I was gonna respond to that other post heh. You just have to do enough damage, there wasn't anything special about it, weapon or otherwise. You could've waited until later to do that fight though.
I haven't faced Dracula again because his second form raped me (oh and Dracula is the end boss of like every Castlevania Kitsuta, although Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow treated things differently). I did however go forth trying to collect all the items from every enemy. So far I've collected most of them. I also have been trying to master certain subskills for the quests, but that has been taking so long. I'm fairly certain that I found all of the secret passages in the game though, thanks to a trademark item gotten from the typical guy that has it.
Oh and Final Guard sucks ass, I hate collecting its items .