Crimson Wolf

Dracula X goes behind Castlevania Adventure and Chronicles as one of the harder ones I have played in the series - not unmanageable, but requires a certain amount of memorization and creativity. That's due in part to regenerating enemies like the Medusa heads and bats appearing in abundance throughout the levels - particularly irritating when you're jumping around on moving gears in the Clock Tower level while attempting to get in a shot a Skeleton Spears, who have a large range and the ability to block your projectiles. The level finishes off this crescendo of pain with the only thing that could conceivably be more annoying - Death. The first half of his life bar is spent doing his standard technique, except that he can now slow you by touching you and his scythes have varying speeds. This has enough potential for annoying, random hits in and of itself, but the second half of the fight gets much worse. After spending a moment with his arms spread and mouth open as if enraged, he jumps onto the platform, pulls out a scythe, and starts swinging. At any point, he can jump up into the air and spin at you with his scythe extended. To avoid this move, you have to be walking away right as he starts spinning at you, THEN jump and barely clear the edge of the blade. If he gets you next to the edge, the only thing to do is hit him repeatedly and hope he backs off instead of gutting you right then and there. When he feels particularly nasty, he may send out a salvo of homing sparks, then do the somersault. The backflip may be useful somewhere in all this, but chances are good that you'll just end up sliding off the ledge or into another attack. Groan. And, of course, if you run out of lives, guess what happens? Hope you don't get too frusturated by being randomly hit and juggled by a bat until it finds a convenient pit to deposit you into.

No, it's defintely not just you. Now, I probably could have leveled up some more, but the fact that my character had aged 10 years and still had no clue what shaving was had been creeping me out. So into the last dungeon I go, to meet everyone's favorite King Ghidorah-ripoff. I think I went through about 15 Phoenix Downs and 7 food items before he finally fell over and died, and I then looked up at the clock and realized that I had spent about an hour running around like a maniac and slashing randomly. Running from constant homing energy orbs (is it just me, or are Clavats slower than the other races at everything?), an endless stream of powerful minions, flame-circles (which can kill you instantly and have a huge radius), quick-firing ice beams, and energy blasts that fill the screen. And being right next to him, hacking away merrily, then suddenly hearing an ominous sound and realizing that one of his hands is about to crush me and remove one of my last three Downs...that's pants-filling material, right there. But the real fun will come if I ever get my group together again and we get that far. "Okay, I'll just walk over and PWN him - oops, I'm dead again." "Agggh! Why the hell did we let you have all the extra hearts!?! Hey, look ou-Dang it, I'm dead too...but I wouldn't be if SOMEBODY hadn't wasted all the Phoenix Downs!" "Stop waving at me, I KNOW you're dead, I just have to - wait, who had the Life Stone?...oh no."

I happen to think that Death from Castlevania: Chronicles in the Original mode is a bit excessive. The original Death was hard enough, but you could get lucky and get a triple-shot Holy Water or Cross and spam him to death. This guy can now throw his scythe wherever you're standing while you try to dance your way out of the rain of tiny blades or just decide, "Gee, I'm getting hit pretty hard. But I don't have to put up with this, so I'm just gonna go invincible for a moment and then trap you in place while spewing homing skulls non-stop." Jerk. Thank heavens for Herbs and an almost endless supply of hearts. A more current one would be a game I played briefly a while back - Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee. Almost every fight pits you against Mechagodzilla at the end, who has the arena rigged in his favor with dozens of turrets and spacecraft that chip away your health unless you manage to break through the forcefield and hide behind a building. And as for the boss itself? It laughs at edged attacks, instantly heads for power-ups whenever they appear, and on Hard, blocks most of your attacks and retaliates by grabbing you and propelling you up into the air with his laser eyes. Attempting to fire back from a distance? It interrupts your attacks with a quick burst of laser and then lets loose with finger missiles. And if you get hit by its Rage attack, then congrats, you just discovered the most damaging move in the game, the hard way. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that in order to unlock more characters, you always have to beat the game with whatever monsters you currently have available. And some of them are just screwed right at the starting gate. Gigan has almost exclusively edged attacks, a cruddy beam weapon, and lacks hands, which obviously makes grappling a problem. Orga is slow as %&^! (and looks like it, too), which means that any attempts to grab or punch will be blocked, dodged, or cut off with a quick one-two. Megalon...hey, it's like Gigan, but with an unbelievable weakness to getting hit with blunt objects. You know, like fists. Anguirus, lacking damaging attacks or a decent breath weapon, relys on blocking with his spiked back and then attacking the opponent while they shake their wounded limbs after being so dumb as to punch a pincushion. Of course, Mecha simply shoots a plasma bolt out of his gut and laughs, then unloads with those ^$#&* rocket fingers. So on Hard mode, the best thing you can do for these characters is try to hunt down power-ups and pelt Mecha wih buildings from a distance. Occasionally, try for a throw and stomp on his limp body afterwards. And that takes some luck - pray for health.