
          Castlevania: Circle of the Moon for GameBoy Advance
                          Battle Arena Guide
               By Robby Entrekin ( hadokin@hotmail.com )
        Version 1.6 (created 6-18-2001, last updated 7-16-2001 )



Version History

Version 1.0 - Wrote out first draft of FAQ

Version 1.2 - Included info about Needle Armor, corrected some errors,
reformatted the text so it looks right (I figured out that it's better
to use wordpad than notepad), and added thanks section.

Version 1.4 - Put in the info about the Dark Armor and also made some
minor changes, added exp. amounts for the skeleton and abiondarg room
and changed the error about the were-jaguar's exp.

Version 1.6 - Changed some more errors, and added a little here and
there.

***********************************************************************

Let me start off by saying thanks to Konami for making this great game
and Nintendo for making the new GameBoy Advance.  I would also like to
say that this is my first ever FAQ so you'll have to forgive me if it
isn't a masterpiece.

***********************************************************************

I decided to write this FAQ because my first time at the Battle Arena
I only made it past the third room, I thought I would honestly never
make it through that thing in my whole life. It took much preparation,
skill, and a handy little cheat ( I'll tell you about that later)
before I made it through. Now ( after a lot of practice ) I can get
through the whole thing without any hassle. So now I want to help
others with what I've found out

***********************************************************************




                       **** Preparation****

You can't expect to make it through this thing by just taking it head
on, when you're in the Battle Arena you're going to need to stockpile
these things; potions, heart restorers, cure curse, mind restorers,
dark armor, and two double grips. Also, I recommend being at least
level 50 (leveling up even more than that doesn't hurt either).

** ( to help get the items you need faster don't forget to use the
card combination Venus + Mandragora to raise your luck )

- Potion Highs and Ex's
	You're only going want to use potion highs and ex's while you're
in the Battle Arena, potions, meats, and even spiced meats won't give
you adequate healing for the beating you're going to be taking. The
two following enemies will give these to you.

	- Devil
		The Devil (located at the very top of the castle near
	where you fight Hugh as a boss) will give out potion highs.
	Don't forget the the Devil will give you 10,000 exp. every time
	you kill him so he's also a good way to level up quickly.

	- Alraune
		Alraune, the nude girl in the rose, is the only enemy that
	has potion ex's (the potion that restores all your HP). But, it
	will take a lot of luck to get it though, (it took me 20 minutes
	at 1086 luck just to get one) but it is worth it since you'll
	have over 1,000 hp when you go to the Battle Arena (so just one
	is worth four or more potion highs).

      - Wind Armors
		Wind armors are very good sources for potions highs too,
	some say they are easier to get from wind armors than the devil
	too.


- Heart Restorers
	You'll be finding yourself using hearts up like a madman while
you're in the Battle Arena so it's good to stock up on heart restorers.
Here's a small list of enemies that are good to fight when stocking
up for heart restorers.

	- Mummies
		These are nice to fight because they keep on
	regenerating and are easy to kill, they give you heart.

	- Bone Towers
		These are abundant and not hard to find, they give you
	heart and heart high.

	- Bats
		These regenerate too and the best place to find them is
	in the bottom of the castle in the room with the earth demon
	and the place where you got dash boots, they give you heart.

	- Spearfish
		Found in the water area, they give you heart and
	heart ex.


- Cure Curse
	You'll need to have a couple of these on hand for room ten in
the battle arena, marionettes and legions are the two enemies that you
can get these from. Legions are in the upper part of the castle while
the marionettes are in the upper-right part of the castle.


- Mind Restorers
	If you want to use the magic cheat in the battle arena you're
going to need a lot of mind restores, the following enemies are a
good source for mind restorers.

	- Brain Floats
		These regenerate and are easy to kill, (I recommencd using
	Jupiter + Serpent, or if you have it, Jupiter + Unicorn, and use
	the moon jump to kill them off) They give you mind restores.

	- Spectors
		These regenerate and are easy to kill too. They can be
	found in the Underground Gallery (Twin Dragon's area) in the
	verticle rooms nestled between the two save rooms.

