Dear Readers,
Today I'll talk about exploring the area beyond the cemetery, which was a bit difficult to explore last time and also about facing the red altar boss.
I went back to town and continued, past the cemetery to the dangerous water crossing with the Mermen. The shield comes in handy here as they are tough enough.
On the other side I was welcomed by bats and a red altar piece. This makes three of them collected now. I had collected 2 others in the forest.
In this new cave area the "Monster Dance" theme plays and it's another wonderfully faithful rendition. The waterfall area here is quite tricky with all the bats flying at you and I was trying to whip them above a platform so their spoils wouldn't drop into the water.
Through here there's a ruined tower and a purple alter piece out of reach. Must come back for it. On the next screen there's a heart upgrade on the upper path but I had to continue left. There's another new enemy here, these leaping gargoyles who are quite scary as they can jump and avoid your whipping. Very handy save point beyond here and a whip upgrade out of reach.
Now to go back along the upper path and get the heart upgrade and up the stairs through the tower. The bats here are quite troublesome and there are also bone throwing skeletons too.
At this point I have to say I am so thankful for the way stairs work in this Castlevania game! Usually you fall through them but in this game you can land on the stairs and that's amazing! You can treat them like real platforms and it makes life so much easier! Still a challenge to ascend here though.
Game is starting to get very tough now with enemies flying at you. There's the final red altar piece on the upper path teasing me so I had to take the left path and it eventually led me to stairs and another save point when I wasn't constantly dying! I had to take the upper path back along to the last red altar piece. Then I headed back to the save point and beyond to the red altar boss.
It's a giant hunchback! He's tough enough, jumping all over the place and walking along the ceiling and throwing daggers... actually he's a lot like Grant in Castlevania III. I was able to defeat him by standing at the far right of the screen and jump whipping whenever he got too close. After a few tries I defeated him and obtained the double jump! I love this item because it makes those scary pixel perfect jumps so much easier.
Another thing I love about this game, on the same point as the stairs earlier, is the jumping. You can change direction mid-air and this is extremely helpful!
The next screen has a yellow altar piece across some spikes so I'll have to come back here later. Backtracking along, I took the right path this time and got the magenta altar piece and the hidden whip upgrade in the wall. On this path my character walks behind these pillars and it can be tough to see with the bats flying at you so I had to take it slow.
Heading back to the stairs I was so happy I was able to just drop down through the tower without having to bother stepping down! Castlevania III made it so difficult with the stairs...
When I got down I headed left again to the save point, which I really needed in this tough place, and the whip upgrade which I could now reach. Then I made my way out and got the other magenta altar piece I couldn't reach. Then it was back out through the cave, which was even more dangerous now with the extra bats since defeating the boss. The Mermen were still pretty tough to deal with on the way back too.
I headed down to where I first met Joseph and used the double jump to get up to the platform behind him that I couldn't reach before. The third magenta altar piece was beyond. More stuff was here too but I couldn't get to them yet. After this I headed back to town and upgraded my whip again.
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