Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow - Low-Level Game Guide

This guide provides tips on how to complete a low-level game.  It was made while I was doing a low-level game in order to get to revising my own Enemy Grinding Guide which you can find here: https://www.gamefaqs.com/ds/922145-castlevania-dawn-of-sorrow/faqs/70602 .

Contents:
1.  WHAT IS A LOW LEVEL GAME IN DAWN OF SORROW?
1.1 ENEMIES YOU ARE REQUIRED TO DEFEAT
1.2 TIPS FOR BYPASSING ENEMIES
2.  BOSS STRATEGIES
2.1 Flying Armor
2.2 Balore
2.3 Dmitrii
2.4 Malphas
2.5 Dario
2.6 Puppet Master
2.7 Rahab
2.8 Gergoth
2.9 Zephyr
2.10 Bat Company
2.11 Paranoia
2.12 Aguni
2.13 Death
2.14 Abaddon
2.15 Menace
3.  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND CONCLUSION

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1.  WHAT IS A LOW LEVEL GAME IN DAWN OF SORROW?

A low-level game in CvDoS basically means you're also doing what could be called "pacifist", where you kill nothing but required bosses and other required enemies.  It could also be called "fewest souls" (depending on whether you pick up the Doppelganger and Hippogryph souls) because enemies only drop souls when you defeat them.

This guide presumes that recovery items are prohibited (with one exception).  Using recovery items (especially HP recovery) during boss battles pretty much defeats the purpose of a low level game, and turns it into tedium because you have the option of pumping yourself full of healing.  Even when traversing the castle, avoid using recovery items to stay true to the challenge, and instead rely on save rooms to recover HP.  This will become increasingly difficult as the game goes on, and may mean that you may have to skip the Hippogryph soul in the Abyss, which is fortunately not a required pickup.

As such, the key tasks in a low-level game are
* bypassing all the regular enemies (covered in section 1.2)
* defeating all the bosses (covered in section 2)

I've found that it is possible to defeat all but the second form of the true final boss, without using any recovery items in the fight.  The true final boss's second form, however, is patently unfair without at least MP recovery, and is (by my understanding) beatable with only MP recovery, which is how I was able to do it.  More details in that subsection of the guide.  (If you can beat it without MP recovery items, let me know.)

NOTE: This guide does NOT assume the use of glitches.  It is possible to bypass some bosses using glitches and arrive at the final boss at an even lower level, but this guide assumes normal game sequence.  (Would you seriously want to make those last few bosses even more hellish by having access to fewer soul abilities?)

1.1 ENEMIES YOU ARE REQUIRED TO DEFEAT

As you may already know, CvDoS has three endings.  Here are the enemies you must defeat to get to each ending.

* Skeleton (in the prologue)
* Armor Knight (in the prologue)
* Golem (in the prologue)
* Flying Armor
* Balore
* Dmitrii
* Malphas
* Dario (1st battle)
* Puppet Master
* Rahab
* Gergoth
* Zephyr
* Bat Company
* Dario (2nd battle)

Now you can get the somewhat-bad ending.

In order to get the worst ending, replace Dario (2nd battle) in the above list with the following:

* Axe Armor
* Killer Clown
* Ukoback
* Paranoia
* Aguni

In order to get the best ending, add the following to the second list:

* Death
* Abaddon
* Menace

All of these are bosses except Skeleton, Armor Knight, Golem, Axe Armor, Killer Clown, and Ukoback.

You are guaranteed to get the souls of Skeleton, Armor Knight, and Golem, by encountering them in the prologue.

You are required to hunt down and grind for Axe Armor, Killer Clown, and Ukoback in order to get the worst and best endings.  By the time you need these souls -- after you've defeated Bat Company -- I think you should be level 21.  Use my Enemy Grinding Guide to find convenient places to grind for them with killling the fewest possible other enemies, and hopefully you won't get a level up from it.  Perhaps reset if it takes you too many tries.  (If you're TASing this, you can just manipulate luck to get the souls on your first try.)

