Castlevania Judgment -- Story Mode, Alucard

The other character available from the start for use in Story Mode is Alucard, prodigal son to Dracula's dark legacy. Well, I guess being the master's offspring isn't really much of a positive thing, as we've seen from Castlevania III and players of Symphony of the Night are aware. The old man just won't die! He's got a serious case of daddy issues and can't seem to get over his rebellious phase, choosing to hang out with his friends that his father doesn't approve of and trying to wreck any and all plans to create a "bad world full of evil"... So, what could Alucard find to heal his increasingly tormented and anguished soul in this "Time Rift" thing? --- Stage 1: Aeon How does a man seem not to exist at all? Some more conversation where both sides ignore each other almost completely... Hey! Alucard! Don't you dare pretend like what he just said answered your question or even began to give you insight as to what is to be done...although I do like that he seems aware that the events about to unfold are a bit of a farce. Unfortunately for Aeon, Alucard is one of the most capable combatants all around in the game, and even I can manage to use him at least slightly effectively. And, for that matter, I guess it's not really Aeon's fault that the AI lacks the particular imagination required to make the most of his talents. Oh, and get yourself prepared for Alucard to apologize to a lot of enemies just for beating them up. --- Stage 4: Carmilla Alucard doesn't seem to spare much consideration for Dracula's chosen company and consorts, although the old man is definitely a horndog of literary proportions...seriously, have you ever actually read what that foolish Englishman Bram Stoker had to say about him? You can't make that stuff up! ...probably. Okay, I'll admit that I really didn't need to finish the fight like that, but it does illustrate a point, I swear... mostly that the key to surviving at harder AI difficulty levels is that you try to generate and exploit moments of opportunity out of attacks which are overly drawn out. You may also notice an increased quantity of Hyper Attacks landing, mostly because my combos aren't nearly good enough to keep up with the amount of damage I'll have coming my way otherwise. --- Stage 6: Mermen and Iron Gladiator Although the Mermen are repeat offenders, you've actually seen all the non-character enemies there are to fight in these sorts of scenarios. The smaller enemies will always be either Mermen or Zombies, and the big guys will always be either the Minotaur or the Iron Gladiator. I'm actually not sure if the zombies are also recycled or actually happen to be made from the ground up for use as a stage element, but the Merman, Minotaur, and Iron Gladiator are definitely reused. The Iron Gladiator isn't even a boss, though, he's just one of the larger-sized enemies from Curse of Darkness. I think maybe they could've done with a tad more variety, but at least they did try something different to keep things shaken up. --- Stage 7: Death You know, even as Alucard has refused to ever fight at the master's side a number of times and Death has also sworn that he wouldn't offer again...it does seem like they hold this conversation a little too often. Then again, as this exists outside time, perhaps even a god of death and an immortal will be made to forget what transpired and hold the same uneasy confrontation all over again. Death's major setback in a battle like this is that he's way too slow and needs some room to use his full offensive range of attacks, but Alucard is perfectly fine closing distances quickly and interrupting the old man while he's trying to take action. --- Stage 10: Dracula Ah, finally the two come face to face. Since Alucard has in fact defeated his father twice now, recognizing Maria and even Dracula remembering that he'd been defeated once with Trevor's help, I don't really know that beating him here and now without even the aid of some monstrous transformation tucked away as a backup plan should seem like that much of a challenge. The one big "weakness" that I found to exploit here was the fact that Dracula can and the AI often chooses to teleport directly to your current position, meaning if you're setting up a set of summoned souls to attack anyone who draws near, it creates a perfect opening to do whatever you might want...like say executing your Hyper Attack. --- Clearing Story Mode as Alucard unlocks Maria Renard for Story Mode. Finishing a Story on Hard difficulty will also unlock the Brutal AI setting, the hardest in the game. I guess that means from here on out, you can get used to the enemies no longer dropping their combos and allowing me even enough breathing room to use stage obstacle actions, especially the ones that don't just hurl the object directly at the enemy.