Zombies
I:
Regular Zombies
Basic zombies are those undead
nightmares that pop up at the most convenient times. These rotting yet reanimated
remains, whether in whole or in decapitated/amputated form, come alive with
an insatiable urge to consume living forces.
Dracula's resurrections
have a way of making the dead rise from their graves as eternal servants to
his cause. In turn, the zombies' hunger for brains will draw them to any living
entity. They're known to climb out from the ground and even solid surfaces,
and their relentless assault would make it seem as though they come in an
endless supply.
These zombie
hangmen lurk about in torture-themed areas, dragging along their bags of goodies
while keeping out of dodge; they'll randomly pull out and throw one of three
items: Bombs that explode after a short period, blue skull heads that eventually
erect themselves into full-fledged skeletons and give chase, or, unwittingly,
a pot roast which will instead help you.
These brains
with attached curling spines have been freshly ripped right out of the ripe
frames of a group of unfortunate souls. They're conveniently bunched together
in narrow tunnels wherein they float back and forth to create an annoying
obstacle for those seeking to attain vertical passage. If a brain float ceases
in its movement, it'll brain-channel and blast out
from its eyes piercing energy.
Even dislodged
zombie limbs are under the influence of Dracula's curse. These creepy
claws glide through the air and grab onto ill-prepared heroes, wherein they'll
begin draining away their precious heart-total. A victim of a claw attack
will have to shake profusely to knock it off. Other such limbs are simply
on your typical stalk-and-destroy mission.
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Alternate Names/Forms:
Evil Hand |
This is merely
a weaker version of the boss called "the Dancing Specters"--they're
sort of an offspring of the deadly duo. They'll carry out their dance number
in a pattern that sees their levitating around an area, spinning about endlessly
and rebounding around the room until destroyed. Making it tougher is that
some pairs of ghost dancers can temporarily separate, darting off in opposite
directions before again joining together.
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Alternate
Names/Forms: Ghost Dancer |
This creepy zombie is in
charge of protecting graveyards together with its equally undead hound.
When the zombie spots a threat, it will order the canine to charge forward,
which it will continue to do until its master is destroyed. However, if
you destroy the dog first, the master will weep in sadness and then
disappear on its own.
Ghouls are
an advanced form of your everyday zombie. They're described as legendary evil
beings that feed on human corpses. Despite a slight difference in appearance,
a ghoul's method of attack mimics that of a regular zombie; that is, ghouls
will spring up from the ground, suddenly, in large numbers and methodically
give chase. Contact with certain ghoul clusters will result in a poison status.
The rarely seen
king of the ghouls is a patient fellow that won't show its rotting face until
several of its underlings, the typical ghouls, have been slain. The tough-skinned
ghoul king will at that point pop out from the ground and frantically run
about for a few seconds,
smothering heroes with its long reach and speed,
before returning to its resting place in the depths.
If you're a zombie,
you'll of course need the appropriate confines from which you can eventually
break free in your search for brains. The Grave Digger (proof that Konami
staffers are fans of pro-wrestling's Undertaker) is responsible for providing
the real-estate, over which he stands guard in hope of "meeting"
new people. His welcoming gestures include tossing his sharp-tipped shovel
as it were a spear and delivering vicious side kicks.
A moldy corpse
is a former human consumed by evil after eating a cursed mushrooms; it lives
on as a hideously deformed (and very blue) humanoid with fungus growing all
over its frame. Unhappy about this undesired fate, a moldy corpse will trek
slowly through castle corridors and expel into the air, all around, a poisonous
mist.
A Mr. Hed is a decapitated
horse head that lurks about within barns and other farmland. In that sense,
you can be sure that they'll be traveling in packs. If you manage to wake
up from its slumber a Mr. Hed, it'll quickly, relentlessly, stalk you via
the surrounding airspace until defeated.
This is a guillotine-victim
monster that quickly lunges itself in all directions, rebounding around the
area in an unpredictable pattern. You can never fully anticipate when it's
going to strike, since it's so quick; however, it's not that big of a threat
unless it appears in an area populated by other other types of enemies (like
lions and scarecrows).
Wights are
another of those in the class of flesh-craving madmen. Like Ghouls, they fit
well under the category of "advanced zombie," too--the strongest
of their kind. They're in fact extremely loyal to the force that awakened
them. As such, they'll pop up unexpectedly from the ground and march toward
a living presence in search of a dinner of fresh brains.
What if some
zombies can't get out of their graves? No problem--they'll just reach through
the ground and try to pull you under. While some can hurt you just
by grabbing at you, others are able to hold on, leaving you prone to the attacks
of the other lesser enemies in the surrounding environment.
The lesser Clinking Men were
drunken thieves that foolishly entered into Castlevania to reap its rewards.
Now undead, they roam about with a craving for flesh. When they sense a living
presence, they dive forward to try to obtain it as a would-be dinner. The
most greedy of this type are the advanced Zombie Thieves; when these muddled
beings get near, they'll attempt to dive onto you and steal your possessions
instead.
II:
Advanced Forms
Advanced zombies have special
abilities or quirky traits that make them more dangerous than just the regular
undead selection. In simple terms: These zombies will always put up a fight
rather than just aimlessly stalking you.
The Monster (better
known as "Frankenstein," the name as borrowed from its creator)
is a recurring boss who like its mummified contemporaries knows a lesser form
(at least in terms of item-list status). The Monster's abilities change from
game to game and entail anything from simply marching back and forth, to firing
lighting from its fingertips, to throwing electrically charged punches. Still,
The Monster is but one form of "artificial monster," a class
that includes the following:
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Alternate Names/Forms:
Franken & The Creature |
Eastern Church
soldiers that invaded the castle met an unforunate fate. They now serve as
an advanced form of castle servant--bloody zombies. A bloody zombie will patrol
over a given area and quickly swing its short blade when the hero character
comes within its range.