You have the option of picking up the Doppelganger soul once you reach the Garden of Madness.  IF you're going for a very strict "fewest souls" conduct, you can't pick this up, but all it really means is that you have to go into the menu to switch your souls and equipment, as opposed to having a hot-switch button.  You also have the option of picking up the Hippogryph soul in the Abyss, near the end of the game.  It's not required to beat the game though.

Aside from these encounters, you'll be bypassing every enemy in this game -- don't even bother attacking anything.

1.2 TIPS FOR BYPASSING ENEMIES

You'll need to get around without being able to dispatch enemies.  This means weaving your way around them, and taking damage only when you must.

* I suggest equipping nothing, or a punch weapon.  First, it makes it so that you're very unlikely to accidentally hit things even when you attack candles for money (and you'll need some to buy extra weapons from Hammer), and second, it also makes it quite fast to hit candles (in a game whose physics are otherwise usually characterized by being fluid but slow).
* For large enemies such as Golem or Treant, as well as any enemies that you jump over (or trick into jumping over you), don't jump into them; that'll just get you thrown back.  Slide into them.  If you time them right, you may be able to get through them with just taking one hit.
* If your timing is good enough, you can slide under the Tombstone (in the Dark Chapel) without taking a hit.
* Puppet Master is EXTREMELY useful for bypassing enemies.  Once you get that you should be using it to bypass large enemies, impassable enemies, swarms of things, etc..
* Dawn of Sorrow's jump-kick is somewhat finicky (compared to Harmony of Dissonance's jump-kick which is much more reliable).  Especially the diagonal jump-kick -- you're actually quite likely to take a hit.  This is usually not a huge problem aside from reducing the HP which you need to bypass some enemies that you can't jump over.  It usually throws you to the correct side of the enemy anyway.  However, this can be a problem in the Bat Company fight (see below).
* Be careful not to kill any early-game enemies that could easily die to one hit.  For example, jump-kicking in the Alchemy Laboratory could result in the accidental death of a Ghost, which we don't want to happen.  (I can't believe I just typed this statement.)
* Another easy cause of accidental monster death: Imps.  They're common in the Cursed Clock Tower.  When they berserk you, you just stand there attacking.  You might accidentally kill a Medusa Head or two...and you'll have to reload your save again.  Get away from Imps as much as possible.

Okay, now that we've gone over how to not fight regular enemies, the second section of this guide covers how to fight the bosses.

2.  BOSS STRATEGIES

A low-level game also means that you will have more difficult than usual against the bosses.  So here are suggestions for facing the bosses.  The most general tip regarding all of this is that you will HAVE to learn the bosses' patterns.  If you aren't used to learning complex boss patterns, I suggest you pick up a game like Ys: the Oath in Felghana and play it on Normal difficulty.  It's got instant respawn upon dying to a boss which means you'll get maximum exposure to learning the patterns and paying attention to how they're telegraphed.  Alternatively, pick up Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, and go for the boss medals, which are your rewards for beating the bosses without getting hit.  Here in CvDoS you don't get such a reward...but you still want to keep the number of times you get hit to a minimum, especially in later bosses.

I'll be referring to weapon types in the following commentary.  These weapon types exist in the game:

* punch/knife weapons (fist weapons, knives, Cutall), which are close-range, low-damage, but very fast
* straight-sword weapons (Short Sword, Long Sword, Fragarach), which attack in front, have medium speed, and have better range than punches/knives and better attack power
* swing-sword weapons (Claymore, Great Sword), which swing a big arc, but are slow
* heavy weapons (Mace, Battle Axe), which are like swing swords but are even more powerful and even slower
* spear weapons (Spear, Lance), which have medium speed and long forward range, but no arc
* There are also guns, thrown weapons, etc.  but you won't have access to them in a low-level game.

Your weapons are likely to be limited to these since you won't be able to go out of your way much to collect items, as enemies will block your way.  Fortunately, it's possible to make do with just these weapons.  CvDoS bosses don't tend to change their patterns as they lose HP (except Death, and maybe Gergoth and Menace if you count them), so you won't need to deal with bosses getting nastier than they start off.

2.1 Flying Armor

* Easy as pie.  Equip a punch weapon to deal damage to him faster.

2.2 Balore

* Follows a pretty set pattern.  Learn the pattern.
* Sometimes you'll have to move away from or closer to him.
* Spear weapon or straight-sword weapon recommended.  Makes you have to move less to hit him.

