Air Date: August 2, 2014
After beating the game in Castlevania lament of innocence you get new password after the credits. "@Joachim" allows you to play through the game using the vampire Joachim. His quest is one of vengeance with the end goal of getting his castle back from Walter.
I load the game and show the map screen which reads 99.6 % because the final room is the last 0.4%. I begin at the final save spot before Walter. You will note that I have Joachim's swords in the offensive formation (forward facing formation).
Upon arriving at Dracula I engaged him with strafing runs, where I would run in and strike and then back away or evade. Continuously moving is the key to this battle so he will not be able to land any of the attacks on you. Once all the swords were launched I backed off to let them regenerate while evading his attacks. Rinse and repeat and he falls pretty quickly. The hardest part is trying to line up as he appears and toss the swords because of the jerky camera angles. I think this works better than trying to lock onto him because it wastes valuable time.
After Walter has had enough, Death himself appears to devour you. Death was pretty easy because he is a pretty big target to begin with. I just slammed away at him with the swords until my MP filled and then let loose with the beam of destruction attack, which really chews away at his life bar. Since the Walter fight went so well and I could take a few hits, I did the in your face type of attack for most of the battle. By using this offensive strategy, death is repeated tagged instantly recharging my MP bar. The trick is not to be too greedy and have enough MP at all times encase death decided he wants to do the deadly tempest move. By activating the beam of destruction as Death unleashes the tempest attack your character becomes invincible during the long attack. The invincibility stays long enough to weather the blows and still bang away at deaths bar since he stays stationary during this move.
During the final sequence Joachim laughs while sitting on the throne. He had reclaimed his castle and got his revenge. During ending you see screenshots of Joachim and eventually get the unlock code for pumpkin at the end of the game's ending.
Afterwards, I save to show 100% completion file.