- Dark Armor
	The dark armor gives you +550 defense but will bring down your
other stats by 10 points. I consider defense to be the number one
importance when you're in the battle arena though, so i would advise
equiping this armor. You get this armor from the Lilim, Lilim is in
the upper left part of the castle (Machine Tower, golem boss's
area) where all the fox archers and heat shades are.




                              Machine Tower

     ___________
    |      |    |
    |      |____|_______________
    |           | golem |       |
 ___|___________|_______|_______|__________
| S |                   |       |
|___|___________________|       |    ______
|                       |       |   |
|_______________________|       |___|         S = Save Room
|       |   |<          |       |   |         X = Secret room where
|    ___|   |           |_______|___|         Lilim is.
|   |   x   |           |       |   |         < = Place where you
|   |_______|    _______|       |___|         bust through the wall
|   |   | S |   |   |   |       |             to get to secret room.
|   |___|___|   |___|___|       |
|           |           |       |
|___________|___________|_______|




- Double Grips ( 2 )
	I believe that the double grips are the best accessories to wear
while in the battle arena since they give you a 75 point boost for
all your stats. You can get them from dark armors, which are at the
top of the castle near the Hugh boss.

- Strength Armbands
	Some people have emailed talking about the virtues of using
strength armbands in the arena. Equiping one will boost your stength
+100 but will bring down your other three stats by 25, if you equip two
of them you can get a 200 boost in your strength and have your other
stats down by 50. I have a hard to advocating this thought, while you get
a huge boost in strength you lose luck and defense, and luck plays a
very important role when trying to get cards and potions. It's up to you
though, it's not a big deal which you choose to do. You can get strength
armbands from Demon Lords.

- Leveling Up
	The best enemy to get leveled up from isn't actually Devil, but
Lilith. Lilith will give you 20,000 exp and mind ex's. Lilith can be
found in the lower-left part of the castle (Underground Warehouse,
Death boss area). In a tall skinny room with a lot of succubus' and
an arch demon at the very top there is a secret room. To get to it go
halfway up the tall skinny room, you should be able to bust through
the wall (on the right side) which will reveal a secret room,
inside is Lilith.
	I still recommend fighting the Devil too, since he can give you
potion highs.


**********************************************************************
*****************  MAGIC CHEAT FOR BATTLE ARENA **********************

	Even though they say that you can't use magic while you're in the
Battle Arena you actually can. Normally, whenever you use mind restores
or mind highs in the Battle Arena it will fill up your magic bar at the
menu screen but when you return back to the game your magic depletes
almost instantly. There is a handy little cheat that I've found out
that will let use magic while you're in the battle arena, but it can
be a bit taxing to use and it is only useful with summoning magic.

Long Explanation:	
	While you're in the battle arena use two or three mind restores
so that you're up to almost full magic. Next select the summon spell
you want to use, (I recommend Cockatrice or Thunderbird since they do
the most damage) now here comes the tricky part, and you have to pull
this off in a very limited amount of time (it might take you a couple
tries to master it). The second that you come back to the game (after
unpausing from the menu screen) hit the L trigger button to activate
your spell (your magic will not drain while you are activating your
magic) and (as fast as you can) perform the down-to-up motion (just
like you would normally do) and hit the action button. If you do it
fast enough you will actually perform the summon! Beware though, if you
get hit by an enemy or you mess up you'll have to use up some more mind
restores and try again.

Short Explanation:
	Do the spell as fast as you can.

	I don't recommend using this cheat to get through the whole
battle arena, as it takes away a lot of the challenge. But this can
make the Battle Arena extremely easier in some parts, namely, the last
room and the room with all of the minotaurs. You can also use this
trick to restore some health if you have the Unicorn summon.


                     **** The Battle Arena ****

When you get to the Battle Arena you first come to a room with torches
that all hold different sub-weapons, the only one you'll need is the
cross, which will be the last torch (the one right before the door ).
Don't waste your time picking anything else, trust me. On a sidenote,
all of the enemies in the battle arena are more difficult than there
non-battle arena counterparts, but they also yield higher experience.

