From the Clock Tower of the transient castle, this will be the area in which you arrive. With the annoying harpies out of the way, you'll be able to explore with less pressure. The only minor, ominous difference this time around is that the giant gears are now damaged to the point where some of their metal structures act as spike traps--some poor souls have already felt their wrath. You can again head towards the east-most tower for another boulder race, with more annoying enemies, like arabachis and bone pillars, acting as roadblocks.

While there's nothing of terrible importance to be found in this area, you might want to stop by these watery depths, now looking rather toxic, in order to battle the slime-like creatures that are always known to bring heavy experience points. Afterwards, you can always take its leftmost exit into the next area, the Sky Walkway, instead of retreating back into the Clock Tower. Besides endless slimes, you should expect other such slimy enemies.

If possible, the intimidating skies and foreboding clouds of the Walkway have become even more so. In any event: It's here that you'll have your most important meeting, storyline-wise, with Maxim, as the mystery of the two castles will start to become more clear. Also, this will be the first dual-boss area in the game. Another remaining quirk of this area is its tricky enemies, which include, axe armor lv2, arabakis and flying bones.

As it was before, the Chapel, as a connector area, is more or less an extension of the Sky Walkway--at least initially. The only difference now is that you'll be able to open the sealed door atop the chapel itself using the bracelet given to you by Maxim back in the transient castle. After you collect some of the equippable items and whatnot, you'll want to escape through that door and onto the top floor. You'll face little resistance, as lesser enemies are scarce and there are no bosses.

High atop this haunted manor, you'll find the real castle keep. Dracula won't be waiting for you up here, but, eventually, you will run into him in the lower portion of area; after collecting his remains, you can open the passageway to the heart of the castle. For now, you'll want to deal with its two initial bosses--the latter hiding near the elevator room--and search it completely to open a sealed door (that'll affect the transient castle) and find a portal room within the keep itself.

Once you've gained access into this castle's Treasury, most of the other areas will become accessible--the Cave of Skeletons and Luminous Caverns especially. It's worth noting that the room where you can place the collectibles is active in this castle all the same. As it was before, you'll find that it's easy to get lost within the many similar-looking chambers, and this won't be helped by the very large selection of lesser enemy that call this area home.

The cave hasn't changed much structure-wise as compared to the transient castle, and the enemies still consist of mostly skeletal foes, but you'll find that this "real" area has more puzzle elements than its transient state--this includes several rooms where you'll have to skillfully stack crates on top of each other to build ladders high enough to jump to out-of-reach platforms. On a personal note: I suggest finding the enemy called "skeleton glass" and fighting it for a few minutes; you can gain 6-8 levels easily in a short period.

The difference this time, as you'll soon notice, is that one of the caves is now flooded. If you try to navigate the flooded area, your energy will drain rapidly. If you went to the Skeleton Cave first and defeated the Skull Knight, you should have the floodgate key, which you can use to drain the water by placing it into the controlling device hidden elsewhere in this area. Once you do so, you can find the game's first major boss.

The real halls of this real castle will be one of the last places you'll visit, since they've been largely inaccessible up until this point. With that said, you'll run into more of those "tricky" enemies, the most advanced of their kind, around here as you pass through the Marble Corridor and into Wailing Way. If you have the crush boots, you'll be able to locate the only important thing here--one of Dracula's remains near the vertical chamber midway through the outside entry path.

The Marble Corridor becomes this castle's preeminent connector area once you access it through the Entrance and later find the skull key. It has exits to the Entrance, Treasury and the only place you'll need to go right now--the Wailing Way. There are no other items of importance you can find here other than the usual equippable items. Since there are no bosses here, you'll find the two closest things to it: a pair of devils, a foe that was once a boss, and a pike master, who resembles the other quirky "guardian armor" types you've faced.

The Room of Illusion is once again a connector area that's also an extension of the previous area, so there's hardly anything unique that you can find here. As with the Marble Corridor, you'll want to collect all of the items that you possibly can, mostly a single life-up, and then get out of here immediately; you'll also want to avoid the enemies that are named "0," as they'll try to steal your sub-weapon. Besides those pesky weapon-stealers, you'll find packs of victory armor and spriggans roaming around its other sectors.

These inverse ruins may very well be one of the last two areas you'll venture into, so you'll want to be very careful of the advanced nature of most of these enemies. You won't find a save area until you drop down into the Shrine, so it's important to traverse slowly. It shouldn't be too tough to find your way around this time, but the enemies will make it seem like more of a challenge, specifically the Simon wraiths and owls.

This is probably the scariest area, as your energy is bound to be lacking by this time. With that in mind, you may miss finding many of the stronger equippable items and power-ups hidden throughout this maze as you anxiously try to get to that lone save room. If you make it there, the final regular boss will be directly across the way. While not necessary to the mission, you won't want to miss the experience points you can gain here. The foes are the same as in the Wailing Way.