Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse -- Stage 5, Syfa (1/2)

Okay, so now the two paths have become quite clearly divergent, since Trevor went with Grant through a swamp one way, while the other way had Syfa and Trevor sneak on board a monster-infested ship on its way nearer to to Dracula's castle.

This stage brings a lot of hazardous elements to the table for the first time. The least of these, but still worth noting, I suppose, are the flipping platforms with spikes on the opposite side, which I'm actually willing to say that I don't think are an instant death like most other instances of spikes would be, but of course flipping platforms are dangerous enough hazard in and of themselves, so the spikes aren't exactly all that much more threatening an addition.

The next thing you might notice is the extremely vertical second room with an overabundance of staircases. These rooms are dangerous enough as it is, since staircases are not usable as normal platforms and as such if you should incur damage and fall into a space traversible only via a staircase, you will definitely fall to your doom unless you recoil back onto an actual platform. At least damage taken on a staircase will always leave you in place (except when your health is completely reduced to zero, but in that case it really didn't matter anyway whether or fell off the screen or landed to die as a crumpled heap of would-be adventurer), but the second you step off, you're in serious danger of falling back the way you came and meeting a most untimely end.

Perhaps the most significant thing from this level, though...those blasted gargoyle enemies! They're huge, and they fly continuously along a sinusoidal path from offscreen so they're just as bad as Medusa Heads in that respect...but they actually conform to the graph of a divergent geometric series, making them much more dangerous as they progress further across the screen...and they always appear from the side farthest from the player, so good luck with that! It's not always apparent in the heat of the moment whether you should try to strike one down or dodge it by stepping just a bit further ahead or behind or occasionally (and most dangerously) trying to jump at just the right time to avoid them as their flight path intercepts yours.

Anyway, our adventurers did horrendously badly here, and Trevor lost his precious Holy Water, so at the very least, it means that I'll be playing more to Syfa's strengths, since where the magical arts can really shine is in battle.

I mean, it's obvious that Syfa is not nearly as adept at direct combat as Trevor (although it's a close call between Grant and Syfa, if evasiveness doesn't come into play), but the one subweapon we've actually seen is already significantly more impressive than anything in Trevor's arsenal, except perhaps the Holy Water against a ground-based enemy, but that only goes to show how much more versatile the fire spell's attack is and for a comparable amount of damage inflicted much more quickly and at a greater range.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Castlevania
• III
• Konami
• NES
• 1990
• Trevor
• Belmont
• Syfa
• Sypha
• Belnades
• Dracula
• Vampire
• Killer

[YuuGiJoou]

Worst of all, I really hated trigonometry in high school.

[Overhazard]

Leave it to you to describe a gargoyle's flight patterns in advanced trigonometry.