In Castlevania - Dracula X, you are required to platform jump and defeat enemies as you quest to find and destroy Dracula. You have a few basic moves. The first is jumping, which is notably faster than walking. The second ability is the whip which is the primary way to defeat enemies. The third ability is your special weapon which can inflict damage, but uses up your collected hearts. The final ability is called an ItemCrash. For 15 hearts, ItemCrash will unleash a powerful attack that hits multiple times. This last ability is especially important when fighting bosses. Each level of the game is a combination of jumping towards the goal, which is usually straight to the right or straight up, fighting enemies and collecting hearts.

Level 1

You'll notice the jumping. Not only is constant jumping faster than walking, it's also a good way to get hearts and kill enemies. In the first level I picked up 45 hearts and the Cross while jumping through as quickly as possible. 45 hearts allowed me to use 3 ItemCrash's which is all it takes to defeat the boss.

Level 2

In the second area of level 2 I took a hit from a zombie in order to save time. In the third area, I took advantage of a programming error to skip an entire section. The third area of level 2 has several purple knights that carry long, dangerous spears. Each knight takes 4-5 hits to defeat. You are expected to fight your way left, go upstairs and then fight your way back to the right. Instead, I waited for the first knight to use his overhead slash technique. I jumped into the spear and was hurled upwards onto the second floor where I immediately exited the area. In the fourth area I took damage to avoid fighting a long-necked skeleton which takes 3 hits to topple. I used 2 ItemCrash's and several whip hits to fell the Bat Boss.

Level 3

This level introduces an enemy that I call Dragon Stairs. The enemy is actually two dragon heads on top of each other. Each head shoots fire. Rather than killing the heads, you can simply jump on top of them and use the extra height to reach higher platforms. In the first area of this level I use the Dragon Stairs to shave a second or two off my time. Higher up I take damage from a floating Medusa Head to reach a platform that is too high to jump on. In the second area, the purple knights reappear. The first knight would go into a spinning attack which would knock my character backwards. In order to avoid that I just jumped to stall so that he wouldn't do a spin attack and then I jumped passed him. In the fourth area I used the Dragon Stairs to skip up onto the higher platform so that I could bypass the entire area on the right side of the screen. In the fifth area I used an ItemCrash to knock down a wall of Dragon Stairs. The ItemCrash was not necessary to get past the enemies, but it dropped a pork chop to restore my health so that I could take hits and it got rid of the pesky flames that the dragon's shoot out. I used an ItemCrash, the Cross and the Whip to defeat the boss and I took damage from his attack to save time.

Level 4

In the second area I needed to wait for the Troll with the axe to go into his rush attack before I could jump past him. I took a few hits which I wasn't concerned with and picked up a 5 heart container in the process. I took two hits from the spikes that drop down. The second hit allowed me to jump through another set of spikes without the hit registering. Also if you watch closely, after I jump through the falling spike I come up short of a platform but land on it anyway. In the third area I have to wait for the buckets to get high enough to jump onto the ledges, so I used the opportunity to land a couple of whip hits and pick up a few hearts. There is a door on the right of the second set of buckets which leads to a kidnapped girl which allows access to a different path later in the game. I skipped the door to save time. Also I never bothered to pick up the key in the first place.

Level 5

In the area with the Green and Purple Knights I used the overhead slash technique to hurl myself up or forward as needed to save a few seconds. In the following area I was forced to kill two Blue Knights since hitting them would drop me straight into one of the pits. The boss of this level is a Werewolf which is difficult to beat. It is fast and has many different types of attacks. I beat it very quickly using 2 ItemCrash's, a few Whip and Cross strikes and by manipulating the luck so that the Werewolf does his fireball throwing attack 3 times in a row. That technique kept him standing still for as long as possible to repeatedly strike him.

Level 6

In the second area you are supposed to use a column of falling platforms to reach the platform on your right. Then you walk right and use the falling platforms to get onto the higher ledge. Then you walk back to the left to exit. I discovered that by jumping into the Purple Knight and bouncing backwards you can land on a different falling platform that is slightly higher than the one you were on before. By doing that twice you can actually jump high enough to reach the upper platform directly and skip the whole right side of the area. Against the very easy Clock Tower Boss, I scored 3 hits with the same Cross several seconds apart from each other on opposite sides of the screen.

_Level 7

This is the final level. At the end of the level I had to fight both forms of Dracula, human and demon. The human form can only be hit in the upper body/head area while his cape is open. During this time he fires his magic at you. That magic is either 3 fireballs that can be destroyed with a weapon strike or two black balls of energy that cannot be destroyed and are sometimes capable of homing in on you. His appearance throughout the area is random. The demon form can be hit at any time. The demon form can throw double fireballs that always have homing ability and it has a magic attack as well. It is also bigger and can fly so it is harder to avoid. Whenever this form hits you, you have a tendency to fall straight into a pit. If you don't land the final blow with the Cross weapon, you are dumped back outside and have to do the whole fight over again. This fight can be very long and insanely difficult. I manipulated the luck to make the human form of Dracula stay on the middle platform. At one point I allowed him to go to a different platform so that I could score extra hits. I threw my Crosses so that they got stuck on the left edge of the screen and hovered in place. They hit Dracula for a few extra hits of damage. When his second form emerged I tried to score as many hits as fast as I possibly could. I took some damage but it was worth it. I got him to do 4 sets of fireball attacks in a row which kept him in place while I rained my Whip down on him. I finished him off with the cross and stopped the tape when I touched the final orb that ends the game.

It's possible to get two slightly different endings by rescuing kidnapped girls. In order to do that you have to carry a key around which replaces your special weapon. You also have to fight through an extra level and take on several harder bosses. I decided to beat the game with the shortest path rather than getting the best ending.

Phil: Rejected. Read thread for further details.