-- Room One --
Difficulty - *  (out of five)
Enemies -
Were-wolf  x 1   ( 1,100 exp.  )
Were-jaguar  x 1   ( 1,200 exp. )

	This room is fairly easy and shouldn't be too difficult. The
first thing you need to focus on when you get into this room is not to
towards the were-wolf, you want to only jump up and down so that you
can focus your attention on the were-jaguar. You can start by throwing
a couple of crosses to get some hits on the were-jaguar but when he
charges at you double jump to avoid his attack and use your whip to hit
him as you come down. Try not to come down to fast as the were-jaguar
likes to stall for a second after he attacks, you might touch him and
send yourself flying back if you do. After you kill him go after the
were-wolf, you can avoid the were-wolfs jump attack by ducking as he
comes at you, after he flies over you can throw some crosses at him
and hit him with your whip.

-- Room Two --
Difficulty - **
Enemies -
Hipogriff  x 2   ( 1,900 exp. each )
Catoblepas  x 2   ( 2,000 exp. each )

	When you enter this room the first thing you need to do is jump
straight up and throw one or two crosses as the hipogriffs will run
right into them (it might even hit them a second time after they turn
around) but after that you want to focus your attention to the two
catoblepas. The catoblepas' steam attack can end up doing major damage
since any damage you take while stoned is triple or quadruple what you
would normally take. So double jump straight over the two of them and
throw as many crosses as you can while their backs are turned, keep
doing this until you kill them. To finish off the two hipogriffs just
jump and throw crosses at them, they're not that hard.

-- Room Three --
Difficulty - ***
Enemies -
Wind Demon  x 2   (  4,000 exp. each )
Witch  x 3   ( 1,000 exp. each )

	To take out the first wind demon in this room just keep jumping
up and throwing crosses at him. Actually you can just use that strategy
for the whole room too, just remember to try and take one enemy at a
time. The only thing that makes this room difficult is the shear amount
of projectiles that will be thrown at you.

-- Room Four --
Difficulty - **
Enemies -
Stone Armor  x 3   (  3,000 exp. each )
Devil Tower  x 12   ( 600 exp. each )

	This room isn't really difficult since the stone armors follow
such a simple strategy, to beat the stone armors in this room keep
throwing crosses at them and when they throw rocks at you just use you
whip spin (hold the b button down) to shield yourself. The devil towers
are really easy too (you'll probably be able to take them out with one
hit), just hit them right after they shoot.

-- Room Five --
Difficulty - *
Enemies -
Skeleton  x 6 ( 700 exp. each )
Skeleton Bomber  x 5 ( 550 exp. each )
Skeleton Spear  x 4   ( 580 exp. each )
Electric Skeleton  x 2   ( 700 exp. each )

	This room is so easy I don't even know if I should bother to tell
you how to get past them. Just throw your crosses and hit them with
your whip or you can use your slide kick, not much else to it.

-- Room Six --
Difficulty - ***
Enemies -
Fire Demon  x 2   ( 4,500 exp. each )
Bone Tower  x 7   ( 800 exp. each )

	The fire demons can be a bit hard since they have so many hit
points and their attacks are hard to avoid, when you enter the room
just keep jumping up and throwing your crosses at them, you'll
probably take a few hits before they go down but it shouldn't be too
much. The bone towers' attacks are easy to avoid and it shouldn't be
too hard to kill them.

-- Room Seven --
Difficulty - *
Enemies -
Fox Hunter  x 5   ( 600 exp. each )

	This room is pretty easy too, the fox hunters can only shoot
straight ahead so all of the arrows can be avoided by simple ducking.
If you're strong enough, you can kill the fox hunters by sliding on
the ground. If you're not you can kill them by just slowly advancing
towards them between shots. A fun way to kill them is by facing away
from them and throwing two crosses, when the crosses boomerang back
to you just duck and let them take out the fox hunters. I've been
able to take out four fox hunters in one swoop with this technique.

