Daily Dracula X Stage 3: The Vengeful King Of Bloodshed (Alternates)
An Evil Prayer Summons Darkness
This is a little confusing, but bear with me. The main Stage 3 post is already very long, and the alternate path does not lead to the alternate boss. As such I split both of the alternates into this post.
First I’m going to talk about the alternate Stage 3 boss. Then I’m going to talk about the “dead-end” path that you get when you fall down a pit in Scene 3.
Boss: Dogether (Beholder)
This is the boss you end up at when you take the elevator in Stage 3. Sorry about all the deaths in this run. Getting to the Stage 3 elevator is a real drag, so I didn’t redo this one.
A floating eyeball who flies around the room casting spells and throwing magic at you. Dogether’s1 attacks are highly predictable, but they fire quickly and take up a lot of space on the screen.
The magic he uses is determined by the color of the (Sanskrit?) seal that flashes in front of him. The green seal is a three-way laser; if he’s close, get out of there. The blue seal is a rock shield, which can’t harm you until he shoots the rocks back out at you. Most dangerous is the yellow seal, which spews fire in the direction of the seal all over the stage. Try to get away from the entire area as soon as you see that flash; you don’t want to get caught up in the flames.
Dodge consistently and attack between magic strikes and you should wear him down before he wears you down. Be careful of the final strike, which homes in on your position. Once he sets up, start moving and don’t stop until he’s dead.
Alternate path, scene 1
Now on the other hand, if you fell down the pit, it stands to reason that you have to fight your way back up, which is exactly what happens here. After a long hallway (depending on how early you fell), you’ll just have to climb the stairs.
Since you got here by failing, this is definitely the “easy” path for the stage. The only real danger is making sure the skeletons don’t hit you with the bones they’re flinging from above.
Again, for Richter this is a process, as he has to actually climb the stairs, and for double-jumping Maria it’s a laugh.
An effect throughout this path that I really love is the swarm of baby bats (?) who cling to lights, and then, when you break them, you. They’re harmless, just a visual effect.
Scene 2
A straightforward passage to the boss, who’s just the minotaur this time. Be cautious of the final hallway, where spear guards wait to stab you from below.
A fun touch here is that if you’re playing Maria and have the cat, you can send him under the small tunnel here to take out the spear guards. You can even slide into the tunnel yourself (crouch and jump); there’s just nothing there.
Boss: Minotaur
Yup, same guy.
There was no sign-off last time because the post was literally too long to contain one, so I’ll do it here. Tomorrow is Stage 3’, a leisurely stroll through a cemetery loaded with quicksand and staffed by kung-fu monks. See you there, vampire killers!
I just discovered by chance where the strange name “Dogether” comes from. As you might have guessed, he’s based on the Beholder from Dungeons and Dragons. However, the name specifically comes from the time the manga Bastard!! (full of open D&D and metal references) used the Beholder as an enemy monster. The publisher complained and the author changed the name of the monster to “Suzuki Dogezaemon.” The secret meaning of Suzuki Dogezaemon might be “editor Suzuki had to bow deeply in apology because I called the monster Beholder.” Rondo uses the weird Romanization “Dogether.”
The reason I know this is that I’ve been watching the Bastard!! TV series on Netflix and the hero very pointedly looks at the camera and says “there’s no way I can lose to Dogezaemon!”, clearly deliberately joking about something. Remembering “Dogether” and doing some googling, it was all out there. ↩
