Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse -- Stage 3, Trevor (1/2)

No, it's not déjà vu, I promise...and I'm not just doing this to mess with you.

Okay, so this is a pretty short video, but that's just the way stages break down in this game. The general pattern is for stages with a branching path (other than the first one, of course), there will be a point where you have to choose a route in the middle of the stage.

Not that they're clearly labeled or anything, but one route will lead further into the same stage and the other route will take you to the next stage...or rather I should say one of the potential next stages.

In this particular video, it shows what happens if you opted out of taking the little detour to pay Grant a visit, so it's just Trevor entering those woods we saw on the route leading along the opposite end of the fork.

Interestingly, taking this path will make you visit Block 3-00, whereas if you took the path leading to the clock tower, you'd enter Stage 3 from Block 3-01, regardless of whether or not you took Grant with you. I guess it's nice if you took the time to complete a whole extra stage...the least they could do is drop you off one screen further along in the stage you were going to have to arrive in next anyway, right? Maybe?

Not that it's of any great importance or anything, but I want to point out the uncommon block transition between 3-00 and 3-01, where Trevor simply walks up the staircase into the room from "behind" the main floor and is unable to return the way he came, much like if he had taken the usual door between blocks. You'll also notice during this transition that the Time and subweapon indicators are gone until Trevor is "officially" in the room.

This transition is employed in the original Castlevania when Simon reaches the surface in Stage 4 and is used at least one other place in this game that I can think of offhand, and I'll probably be nerdy enough to point it out again.

Anyway, once Trevor passes through the final doorway, you may notice that his footsteps actually have sound effects tied to them. This is because he's moving automatically and without player input, because he's about to experience some manner of unique block transition, in this case he's going to another fork in the road, even though the stage is only actually half over.

Trevor will continue through this stage, whereas the Grant version of the first half of the stage will take the path that leads to one particular Stage 4.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Castlevania
• III
• Konami
• NES
• 1990
• Trevor
• Belmont
• Dracula
• Vampire
• Killer

[Overhazard]

Oh, that's what the numbers on the upper-right represent. I never figured it out. I was pretty confused by them.