III:
Animal Skeletons
Skeleton forms are not limited
to humans--any number of animals, mutants or legendary creatures can leave
behind remains that pose an even greater threat. In this sense, they're more
unpredictable than typical skeletons due to their vicious nature.
What
once was an ape is now a lumbering skeleton. Their slow nature is to your
advantage, indeed, but some of them compensate for this deficiency by carrying
and throwing barrels, which roll toward you and explode on impact. If you
get overconfident once their barrel attacks are foiled and get too close,
they can throw mean right hooks your way.
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Alternate Names/Forms:
Skeleton Ape |
These skeletal monkeys hang from trees by their tails and wait until you
get near. At that point, they'll begin to swing back and forth, in semicircles,
with their bladed banana-like sickles in hand; they can use the swings' momentum
to make complete circles, which is an effective attack even if you somehow
manage to sneak underneath one.
The remains of
large undead dragons sometimes lose their propensity for magic, in which case
they become mindlessly violent. Monstrous in size, this means that they'll
come to rely on their teeth and their tails, with which they'll pound the
ground and cause debris to fly. Of most concern is their still-considerable
lung capacity, which allows them to spew the series typical large deadly lasers.
The only difference between
these and the regular panthers/leopards you've faced before is that they have
no skin--other than that, expect the same type of offense: They lie in wait
in a crouched position and immediately charge forward and dive onto you when
you come within range.
The remains of slain dragons
are often stacked onto one another or melded together to form two-, three-
or multiple-sided cannons. Average bone pillars, in that regard, can spit
fireballs high in one direction, low in another, and everywhere in between.
To shake up this normal attack pattern, some of the skulls can breathe heavy
flames or spit fireballs looping through the air. Advanced pillars have skulls
that can change directions at any time, leading to multiple fire attacks coming
at you high and low at the same time.
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Alternate Names/Forms:
Bone Pillar, Bone Head, Bone Tower & Dragon
Skull Cannon |
Forever trapped within castle
structures, the skeleton spines of long-dead dragons guard doorways and other
passageways by waving around as to throw off your attack; at certain times,
they'll spit fireballs from any possible location to further frustrate. Advanced
skeledragons can extend their neck bones to reach far across the area. The
strongest of their kind have escaped from their perch and now fly through
the air, free to roam as they please. Too, skeledragons can be imbued with
elemental properties, allowing them to freeze and jolt heroes.
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Alternate Names/Forms:
White Dragon; White Dragon Lv1, 2 and 3; Quezlcoatl;
Frost Dragon; & Thunder Dragon |
Man-bat skeletons are vicious, undead creatures that
circle their prey, looking for the right opportunity to strike. Despite being
fairly quick, their sheer size makes them large targets. This won't matter
much, though, since they tend to show up in crucial moments while you're hurrying
to jump from platform to platform.
If
the influence of Castlevania has a way of awakening skeletal remains, there
exists the chance that even the most ancient of species could reemerge for
one last shot at fame. One such candidate is the Tyranasaurs Rex, the dinosaur
king whose fozzilied remains have been given new life thanks to evil's will.
Rex's attack scheme is no-nonsense--the vicious dino acts quickly in rushing
the hero with dashes and jumps.
When Arachnes or mutated spider-like
creatures are slain, they become formidable skeletal foes. Spider skeletons
are always coming forward, trying to trap you in a corner using their size
and speed. It's possible to make them retreat with repeated whip snaps, but
this will often set you up for a quick and unpredictable dash attack. Most
spider skeletons loop bones, taken from their own frame, through the air.
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Alternate Names/Forms:
Anthro Skeleton |
These four-legged skeletons,
the remains of an unknown lizard, serve only one purpose--to forever circle
around platforms, structures and sometimes whole rooms while dripping poisonous
acid onto the ground. Contact with either them or the acid they drop will
illicit a poison status. A separate species of spittle bone instead circles
the area in question while periodically spewing deadly flame over a fairly
large area.
Although you may believe that
this is the inner workings of your classic werewolf or wolfman, it's actually
another in line of evil's experimentations on "living" things--in
this case, an undead skeleton. When you draw near, wereskeletons will extend
their spines in order to crash their skulls into you. As the next part of
their pattern, they'll launch a bevy of rib bones into the air, each with
an erratic arc.
When a hero kills a gargoyle,
evil forces pick it up, dust it off, supply it a (useless) shield, and send
it back into battle as a guardian. These skeletal adversaries, appearing in
endless numbers, fly through the air and like all true cannon-fodder utilize
the infamous Medusa-head flight-pattern. Though easy to defeat, they show
up at the most inopportune times--mainly while you're frantically climbing
or tussling with other minor enemies. The advanced Winged Skeletons have more
freedom of movement but otherwise serve the same purpose.
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Alternate Names/Forms:
Flying Bone , Winged Skeleton & Flying Skeleton |
These are wolf
skeletons animated by dark magic. When a foe enters their space, they give
chase and pounce, charging at and diving onto the target. A second class of
wolf skeleton--those that are the corpses of fenrirs revived as zombies--like
to hide in their own shadows and sneak up on their prey.
IV:
Special Skeletons
These elite skeleton forms
have no discernible origin when compared to others of their kind; these remains
are those of unorthodox beasts, magic users, or any number of types of unique
beings. Their most dominant traits are certain special abilities that set
them apart from the skeleton norm.
These
skeleton fighters teleport about using the Astral Plane. Mainly, they like
to suddently teleport to a new location and strike with a surprise attack.
The two advanced forms--the astral warriors and the astral knights--are tougher
and carry deadlier weapons, but they pretty much stick to the same tactic.
