Last updated January 12th, 2004
This page is out of date concerning max % in the PS version.




Akumajo Dracula X Gekka no Yasoukyoku /
Demon Castle Dracula X Nocturne in the Moonlight /
Castlevania Symphony of the Night




10 New Items on Saturn

Item Type Stats Special abilities
Uddorando Shield shield DEF+3 vine attack with Shield Rod or Mablung Sword
Double Blade Axe two-handed ATT+42
Alucard Spear two-handed ATT+28 d,df,f+attack for rapid strikes. b,f+attack for lasers
Astral Dagger short sword ATT+12 d,df,f+attack to send at an enemy
Autograph to profit from interest another time medicine ? Getsuto daze!!
Delicious Meal food HP+75
Smelly Rice food Poison or HP+1 with Topaz Circlet equipped
Robe of Rainbow Color cloak CON+7 DEF+3 color-shifts
Lyrics Card accessory Equip with Sprite familiar and sit in a chair
Shoes of Godspeed relic f,f to run

All the new items are found easily except for the axe and shield. Gray gargoyles in the inverted cursed prison drop the axe (Thanks to ThreeQ from the GameFAQs board for the tip). To get the shield you have to kill a giant venus flytrap before it moves. You'll have to use a long range weapon or maybe a weapon powerful enough to kill in one hit will work.

Special attacks:
The astral dagger spins floating over alucard's head, then flies straight for an enemy.
The Alucard spear with B,F+A shoots two red lasers across the screen from the two outer blades/spikes of its trident. With the quarter circle motion alucard stands there and does a ton of quick stabs with it.
The Uddorando Shield or Ivy Shield shoots a vine at an enemy when you do the special attack with the mablung sword or shield rod.

With lyrics card and faery familiar you sit Alucard down a chair in the chapel and sometimes after about a minute the faery will sit down on Alucard's shoulder and begin to sing.

Other Item Info and New Stuff

Helpful pics:
Hand EQ catagory translation
Hand EQ in US PSX
Pics of US PSX icon and name matched up with JPN Saturn:
Head EQ
Body EQ
Cloaks
Accessories
Keep in mind that US PSX names are not necessarily a direct translation.

283 Items (293 Saturn)(281 US/EU PSX) - Sword familiar only counted once. (It's both a sword and a relic)

EQ:
Base numbers pertain to JPN PSX version
168 hand (175 Saturn)
5 bomb
6 club
5 fist
42 food (44 Saturn, Delicious Meal, Smelly Rice)
21 medicine (22 Saturn, Autograph to profit from interest another time)
13 shield (14 Saturn, Downed Tree Trunk Shield)
9 short sword (10 Saturn, Astral Dagger)
33 sword
3 throw 1
15 throw 2
16 two-handed (18 Saturn, Alucard Spear which has two wicked special attacks, Double Blade Axe)
(1 empty space in US/EU PSX)

21 head

26 body, 1 empty space

8 cloak (3 empty spaces on PSX)(9 Saturn, Robe of Rainbow Color)

31 accessory (32 Saturn, Lyrics Card, 1 empty space)

30 relic (31 Saturn, Shoes of Godspeed)(28 US/EU PSX, Nose Demon and Sprite familiars removed)
Those two familiars are on Japanese PSX and can be accessed with Gameshark in the first American compilation.

2 playable characters (3 Saturn plus you can use Richter's alternate outfit)

2 new areas, Underground Garden and Cursed Prison (in both castles)

146 enemies (164 Saturn which includes 2 more boss fights, Maria and Garden Boss)

New Music on Saturn:
Vampire Killer Remix 1
Vampire Killer Remix 2
Bloody Tears Remix 1
Bloody Tears Remix 2
Beginning Remix 1
Beginning Remix 2
Chaconne C'Moll
Guardian

Maximum percentage

Character Alucard Richter Maria
Playstation 200.6% / 210.2% * 195% N/A
Saturn 211.2% 205.6% 205.6%

*200.6% is officially the normal max %. Using the sword familiar glitch, you can get 210.2%. It was previously thought to be 210.1% but the last .1% was discovered by ?(trying to determine who) on the GameFAQs board.

When you reach 211.2% with Alucard on Saturn "ALL" will blink in red next to your percentage. You can get outside the castle on Saturn also but I think it's more of a freak occurance than something you can purposely do. See below.

