta-testing this FAQ, bearing with my Obsessive/Compulsive behaviour and enjoying this game as much(?) as I do. --- Contact --- If you find mistakes, or want me to add something to this FAQ, please e-mail me at [email protected], add subject 'FAQ suggestions/corrections' or anything of that sort.