Tips

These are my personal suggestions on what is very useful to know in the game.

Tip #1 : The Shield Rod

First of all, the Shield Rod is probably going to be the weapon you use the most in the game. It's in the Coliseum, though be careful when you go there, the monsters can be nasty if you aren't ready.

Tip #2 : Sub-Weapons

Is the Cross the best sub-weapon?? No way! It's strong as heck, but it's expensive. Use Holy water most of the time. It doesn't strike that hard but it stikes so many times, you send 5 or 6 on a big slow enemy, and he'll be vaporized very quickly and cheaply. With Richter, Holy Water still is the best sub-weapon, but against some bosses and in some situtations, the knife rules. It costs only 10 hearts as an Item Crash and it sends a couple of hundred knives into the enemy extremely quickly.

Tip #3 : Money

A good place to gain money if you don't have the Jewel Sword in the normal castle is in the Coliseum. Be sure to have good levels though. In the mid-right, there is a room with Armor Lords and Musketeers and at the end, there is a torch with a 1000 G bag that keeps coming back every time you get out of the room and come back. The musketeers can hurt, but don't worry about it, duck. As for the Armor Lords, a few hits will get them out of your way. I highly recommend using a shield, the Shield Rod or a fast weapon.

Tip #4 : Be annoying

Under the Librarian is a hole and in a room below is a hole in the ceiling. If you super jump through that hole and bump the librarian, you will get a gift.

Tip #5 : Serendipidity

The ring of Arcana and Lapis Lazuli are the best for item-gaining from monsters

Tip #6 : The Jewel Sword

Equip the Jewel Sword and a lapis lazuli and/or play the lucky game and/or a ring of arcana and you'll be getting so many gems, they'll max out. That's a lot of money. You can sometimes get better gems like aquamarines and if you are VERY lucky (not just your luck stats here..), you might get a diamond! Fight the never-ending zombie supply at the begining of the castle or any other similar place where you are attacked by swarms of easy to kill regenerating monsters. They die from one hit and there are so many, you'll max out pretty well and thus make lots of money easily from what they'll drop.

Tip #7 : The Clocktower Room

To open the room to lower right (clock tower) where there are a lot of gears, you need to hit all the gears in the 2 rooms. You hit the gears until each do a little *click*, not the big *tuk-unk!*. Once you've done this to all 4, the door will open. Be careful if you go even 1 over for 1 gear, you have to start over for all the gears.

Tip #8 : Galamoth

To beat Galamoth, turn into fog whenever he sends lightning or simply equip stuff like the Beryl Circlet to heal yourself. If you don't have the Circlet, then you should use some Lightning Resists as well as the fog. Use the Holy Water profusely, he won't be able to get out of its way. It will nearly finish him off! (He has over 9999 HP....)

Tip #9 : Beezelbub

A good thing to do against Beezelbub is to use the knife or the Axe sub-weapons. They are cheap and they hit him very well. I use the knife because, if you go onto a platform, you can hit any part of his gruesome body.

Tip #10 : The Clock Room in the middle of the Castle

To move the right statue and get the best of all the sub-weapons in the game, use the stopwatch. To move the one on the left, you gotta wait. To open the floor and get the glasses from Maria (to see the ball above Richter's head and go into the inverse Castle by hitting the ball and not Richter), wear the 2 rings (Gold and Silver) in that room.

Tip #11 : How to reach the Catacombs

To reach the catacombs: go to the area of the map just to the right of the waterfall, in the caverns with all of the frogs. You should see a wooden bridge in the room with a tunnel underneath it. Find the Skeleton Ape in the room and keep out of range of his barrel so he'll follow you to the wooden bridge. Now wait for him to throw his barrel at you and move out of the way. If you did it correctly, the barrel should destroy the bridge. Go down that hole. To make the skeleton appear, you ned to cross the waterfall area a bit further down the path. On the other side there is a switch that if you press there will be a skeleton not far away from the wooden bridge.