Maps

PSX 1st Castle
PSX Inverted Castle
Saturn 1st Castle
Saturn Inverted Castle

Outside the castle in Saturn version

The methods to get outside on PSX do not work on Saturn. However, I did get outside once with Alucard by accident. I was in the anti-chapel at the spike corridor, going in and out killing a sniper of goth trying to get it to drop the brilliant mail. At one point it glitched after I killed one and was going out of the room as I came out of fog form. Part of the spike corridor was blacked out. I didn't realize what was happening at first and I just thought it was a visual glitch, so I tried to go out of the spike corridor and back in to see if it would correct itself. When I tried to go back in, it didn't change screens and kept scrolling where the corridor branching off the tower came to an abrupt end. I walked out of it and fell outside the castle. Then I proceded to fly around to map out the area for a higher percentage. Unfortunately while flying around as a bat, an imp hit me and I got completely stuck. I couldn't transform, use a library card, or anything. I had to reset the game. I tried to purposely repeat the glitch, but I couldn't get it to work. I figure that getting outside of one of the castles would get you from 211.2% to 216% (or 216.1% if you also got the extra .1 outside the inverted castle) and getting outside of both castles would get you up to a beastly 220.9%. I recommend just trying to get brilliant mail and maybe if you're lucky, the glitch will happen. If it does, remember to fly around as fog even though it sucks mana faster so you don't get hit and stuck. If you don't want to wait around while magic recharges use a mana prism with the duplicator key.

Make money fast
  1. Go to the inverted version of the area where a Ferryman takes you down and up a couple of small waterfalls. There is a candle that contains $2000.
  2. Equip the jewel sword and anything that boosts your luck.
  3. Kill the frog men, trolls, chupacabras, or whatever around the candle with the jewel sword.
  4. Get the $2000.
  5. Exit the area and come back in.
  6. Repeat steps 3-5 as much as you want.
  7. Go to the library and sell rings for more money.
  8. Buy the duplicator key and anything else you want.

Spike Rooms

The most difficult part of the game is getting through the spike rooms in the catacombs with Richter. With Maria you can just use her invincibility spell to get through easily. There is a Playstation FAQ at GameFAQs that has tips for getting through with Richter, but there must be some differences in the Saturn version because some of the tips don't seem to work. Most importantly the rebound stone item crash still gives you a couple seconds of invincibility. Unfortunately sliding gets you hit as soon as you hit a wall or go off a ledge and walking gets you hit right away. All you can do is jump, super jump, and air dash. When you do a super jump, immediately go into an air dash as soon as possible or you'll get hit. Also touching a wall or ceiling always hurts you and voids the invincibility except when you're able to air dash out of super jump. As the faq states, fill up on 99 hearts before you go in and fill up again before you come back. Unfortunately you have to get through and come back on one life bar. There's absolutely no way for Richter to get healed once in. Do the area in the inverted castle first so you can actually see on your first time through. Plus it's easier but it's still hard as hell. In the normal castle the place is completely pitch black (and turning your TV's brightness up doesn't do anything). You have to get through without seeing anything other than your guy and the end. I first drew the room when looking at it with Alucard so I knew what I was up against. There's two parts you have to do a super jump to get over and there's a dead end whose ledge sticks out and you can easily get hung up on. Here's what I do...

Standing on the safe ground right before the spikes, item crash, then airdash from where you're standing, followed by a super jump, and then another air dash. This lands you on that damn dead end ledge. Stay facing to the right and let it hurt and you knock down (you're still past the first wall you got over). Immediately item crash as soon as possible when you fall. Then jump up a tiny bit and do three consecution air dashes linked together with barely losing any altitude between if any. At the end of the third dash, I wanted to super jump up, but I can't remember if I was ever able to. A lot of the time you might just get hung and pushed back where your super jump just hits a damn low ledge. In that case hit abc+start, reload you game and try again. You'll probably get hit at the end of the third dash. Immediately item crash, super jump, and do repeated dashes through and I've made it on the way in. You have to lose some altitude between air dashes since the ceiling gets lower. If you get hit and don't fall any the way down off the area you got over on to, then item crash and continue to dash out. If you fall all the way down then reset and try again. Fortunately the lights are turned on once you get through on the way in. I think the best I've done is get twice on the way in. If you get hit more than four times on the way in and you've already had a lot of practice getting out after making it in, restart and try again. Getting out in the light seems to be even harder than when you're coming in the dark. I don't really have any recommendations. It's just incredibly hard. One of the two times I got in with only getting hit twice, I got killed on the way back. The one time I did make it out, one or two more hits would have killed me.

Some links:
Machinegun's CastleVania Glitches
Anapan's pages
Mr.P's Castlevania Realm
Dracula's Curse
Vault of Arcane Lore
Pijaibros' Castlevania SOTN Page
Darkhugh's Den's Castlevania: The Bloodletting Strategy Guide
The CastleVania Dungeon
GameFAQs: Saturn
GameFAQs: Playstation

Fear this and this - Max %, Every item, maxed familiars in both versions.

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