It's
sometimes easy to miss seeing a pack of thornweed as you flee from monsters
or as it quickly sprouts up without much in the way warning. Such is the
fate of those who have fallen victim to the parasitic unes. Now called "Chosen
Unes," these moss-covered vessels mindlessly stalk the living and as
they trek leave behind a trail of those very same unes.
The dead crusader is a tough
zombie warrior bearing a sturdy shield. The crusader will upon the hero's
execution of a move immediately flash said shield and guard against
the attack, no matter its impact point. Attempts to overwhelm it will fail,
as it will continue blocking all successive attacks. The only way to damage
a crusader is to catch it off-guard with attacks that can't be predicted.
As its name suggests, this
is a zombie pirate that was killed and thus cursed by its own greed. The
intimidating pirate holds its cutlass sword overhead while stalking about;
when an opportunity arises, it will lift its leg and then furiously chop
down an adversary with a hard-to-dodge sword dash; otherwise, it will surprise
the hero with a short hop and an equally damaging swipe.
Previously burned
at the stake, they become reanimated, their new form an enflamed humanoid.
This zombie type
attacks by emitting onto
the ground smaller balls of fire,
which trek along until hitting a wall. Others simply patrol an area, leaving
behind many smaller residual flames that continue to blaze for long periods
before self-extinguishing.
These extremely-slow-moving
but tough zombies try to overwhelm prey simply with sheer numbers. When struck
enough times, their ribcages will tear apart; in following, their top halves,
now a separate entity, will float through the air parallel to their lower
limbs, which will continue to march forward.
This is a malevolent, artificial
life form that was created by a demonic scholar. The homunculus is kept
in stasis and retained in liquid--in this case the watery depths of a castle--using
a tube. It will unexpectedly spring to life and flail away, moving as far
as its tube will allow. Though, after stretching it as far as it will go,
homunculus will break free of the tube, at which point its reckless flailing
will become a greater concern.
A
Butcher is a madman who upon spotting a visitor fires up its mechanized
saw and charges toward the soon-to-be victim; though skilled in the field
of sculpting, it's its love of butchery on display as it violently swings
its chainsaw, stopping only for a moment to regroup. A more advanced version
of this enemy, the Mad Snatcher, has eight arms--one of which has transplanted
onto it a chainsaw; though it's said that the Snatcher is a parasite that
clings to its victims (as surmised by its spider-like appearance), it
merely mimics the Butcher in method.
These are distinctly
different from your average zombies--they're actually
heaps of a formaldehyde-like gel that morph into typical zombie forms. When
they take on this human-like appearance, the slothful foes will begin their
death march. While most are destroyed easily, others can absorb the damage
from lower-level whip forms and reform elsewhere.
It took a lot
of force to destroy these large monsters, as it will to take down their undead
remains. These poisonous zombies crawl about slowly, dragging along what's
left of their spinal columns. After a short while, a Melty Zombie will spit
out a glob that will morph into an additional Melty Zombie; they can do this
again and again, if not quickly destroyed, to create a small army of their
kind.
While this
lesser class of mummy isn't quite on a higher tier as represented by your
typical boss mummy, they're elite amongst most other minor enemies. A great
number of mummy men share with the boss brethren the the waving shard attack;
others simply utilize a quick dash, which they use to catch heroes off guard;
and others, still, can due to a certain elasticity elongate their arms for
a long-reaching grab-attack. You can always expect to run into large groups
of mummies in the encompassing graveyards and torturous death chambers.
Dracula must
have a warehouse full of these ghastly eyeballs, 'cause they never stop coming.
Rolling eyes will pop out of crevices, ceilings, pits, etc. in continuous
streams without letup. Their most deadly property is that they explode when
struck, which can result in large gaps in weaker surfaces; this quirk's prominence
is magnified when many rolling eyes are bunched together within the vicinity.
These are no
doubt the victims of Vlad Tepes Dracula's paranoid rampages. Impaled zombies
bounce around on the weapon of their execution, in pogo-like fashion, searching
for their brains. They can't harm you while you're on the ground, but they
can make things messy while you're fighting the airborne lesser enemies with
which they're sometimes paired.
Zeldos seem to be Dracula's
attempt at cloning his buddy, Death, the result of which is a poor man's Reaper.
These hooded druids, while slow-moving, are experts with boomerang-like sickles.
They'll throw high
or low a sizably thick
sickle, which will return in the opposite range. Due to their sloth in executing
this attack, you can often telegraph as to which level they'll be releasing
the sickle.
These amazingly annoying maids are
rare habitants of the castle keep. They'll wait patiently for you to draw
near before evading your attack by backflipping, during which they're invincible;
while in a flipping motion, they'll sometimes throw a barrage of daggers in
five different directions. If damaged without being killed, they'll turn more
vicious-looking and take to hovering, a position from which they'll generate
from their hands blue flames, which they'll toss toward the ground, each breaking
into four smaller fireballs with a homing ability.
These are
the commanding lieutenants that led their brigades into the castle, the
place of their humiliating defeat. The now-tough-skinned zombies patrol
the castle with their deadly machetes. If you come within range, officers
will extend their weapons over a long distance--this while marching forward
in an attempt to corner you.
As if the
Eastern Church's raid didn't teach them anything, the military tried years
later to storm the castle. They met the same fate. The remains of these
lower-class soldiers now march around the castle with their combat knives
at all times pointed forward; if you remain at a distance, they'll whip
out grenades and toss them in predictable arcs.
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