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Alternate Names/Forms:
Astral Warrior & Astral Knight |
At first, blood skeletons seem
to be nothing more than just regular skeletons; after pounding them into submission,
you'll soon find that these blood-soaked skeletons are invinicble--they can
pull themselves back together every time. As such, they can only be temporarily
immobilized into a heap of bones before they quickly reconstruct and continue
their death march. The best strategy to deploy is to hit and run. (Incidentally,
only Sypha's ice magic can truly defeat them.)
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Alternate Names/Forms:
Red Skeleton |
This a portable Skull Shrine
carried by the skeletal remains of dark priests. Their job is to carry the
shrine to your location and angle the dragon skull so that it can spit out
a powerful exploding fireball attack. If the dragon head is defeated, the
skeleton priests will flee in terror.
Clear bones are an advanced
form of your average regular skeletons, employing the same bone-throwing
ability you'd expect. However, clear bones can temporarily render themselves
invisible and invulnerable at the same time. Because of this power,
they can reappear at any time and surprise you--more so when you try to
quickly pass one by rather than waiting for it to reappear--and inflict
serious damage.
Once magicians who wielded
the power of lightning, their electrical skeletons are all that remain. This
selection of skeleton mark their territory and stay within its range. When
the hero comes near that area, they'll use their electrical power to send
a devastating electric current trekking along the ground at a distance of
half a screen.
Exploding
skeletons look and initially act like regular skeletons, and that's their
strength. A crackling sound will signal that one of these bad boys has made
its way up from underground. From there, they'll be in hot pursuit of the
hero, and they won't stop chasing until they serve their purpose--after a
fixed time, they'll explode, blowing up anything in their way.
When two Roman
skeleton warriors board a horse-pulled carriage, the battle they seek is on.
One skeleton will drive the vehicle back and forth over a set distance while
the other loops two flaming arrows into the air and onto the ground, where
they continue to burn for a short while. Because of their speed and size and
the distance they cover, they're difficult to maneuver around.
You can always
see evil's concerted effort to toughen up one of its lacking divisions: The
basic skeleton. They've done so, here, with gold skeletons, which were forged
using a hard, unknown material similar to gold. In addition to being leagues
tougher than normal skeletons, they can also toss a shower of hard-to-counter
bones, each with its own arc. The rarest of their kind is equipped with a
clubbing weapon.
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Alternate Names/Forms:
Golden Bones |
Impaled dragon skulls, which
you would otherwise see as part of bone pillars, gain a method of transportation
via the weapon in which they were defeated. In short: They use the metallic
poles as their own personal pogo sticks to continuously propel toward you.
They can't make contact while you're ducking, so you're more likely to find
Jp Bone Pillars amongst other types of lesser enemy.
These cool
scarf-wearing customers look like ordinary skeletal remains at first. When
you come near, however, they'll jump straight up into the air and then lunge
diagonally downward with a quick and powerful blazing kick that can knock
you clear across the room.
The mimics
are clever prey-seeking skull heads that disguise themselves as the money
bags you may otherwise see laying around a well-guarded room. When you attempt
to collect it, the mimic will pop out for a surprise attack. To further their
unassumed nature, they can also inhabit money bags that fall out of candles.
The
cunning axe-armed mirage skeletons use the power of illusion to protect themselves.
That is, they create duplicates of themselves to confuse the foe and create
cover. They're known to have one situational weakness: Their duplicates do
not cast shadows, so an opponent observant of nearby reflective surfaces will
easily detect the real McCoy.
A
nova skeleton is the remains of an unknown three-eyed demon. Because it looks
like a normal skeleton, it's easy to fall victim to its attack; when it senses
that you're near, it'll begin generating energy and soon unleash a powerful
laser beam directly forward. This laser's power can be described in one word--devastating.
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Alternate
Names/Forms: Beam
Skeleton |
Phantoms
are skeletal monsters that don the aura of darkness to become virtually
invisible. Only by identifying and tracking faint mist formations will
you be able to get a sense of their present locations. While you're attempting
to do so, the nimble phantoms will be busy bouncing around and attacking
with their clubs.
The
skeleton breeders are in charge of maintaining the castle's supply of skeletal
hounds and beasts. The breeder will send out its companion to sniff out
and charge at the hero on sight. All the while, the breeder will protect
itself by swinging around and slamming into the ground its special roped
sickle. If either of the undead duo is killed, the other will also see its
demise.
At
first, all you'll see is a flashing sword-wielding skeleton (scimitar) with
a pair of hands next to it. When you approach the combo, the hands will grab
onto you, and the skeleton will fully appear, ready to swipe its blade forward.
If you react fast and destroy the skeleton, you'll break free from the claw's
grasp. If not, you'll be stabbed and knocked back.
This
is an appropriately dressed skeleton that is known to sow haunted plants.
While you decide your path, it will reach into its bags and toss onto the
ground seeds, which will sprout either short-lived unes (thornweeds) or mandragoras,
their damaging screams ever a threat. Though it has no physical attacks, the
farmer is unexpectedly stamina-filled.
These
are large flowers formed completely from bone. When their petals are spread
open, they spew a deadly poison. Otherwise, they detect foes' locations
and attack by slamming or drilling their heads into the ground where he
or she currently stands.
These
are the reanimated bones of people who died in storms. The club-armed storm
skeletons break themselves into many pieces and in a whirlwind reconstitute
elsewhere; this allows them to escape danger and find more favorable positioning.
This
is called a "3-eyed skull" for lack of a better name. The objective
is simple: You must destroy all three of its eyeballs in order to move on.
This won't be easy, though, since it floats in at angles in order to trap
you in corners, surrounded and shielded at all times by three tortured souls.
Patience and skilled whip-and-jump techniques will be needed to defeat it,
unless you have an axe in hand.
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