Tower of Ruins

Tower of Ruins is an area inside Dracula’s Castle in the year of 1844. It is also Stage 07 for Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness.

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Visited By 

Just when you thought Dracula’s Castle couldn’t get any stranger you come across this stage. The entire theme of Tower of Ruins is designed to look as if you were in an underground ruin of sort, despite actually being in a fortress building that’s over 200 feet in dynamiters. It is clear that the Tower of Ruins lacks a background history, and is only put there for the soul purpose of gameplay.

As a stage, it has three parts to it that players must progress through in order to proceed to the next stage. The first part of the stage has many rooms which all look the same. A map is placed in a few of those rooms to prevent others from getting lost. Aside from the map part through there traps set in those rooms such as spikes that pop out of the floor (16 Dpts), undead enemies, and hollow floors that will give out on the player if they don’t keep to the walls. One area requires the floor to give out in order for the player to proceed, and they have to drop down it – a direction that can confuse many newcomers to the game if they can’t keep their wits in check. To get out of this ruin maze the player will have to step on a total of 3 floor panels, all which are heavily guarded by some pretty nasty baddies.

The second part of the stage is a wide room covered in darkness. The place seems to be falling apart. Players have to watch their step so that they don’t get hit by falling rubble (16 Dpts). The floor can also collapse under their weight, and if that happens the player will have to backtrack a certain amount of distance depending on where the collapse took place. Like the first part of the stage, more panels have to be stepped on in order to proceed.

The last part of the stage involves a puzzle with 12 constellations. In the center of the room contains 2 pillars. One of those pillars leads to the correct direction, the other will drop you into an abyss (and it’s game over). To figure out which pillar is the correct one the player must visibly examine the ruin pictures around that room before attempting to jump the pillars. There are 6 pillars total that must be jumped to in order to be able to proceed.

When compared to it’s previous stage Art Tower, the quality of gameplay has improved. With it’s maze & platforming that gets players thinking but not over-thinking, and then the final puzzle that can kill the player instantly despite how well they performed in previous parts defiantly earns Tower of Ruins some rating. However, when it comes to the artistic view, it’s better than average due to how well it was all designed, but still suffers a drop due to a lack of background history, and the idea of an underground ruins being high up in a tower doesn’t sit well when the lower & upper levels are perfectly designed to not fall apart.

Items

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White Jewels x5

Contracts x1

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 Secrets 

- In the Maze Part: From the main room, the first room that has turning points, go left, then left. In that room is a statue you can examine for 300 Gold.

- In the Maze Part: From the main room, the first room that has turning points, go straight, right. Straight, straight, then left. In that room is a statue you can examine for 300 Gold. (requires you to have at least 2 of 3 floor panels pressed before you can reach that room.)

- In the Maze Part: From the main room, the first room that has turning points, go straight, then left. In that room is a statue you can examine for a Roast Chicken.

''' Trivia '''

- In the opening demo of Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness you see Reinhardt Schneider exploring the Tower of Ruins, but he can’t actually come here during gameplay.

- The first two floor panels cannot be stepped on until the enemy Knight has been defeated. Stepping on it before then will do nothing. The door also locks behind you to prevent escape, but will unlock upon Knight’s defeat.

- If you stand on a constellations pillar for long then a penalty is awarded: The pillar will begin sinking down, and if you still don’t jump off then it’ll drag you into the abyss. (Death)

- Art Tower is one of two stages in the entire Nintendo 64 series where only one of the six playable characters can visit.

 

''' Glitches '''

- If you guess wrong on the fifth or sixth pillar of constellation, the pillars will instantly drop down, and so will your character. Overall, your character drops faster than the pillars, and because of this you can cliff-hang the dropping pillar during the fall. Doing so will give you the death animation of losing all your HP by getting attacked, when really it’s supposed to give you the high-fall/splat death animation.