Bram Stoker's Dracula: Dead Again

Its time to finish Dracula once and for all.

Oh, right, this. Hmm...I see a solution to this. Divide and conquer. Drag them out, wafer their coffins.

That didn't work as well as I wanted. Just have to fiddle with my dagger again and-

Wow, this area is just full of enemies. We're nearing 10 already. Getting congested. This isn't going to be an easy fight back. Ah, stairs.

Wafers. A joy to behold, but a big caution in my mind. Do I go back, wagering that retreating will be to my advantage? Do I go forward, wagering that the way forward will provide more wafers? If only someone else had documented their journey through here. Unfortunately, I'm like the four guy not on the dev team to finish this.

So, I go forward. This area is a quick area. Four enemies, two brides, two wolves. Thanks to lucky movement and luck in resurrection timing, I do so in a minimum of fuss and muss. Another night key. Astute readers will now note that I'm almost exactly where I was in regards to enemies a moment ago, except now I also have to wander back through a maze of enemies I can't kill in a moment. We're really padding out that time, there, eh, TAG?

Still, I clean out the way back. Effectively too, with a minimum loss of ammo. Two wafers to spare. Two brides inside. I'm trying to wager that there's more wafers inside. If there's not, well, what's another fight with a bride? Nothing. More bullets and food inside. I've never exactly been hurting for the stuff this level. Back to the garden...

I make my way to one of the corridors which has a series of appearing and disappearing pressure plates. Some sequence or another opens a pillar, leading to two brides and a ruby key. Two keys up here, three corridors. Could've been a good opportunity to put in some wafers, but no, we have the starve the player brutally now.

Door no 4. There are no bets about whether or not I'll be starved of wafers here either, because that's not a fair bet. I'll get a single pack, I'll be forced to use all of them in this area, and I'll have to try to draw out all the enemies in Dracula's Sanctum and be bitter about it until I play Isle of the Dead. I dance inside as I usually dance when forced to fight against enemies I can't kill. A door that needs a button, a mad dash into it, trying to close curtains behind me...failing. And the discovery of wafers. As it turns out, the screenshot here could take place either before or after I get the wafers here.

This seems to be a series of plates that I don't know what it does and buttons that I do. All I know is that the curtains T-corridor is in fact a spinning corridor. One of the buttons switched that, another removed a pillar, and now I stare down a bride on top of a pressure plate. What could possibly go wrong? Everything? Yeah, I bet everything. It moves a pillar, the path blocked by the pillar reveals to me a single wafer, thanks, and a night key. That means that was everything here and now I have to find out what to do next. See if the Sanctum has any wafers or the garden.

What's this? Why, the Sanctum appears to be bigger on the inside. And a leisurely stroll through as well. Empty, save for a few brides and a magazine. Let's see what's in the garden part of the Sanctum? Also leisurely. A crystal key that opens a lock nearby. This is suspicious. Very suspicious.

Just another bride, nothing else. Don't have a wafer right now. Upstairs, to the inner sanctum. Very open, some cheese and...

WHY? WHY ON THE FLOOR? WHY SO MANY? ARRGH! This is presumably where I'll kill Dracula. Beyond what you see, there's also some bullets lying around. This will be very convenient for me. A button, I presume this does nothing now? Now, to finish some things off. The bride I just left, and there are 14 monsters up in the outer garden. I think with the ones I've already killed that's 16. 16 monsters I was expected to come back to. Make no mistake, that was come back to.

Honestly, with each other corridor having 2-3 monsters this floor is a real mess. I get densely packing your maps and I get wanting to make a challenge, but I don't feel strongly about starving your players of vital resources for so long. Fortunately, I can go to town now. I guess I really don't feel strongly about it, since I do admit that once you can let loose it feels pretty good. Now, to deal with...

...three? Dracula's not in three coffins...damn it. Where did I screw up? Second door I opened...Lady next to some key or another at the time, two to go. Where's no. 2? And a werewolf in the garden above. Time to fight Dracula.

I'm guessing this is the weird hairdo Dracula from the movie. Time to unload.

Wolf form, doing good. Some more bullets...

Back into a man, let's finish this. He's down...the wall graphics are changing?

...I expected a crappy text screen. Somehow, my expectations were broken despite being as low as I thought possible. I guess that's Christmas saved then or something. Look, if you want something cleverer you'll have to wait for a game that doesn't have a crappy ending.