In the opening moments, you'll be attacked by the ever slow Ape Skeletons, but this area is just to power up and practice your moves. Ahead is a vertical shaft guarded by bone-throwing skeletons and bats. The next area is littered with more skeletons, stacked bone pillars--which you might have to jump on top of--and Medusa Heads. The next part of the stage has many gaps that require accurate jumping, but you'll be chased by a huge but slow behemoth, and you'll be tormented by zombies, as well. When it gets real quiet, you'll know the boss is near.

The opening is the hardest part of the stage. You'll jump from pillar to pillar while being attacked by fishmen. Some pillars collapse when you walk on them, though. You'll also have to travel over a collapsing bridge while multiple fishmen attack. You'll enter the next area through a drawbridge. You'll then be attacked by ape skeletons, that throw flaming barrels, and bats. Inside, in what appears to be the familiar castle halls, you'll face more zombies, leopard skeletons and spear guards. When you ascend upward, a wereskeleton and some floateyes will be the final obstacles before the boss.

The first part of the stage involves making your way to the top via floating platforms. Among the obstacles in your way: Bone pillars, Medusa Heads and moving spike-lined platforms. Next you'll have to ride on platforms while bat and fishmen come from all directions. You'll come to a set of elevated pillars guarded by Medusa Heads, bone-throwing skeletons and giant stacks of bone pillars. If you get knocked in a hole, you don't die; rather, you're forced to take an alternate path (which unfortunately means a bad ending). If you make it past the pillars, the boss is near.

You'll be attacked by zombies early, but the horizontal shaft to follow contains more bone-throwing skeletons and bone pillars. You'll then have to ride on rotating barges while avoiding the hordes of ghosts that appear out of nowhere. They'll be a door past this area that can be opened with a key; it leads to another alternate path. But if you continue on this way, you'll run into blood skeletons, hunchbacks and more bone-throwing skeletons--some of which seemingly fall out of the ceiling. The boss is not too far off.

If you fell off the pillars in stage 3, you'll be forced to take this alternate route. You'll encounter plenty of mudmen in this murky marshy area; bats will also make life tough for you as you wade through the mud pits. It'll be necessary later to use the mud to your advantage--to maneuver below spike-lined cave ceilings. You'll emerge, probably weary, into the depths to face a very large bone-throwing skeleton (paranthropus) and a skeledragon. It's best just to walk under them if you can. You're only two rooms away from the stage's boss.

First you'll have to climb up in an area with platforms moving up and down on the room's sides. But the bricks in the middle crumble when you walk on them, so you must be quick; unfortunately, ravens will be flying all over the place. What follows is a shaft with more spear guards and the debut of the dreaded Sword Lords. If you get by the three or so Sword Lords, you'll emerge to an area with more spear guards and an ill-timed ghost. You'll have to deal with some of them from a distance. You'll then reach an outside area with a lot of platforms guarded by axe knights and ravens. If you make it over, the boss is ready for combat.

If you rescued Maria, another door in stage 4 becomes accessible; that door leads here. Fishmen attack stagewide. You'll have to make difficult jumps while avoiding them and water skulls. You'll then have to drop onto a moving platform, which takes good timing, and move on to an area with more moving platforms. When you make it up, you'll enter an area where you have beat the now-rising water to the top, but skeledragons, blood skeletons and skull heads are going to get in your way, slowing you down one way or another. The boss is just beyond the draining pools of water.

You'll enter an area where you have to climb up a lot of stairs while ravens fly all over the place then an area where endless streams of platforms descend from the ceiling. You can easily get the next section by jumping up near the first set of platforms, or you can go left and get the power-ups. Next, you'll enter a vertical area with many gears, but spear guards are placed in inopportune places, and, of course, Medusa Heads are about. When you make it to the top, another shaft requiring gear-jumping lies before you. The boss follows after all of this madness. Depending on who you've saved, the boss may be one of two creatures.

This is the game's shortest stage. After climbing the stairs, you'll run into a couple of bone pillars. A singular skeledragon and a wereskeleton block the next set of rooms. Next is a vertical shaft with floating platforms that move upward. The object is to get to the top exit while holding off Medusa Heads and spear guards. In the next room, you'll have to ride a platform across a long gap and fight a lone axe knight while endless streams of Medusa Heads fly toward you. Falling means doing it all over again. The master of the house is just a room away.