Bram Stoker's Dracula: 500 Years Old, No Accidents, but Inexplicable Urge for Blood

Last time, I purposely left off at a place I was in a good position. Just after a werewolf, with a decent amount of supplies. First I solve an issue left unsolved last time, a duo of undead I left unslain. It doesn't take long. I am left with a set of stairs and a button when I return to the room I left the game in. If you guessed that the button turns the rotating corner from last time, you win nothing. What's upstairs?

Oh, no. Don't tell me there's going to be trees. I hate trees, they make navigation in this game a nightmare. This area at least, has no trees. What it does have is a single coffin and more bullets. I seem to be running into more bullets than health items.

Upstairs from outside? Is this a side patio or something? I'd be curious as to the dimensions of this entire level.

Nothing like a light jog against something thirsty for your blood. One of the coffins is tucked away in something I'd call clever if I wouldn't know where the thing is whenever I kill its inhabitant again. Some more wafers bringing me back to a level of safety, rather than mild desperation. A locked emerald door. I wonder where I'll find the key-

Come on! Really? Really? Really? Just the key in a mildly out of the way area? Behind the emerald door is a hallway similar to one in which a spinner trap was used last level. Making me slightly prepared for what would happen, which was three spinners. That's some bull, but good bull. I persevere.

Three enemies up here, no one interesting. I find a silver key. Back to the start. On the way I notice one of the picture wall sprites on the outside part of the level. That explains everything, they must be heavily water-damaged. There's also no floor transition music this time. Weird. It seems to activate whenever I go into another floor weirdly. The silver key takes me to a door that just leads upstairs.

I wait a little bit here, then slowly advance. I don't know why, that isn't going to help me fight the undead. There's one way forward here, a door with a pressure plate in front of it. Nice. There's a bunch of pillars blocking corridors and coffins with no way in. The door requires a sun key. It took me a few seconds to connect the dots. And at this point the game says I'm 35% done. Meaning I should be a third of the way through.

More undead, I take out a pirate-looking fellow but lose some health to him. No problem at this point. A werewolf in the corner, well, I can take him out. Now, let's find his coffin-

I can hear someone cackling with glee back in 1992. I know because this is absolutely something I would do. This is basically an invisible wall maze, except it teleports you to the start. Maze is a strong word, since its more like an invisible wall that I can't go through. I could be wrong, since, you know, werewolf chasing after me. There's a stairway up, I better take this before I do something I'll regret.

Ah, nothing like a few enemies I'm not in a panic over to ease you down. The outside is beginning to look like inside only with different floors and ceilings. A lot of doors here. I imagine there will be a lot of keys here.

Hello there, I bet your door is locked. Its not? I bet there's something of value in here, thus giving me a reason to kill you two. No? We'll just be leaving you here then. I check the rest of the doors, one is locked, but the other isn't...only to lead to another door that is. The former shows me a button, which no doubt rotates a nearby wall with a lever on it. So...back downstairs...? Where there isn't anything I can do but fight a werewolf again...oh, no. I missed something. Near as I can tell, there are four keys I need at this point and no place I can look for them I haven't already been.

As it turns out the invisible wall maze is a bit trickier than I thought and also available to me at this time. In the corner there's a clip of bullets, previously I took them and then retreated. There was no reason for me not to. Turns out I'm supposed to enter that tile. This isn't the most logical move in a game like this. In a Dungeon Master-like RPG, which this is clearly intending to be in some way, that would be impossible to get. For my trouble a gold key.

Behind the door it unlocks* I find more bullets and what I really wanted at this point, another key and some wafers. This unlocks something on the outside, not the one in front of a button, of course, that would be logical. Instead I get to go on another floor full of pressure plates. With a werewolf too. Is that this level's theme? Dancing with a werewolf on a pressure plate?

The pressure plates, instead of doing anything that might hurt you, instead open/close a hole into the ground. Huh. The door is unlocked, but there is another pressure plate behind it. Activating it just opens the hole again. This entire question is pointless, as the door now in front of me is locked...with an emerald key. I think I have two emerald key doors now. I smell something screwy. I hate this kind of thing. I'm going to get stuck in an unwinnable position, I just know it.

Naturally, I take the only avenue now left to me, go down the hole. This was a wise move, as I have never been in this area before. My nearby area has an emerald key. I check the rest of the area that isn't blocked off by a door to clear out the enemies. Stairs up and an unlocked door. Nice. The unlocked door is fairly pointless, as I don't need bullets or to completely clear out the area yet.

A bad portrait and the cover art. I feel like these were just badly scanned for this game. Now, back upstairs I deal with a werewolf in an area completely disconnected from where I was. This could be a long wait on the emerald key. Because I was carrying it around not in my inventory, I dropped it to deal with the werewolf. Not a good idea on green ground. The only way on is up.

Here we have an area filled with enemies. Not werewolves, but some regular looking fellows that take two bullets. Not a good sign. Its a large and quite frankly confusing chunk of area. Completely bereft of any escape routes, save for a single button. Yeah, that's where we're going to be leaving off.

*How do I know which key unlocks which door anyway? There's no obvious way for me to find out. Are the locks supposed to be color-coded? I hope they're color-coded and not actually made out of emerald or night or sun.