GameWTFs.com

Once again, we're continuing GameWTFs.com's best of infinity series of articles on Bram Stoker's Dracula!

Last week we covered the first four bosses, so naturally this week we'll discuss:

Like last week, I'll recommend one of three general approaches to fight a given boss:

Last week we saw the game's third boss, who I called Bouffant Dracula. This week, Dracula's got a whole new bag outfit -- and you've gotta love those dark-blue granny glasses!

Generally he spends a lot of the fight standing there...he'll stop at the far left side of the screen and hurt you, but when he's standing still he's big to jump over. But fortunately, when he moves from one side of the screen to the other:

This might lead to a reasonably strategic battle if you stay in the center of the room (which is only slightly over 1 screen wide): hit him a few times when he's on your left, then leap over him as he dashes to your right, step to the right and slash but be ready to jump, etc.

Unfortunately, he never quite goes to the far RIGHT edge of the screen...so once you get there, you can just whack away at him; eventually you'll win without a scratch.

You might find this unsporting. However, given some of the tricks this game plays on you (while expecting you to win with finite lives and limited continues), I'm willing to take every advantage I can get.

This fight may well you flashbacks to the Dragon: you have about four screens-worth of battlefield, with a boss that moseys along the length and bredth of it.

Unfortunately this time the boss room contains pits to jump over. And if that's not enough to convince you to stay on the platform where you start, rocks periodically leap up from the tar for no particular reason.

If you want my advice, you'll spend the entire battle waiting on the first platform. When the ghost drifts your way, you can slash her a few times, then assume the position by ducking in the far left-hand corner of the screen:

Unlike the dragon's fiery breath (which may occasionally hit you even in your hiding place), this spot is 100% safe. After the ghost turns around, you may have time to get one more hit on her as she retreats. Then you get to wait for her to drift about four screens away and come back. Safe but tedious wins the fight!

Somewhere between a wolf and a wompa snow-beast™, the game's seventh boss behaves oddly: it will wait near the right edge of its two-screen-wide room, content to let the occasional normal-sized brown wolf dash at you.

But as you approach it will eventually leap into action, chasing you back to the far left corner of the screen. And like some of the other bosses, you COULD fight it in a somewhat strategic way: take a swipe at it, then maybe outrunning it by hopping back to the left edge of the screen where it usually won't hurt you.

But recently I've found that this fight, too, has a safe spot. While he's too big to jump over without getting hit, you CAN jump over him and get hit once, then make it to the screen's far right edge:

Now that you're here, the blue wolf will no longer be able to hurt you. You can hang out here as he runs back and forth, and hack away at his hind-quarters:

...though it's not a COMPLETE cakewalk: normal wolves will occasionally dart out from the tiny passage behind you:

At least we end on a high note. The creepy "Asylum" level is capped by one of the coolest bosses in the game: Reinsfeld, resplendent in his straight jacket/mummy wraps(?) and leg irons, marches around his two-screen-wide level whilst launching spiders from his face.

He's another in this game's unending stream of fifteen-foot-tall humans, but he has two things going for him that makes him better than all the other bosses:

It's just unfortunate, then, that sometimes he gets stuck on the far left corner of the screen...which allows you to backstab him until he dies.

But that's another story for another time!