Tip #12 : The telecope and confession booth

The telescope at the bottom of the Outer Wall is useless (my opinion), so don't waste your time. Some people say that the ferryman won't appear unless you see him through the telescope, but I never had to do that to see him appear. If there's a lot of fog, you won't see much either.

Except for the Confession booth, any place where you sit down, like in the Outer Wall near Doppleganger or near the Lesser Demon in the Library) is also useless. Thanks to Silver Croft for this tip: "Enter the room, sit on the *right* side first, and 'listen' to the confession of the crying female ghost. When you get bored of watching her cry, stand, and sit on the *left* side, the priest will appear, and listen to you. When he disappears, there will be 'grape juice' left"

Tip #13 : How to become a bat

To get the "soul of bat" relic, you need to get the "form of mist" in the Coliseum. To enter the Coliseum, you need the "leap stone" that will allow you to do double jumps. It can be found in the Castle Keep. Anyway, there are 2 statues in the Clock Room. The one on the right will open and close a path to the right every few minutes. When it's open, do a double jump to enter Olrox' Quarters. Go up and to the right and in the big room where you'll fight one of those flying swords with a lot of weapons around it. Go to the door in the mid-left of that huge chamber to enter the Coliseum. Defeat the boss (werewolf and minotaur) and go to the right for the "form of mist". Now, use the library card found right before you fight them to warp to the librarian. Get out of his room, and double jump to the first ledge to the left. You'll be able to go into a save room. Keep going left (it's open). Now, explore the place, there are a few treasures. Fight the Lesser Demon, take the path to the left that'll open in his room, it'll go down and to the right. In that room, you'll find a vase and 2 breakable statues that have stuff in them. There is also a grill that says "Mist could pass" when you touch it. Turn into mist and press right and you'll go through. Into that room you'll find the "soul of bat".

Tip #14 : The Duplicator

Seeing the unholy price tag attaced to this little item probably discouraged a lot of you to even THINK of buying this item, so a lot of you are probably wondering what the heck it does. After countless hours of fighting with the Jewel Sword, I finally got it and it did something I never thought it would do: it duplicated the items I was using in my hand so that it would never run out. If that didn't clear things up, visualize being able to use pentagrams or heart refills indefinetly because you'll never run out. Its pretty cool.

Tip #15 : The 2 Rings

There are rings that are necessary for accessing the inverted castle: the silver ring and the gold ring. You get the Gold Ring after fighting Medusa in the Royal Chapel. You can only get the Silver Ring after acquiring the Spike Breaker armor in the catacombs, for which you will need the bat and its echo power to see in the dark. After acquiring the Spike Breaker Armor, go to the Royal Chapel; at the top left (in the "tower" sections) you'll find a corridor filled with spikes. Equip the Spike Breaker armor, go through the blockade using your mist form and then, with both rings, go to the center of the castle where the big clock is (it is also how you enter the Colliseum) and if you have both rings equipped in that room, the floor will open and you will access a room where you'll meet Maria, who'll say Richter is cursed. Wear the Holy Glasses she gives you in the battle against Richter, break the green ball and you'll be able to access the inverted castle for the true ending.

Tip #16 : Quick and Dirty

There's a quick and dirty way of going through the game if you don't want to bother exploring things: Enter Dracula's Castle Enter the Alchemy Lab Defeat Gaibon and Slogra Enter the Marble Gallery Enter the Tower Kill the Doppleganger Go up the Tower, enter the Library Get the Jewel of Open from the Librarian Go back to the Marble Gallery Unlock the door on left side, enter and cross the Royal Chapel, acquiring the Gold ring after meeting Maria. Go to Castle Keep Get to the Leapstone Go to the Colliseum Get Form of Mist Go back to the Library, get Soul of Bat Choose to finish game or enter Catacombs from the Underground Water Vein to get the Spike Breaker armor. Go back to Royal chapel, get the Silver ring. Go to Center of Castle Get the Holy Glasses Beat Richter's green ball; its floating above his head. Richter's in the Clocktower, where you fought Dracula in the opening. Enter the Inverted Castle; the warp is on the left of the throne room. Get the 5 Dracula parts Kill the mofo in the center of the castle The end