-- Room Eight --
Difficulty - ****
Enemies -
Poison Armor  x 3   ( 3,600 exp. each )
Bloody Sword  x 3   ( 2,000 exp. each )

	This is the first of the really difficult rooms, the second you
get into this room you'll want move forward a little and lob as many
crosses as you can and hope that you kill the first poison armor and
maybe some of the bloody swords. After the first poison armor is
killed try and kill the rest of the bloody swords before you go after
the second poison armor. When fighting the poison armors the best
technique is to run near them, quickly throw some crosses and then run
away so you don't touch the poison cloud. You can also keep your
distance and use the face-away-from-the-enemy cross throwing technique
I told you about in room seven against the fox hunters. Don't forget to
use antidotes the second you get poisoned, you'll need all the HP you
can keep.

-- Room Nine --
Difficulty - *
Enemies -
Abiondarg  x 24   ( 588 exp. each )

	This room is the easiest in the whole Battle Arena, you could
just stand in place and keep hitting the abiondargs as they go by.
I suggest that you try to kill the ones on the top so that if they drop
a potion or meat you can get to it, 'cause you've probably taken some
damage by now.

-- Room Ten --
Difficulty - ****
Enemies -
Legion  x 3   ( 2,900 exp. each )
Marionette  x 12   ( 1,200 exp. each )

	First off, this room will be a royal pain in the ass if you aren't
strong enough to kill the marionettes in one hit (with the cross). Since
the marionettes curse you when they touch you you better have a lot of
cure curses on hand. The only weapon that you'll want to use in this
room is the cross since it does more damage to dark-aligned enemies. Try
to keep your distance while fighting in this room to keep from being
cursed but I can tell you that this room won't be easy, if you have too
much trouble with this room I would advise you to use the magic cheat.

-- Room Eleven --
Difficulty - ***** (that's five stars baby!)
Enemies -
Minotaur  x 7   (4,100 exp. each )

	This room, in my opinion, is the hardest room of the whole Battle
Arena. I highly recommend using the magic cheat (Thunderbird summon)
for this room. (Actually it's kinda hard to do it in this room, you have
to perform it the exact second you walk into the room) If you want to
take it the hard way and fight it out be forewarned, you are going to
lose a lot of life in this room, the minotaurs' shockwaves will
constantly be knocking your ass around like a ragdoll. The only advice I
can give is to keep throwing crosses and keep jumping around. After
losing almost all of your HP they'll be dead.

-- Room Twelve --
Difficulty - ****
Enemies -
Succubus  x 3   ( 3,100 exp. each )
Arachne  x 3   ( 2,400 exp. each )

	The first person you're gonna need to take out is the first
arachne, if she hits you with her web goo you're not gonna be that
effective against the succubus's since you won't be able to jump. So
run forward and keep throwing crosses as fast as you can until she's
dead. After her you now should deal with the two succubus's flying
around, keep throwing your crosses and try to watch for when they stop,
because when they stop they shoot three shots at you. After you've taken
care of them kill the second arachne, then the third succubus, and
then the final arachne.

-- Room Thirteen --
Difficulty - ****
Enemies -
Demon Lord  x 5 (4,200 exp. each)
Alraune  x 2 ( 5,000 exp. each)

	When you first enter this room you want to throw three crosses to
kill the demon lord right in front of you, but be prepared for what
happens next all of the demon lords on screen will be spitting fireballs
in every direction so there is a 100% chance that you'll be hit. After
the first demon lord dies jump up and throw crosses at the demon lord
right above the alraune. When he dies jump on the platform he was on
and throw crosses at the demon lord on the platform to the left of you.
After he dies go back to the beginning of the room and fight the
alraune, when fighting the alraunes remember that you'll do a lot more
damage to them if you hit them when they're exposed but you'll have to
jump to hit them in the right spot, another thing to remember is that
they'll always leave a space between their vines for you to hit them.
You can fall into it by jumping on the platform right above her and wait
for her to raise her vines, you'll be able to see it. After killing her
go to the platform in the middle of the room and throw crosses at the
demon lord on the platform to the left of you. Then drop down and kill
the last demon lord who's behind the alraune, you might take a few hits
but it's important to kill him before you kill her. Kill the last
alraune following the same strategy that you did to kill the
first alraune and you'll be done with that room.

