Daily Dracula X - Stage 8: Bloodlines and Endings

Ah, here we are. At the stairs. Any of you who have played Symphony of the Night know this place well: the sequel begins with the final battle of the original.

And if you haven’t played Symphony of the Night, but you’re on the internet a lot, this is one of the most-memed video game scenes of all time.

But enough talk; there’s nothing left to do but walk up the stairs and have at Dracula. If you want the first part to be easy, pick up the cross. If you want the second part to be easy, pick up the holy water.

Boss: Dracula (first form)

Again, you might remember this battle from the beginning of Symphony of the Night, but as this is the game’s last boss, things are a bit tougher. You have a lot less life, Dracula’s attacks are harder to dodge, and the man himself is harder to hit. Still, you’ll wear him down with a steady, patient offense.

This is the final test of the pattern-recognition skills you’ve picked up over the course of the game. Dracula follows a simple pattern, but you need to follow it to the letter, and keep it up for a long time with very little room for error. It’s a lot easier said than done.

Dracula teleports around the stage flinging magic fireballs at you. You have to hit Dracula in the head; that’s just video game tradition. Space yourself a whip’s distance from Dracula, jump straight up, and hit him in the head.

When you see fireballs forming, turn your back to them and do a backflip as they pass. This is an easy way to get past them without taking any damage. It’s also possible to crouch and whip the fireballs with good enough timing.

When you see black magic balls forming, duck the first one and jump over the second. The only difficult part of this is telling one set of fireballs from the other and reacting accordingly.

With the cross, you can get two hits off Dracula every time he appears if you space your throw correctly.

Boss: Dracula (second form)

Dracula turns into a massive beast whose main weapon is his bigness. Walking and jumping, he’ll try to force you into a corner and damage you by simply walking into you. The head is still the weak point.

Crossing under Dracula as he jumps over you is harder than it looks. Try to get under him as fast as you can, or he might land on you even as you try to scramble underneath him.

Dracula’s major attacks in this form are flame breath that hits a big area of the screen diagonally from his mouth and an energy blast that you must duck. Picture a diagonal line running from Dracula’s open mouth to the ground, and try and stay out of that area.

If you saved up hearts and you have the holy water, using the item crash against Dracula in this form is free damage: he can’t avoid the rain.

Richter Endings

The defeated Dracula engages in a bit of moral relativism. After all, as we saw in the very beginning, it was human beings— that weird death cult, presumably led by Shaft— who sought to revive him. Can we blame the man for simply doing his thing? Pure vibes.

Though this translation words it differently, Dracula and Richter engage in the very same conversation that Symphony made famous with the use of some very melodramatic voice work.

Dracula’s spirit scatters and the castle begins to crumble. Note that the castle does not completely fall, as we usually see at the end of a Castlevania. Perhaps the creators were already considering a sequel at this point? After all, as I think we’ve established, Rondo doesn’t have much of a story of its own.

If you didn’t save all of the captives, the end credits show Richter riding home alone on his horse.

If you did, Richter brings his whole carriage back with him and we see the faces of the former hostages smiling in the sky above. This is the only part of the game that changes if you save them.

What about Maria?

It took me quite a bit of trial and error to beat Dracula just right using Richter.

The first time I fought Dracula with Maria, on the other hand, I defeated him in a minute flat and proceeded to laugh until I cried.

Like all of her cutscenes, the Maria ending is a bit of a parody. My favorite part about it is that Dracula says the same things to her as he says to Richter (again, those CD data limitations), but she is both too dumb to know what he is saying and too smart to engage his bullshit.

Though it says The End on the screen, we actually have a bit more to go! Beating Dracula unlocks a final alternate level, a stage that’s a pure challenge for anyone who didn’t find this game tough enough. After that I’ll be summing up the trip we’ve taken over the last few weeks and finally closing the drawbridge on this project for good. Thanks for hanging in there this long, and I’ll see you tomorrow, vampire killers.