-- Room Fourteen --
Difficulty - *
Enemies -
Hyena  x 8   ( 1,000 exp. each)

	This room shouldn't be hard, you can kill the first hyena with
your whip and then run to the middle of the room and drop down the hole.
Facing the left throw a cross, once you throw the cross jump back up out
of the whole and go to the right. If you did it right the cross will
kill the other seven hyenas, if it didn't just try again.

-- Room Fifteen --
Difficulty - ****
Enemies -
Dark Armor  x 3   ( 6,600 exp. each)  **Holds Black Dog card!!**
Devil Tower x 12   (1,500 exp. each)

	This room is just a variant of room four but is much more
difficult with the addition of the dark armors. Your first goal should
be taking out the first three devil towers since they can stone you and
make you lose tons of HP. They shouldn't take more than one hit from
your whip or cross so it shouldn't be too hard. When those are gone
focus all your firepower on the first dark armor, throw as many crosses
at him as you can while watching where he points his sword, dodging his
dark blasts are priority number one. Keep this pattern up until you get
through the room. This is a room that you might also want to use the
magic cheat (Thunderbird summon) and don't forget that the dark armors
hold the black dog card, watch for it!

-- Room Sixteen --
Difficulty - **
Enemies -
White Armor  x 3   ( 6,000 exp. each)  **Holds Unicorn card!!**

	The white armors are so ridiculously easy that it's funny. Your
strategy for this room is; throw crosses, duck, throw crosses, duck,
throw crosses, .... that's it since the white armors only shoot straight.
You better hope you're lucky enough to get the Unicorn card, 'cause if
you don't you'll have to go through it again if you want it.

-- Room Seventeen -- **Final Room!**
Difficulty - *****
Enemy-
Devil   ( 30,000! exp. )

	This is it, the final room, but by now you're probably really
hurting; running low on hearts and life. (If you picked up the Unicorn
card from the holy armor in the room before I suggest using the Unicorn
summon to restore some life if you've run out of potions, just remember
to do it before you enter the room) The Devil is the hardest regular
enemy in the whole game and his Battle Arena version is the ultimate
badass! His purple clouds o' death do damage well over a hundred hit
points, making it easy for him to kill your weakened character
in just one or two hits! He's also got enough HP to survive a summon
spell, that means  if you want to use the magic cheat you'll have to do
it two or even three times before he goes down. ( I recommend using the
Cockatrice summon as it does more damage to him than the Thunderbird
summon ) If you plan on fighting him the regular way remember to stay
away from
him. His attacks include; a tornado that surrounds him, a shockwave
(much like the minotaurs shockwave, but the devil's shockwave goes in
both directions, goes much farther, and stays around a lot longer), a
shield, and a "flamethrower" attack. The battle with this guy is going
to be long and brutal, if you charge him head on you'll most likely get
killed very quickly, so remember to be patient.

	Once you've finally beaten him you'll have made it through, this
is the most difficult task in the game and you'll be rewarded with
"shinning" (game typo, supposed to be shining) armor, which is the best
in the game. Also, going through the whole Battle Arena will net you a
whopping 291,582 exp. !



-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Special Thanks

	I would like to thank the following people who have helped me
with this FAQ;

SheikofHyrule@aol.com for giving me some pointers

locklear@yifan.net for telling me about the slide kick

The following people who helped me find the needle armor:
CycloneX65@aol.com, Micheal Rude, ultimo, Mark Sherry

The following people who helped me find the dark armor:
Scott Huisman, SheikofHyrule@aol.com, and Jon Lam ( who also told me
about Lilith )

Jim Ogul for telling me about the potion ex's

Rize for providing information about the abiondarg and skeleton exp.
amounts.

Brendan Parlor for sending info about wind armors, potion highs, and
strength armbands.


If you find any errors, false information, etc. in this FAQ, or have
any comments, suggestions, strategies, secrets, etc. or would like
to contribute please contact me at: hadokin@hotmail.com

All names copyright of their respectful owners. Castlevania,
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon are copyright Konami.