2.3 Dmitrii

* If you want to beat him WITHOUT cheesing him, it's possible to jump over the big balls of darkness he throws.  But difficult.
* If you don't mind cheesing him, equip the Skeleton soul and throw a bone at him.  He'll copy that and spend the rest of the battle throwing bones easily-dodgeable bones at you while also trying to dodge you.

2.4 Malphas

* Different attacks have different warning times, between the telegraphing and the attack itself.  Learn which ones have less warning, to get a sense of how long of openings you have to hit it.
* If it starts shooting stuff at you, try running away.
* You can't run away from some of its balls.  Jump over them.
* It leaves enough openings that that you can punch it to death if you want.

2.5 Dario

* A really obvious pattern fight, where you're looking for openings to hit him.
* Punching him in the face is fast (and gratifying).  But don't be too greedy with punching his face in.  Know how many strikes you can safely get in between his attacks so you don't get an unexpected fireball to the face.  Instead, be patient.
* His second battle (should you go for the somewhat-bad ending) is like a souped-up version of his first fight, but the fundamentals of the fight are still the same; it's just a pattern fight where you're looking for openings to hit him.
* If you're in front of him and he's calling up columns of fire, the third column will always be exactly between the first two.  If you're behind him and he's calling up columns of fire, however, the third column will not be between them.  So getting behind him isn't the best idea.

2.6 Puppet Master

* Switch between two weapons: a very fast one and an arc swing one.
* The voodoo dolls it makes of you always die in two hits, no matter how much damage you deal to them.  Use the fast weapon to destroy these dolls.
* Use the swing weapon to destroy the flying dolls it also generates.  Try to also hit the boss in the same swing.
* Use the fast weapon to chain-hit the boss when there's nothing else to do.

2.7 Rahab

* An annoying boss.
* Learn where to rest in the spacing between the shards of ice.  In particular, your hitbox is slightly smaller than your sprite such some part of the back of your sprite is not your hitbox.
* You have very few chances to hit this, and you need range, so a swing weapon is probably best.  Patience is also pretty useful.
* Watch out for the possibility of getting hit by it while it's still underwater.  Sometimes it can swim up pretty high.

2.8 Gergoth

* You need a swing weapon to dispel the clouds of petrifying and poison gas.  With a punch/knife weapon, you can score lots of quick hits on it when you're at close range, though.  So be ready to switch between them.
* When Gergoth jumps, you almost always want to slide under it.
* You're going to be spending a lot of time in this battle ducking.  With a swing weapon you may be able to hit Gergoth with the right timing.
* When Gergoth prepares to laser, go right up next to its foot, switch to a punch/knife weapon (the Cutall should be available to you now), and wail on that leg like there's no tomorrow.  (If you're good you can even learn a rhythm to make your hits go faster.)
* When Gergoth sucks in preparation for a bite, try to either stay away or (if you can't) get in the same position as for the laser.  Just before the bite, you can move freely for a moment.
* During the free-fall, you can score some free hits, but count the number of floors you fall through.  After about six floors, get away, lest his head basically smash right through you on its way to crashing into the floor.
* Similarly, after it crashes, limit your number of "free hits" so its head doesn't rear right into you.
* Gergoth's speed rises dramatically after it loses its leg braces, but its tactics stay the same as before.

2.9 Zephyr

* Actually surprisingly easy as long as you're not too aggressive.
* When he charges up in preparation for a time-stop attack, don't attack him, or he will stop time and counterattack you instead.  Wait until he spends his time-stop before attacking him.
* If he dives at you, he'll also throw a dagger at you, but at another angle.  Dash away from where he'll land and you'll avoid both.
* If he charges at you, double-jump away from him.
* If he jumps into a wall, he'll bounce off of it.
* A weapon with some range is recommended so as to give you fair warning before he charges, but otherwise he's actually pretty slow and leaves himself pretty open to taking hits.

2.10 Bat Company

* A surprisingly difficult boss.  You thought this boss was lame, didn't you? Get ready to be humiliated by the Bat Company.
* The different forms have certain triggers, which I haven't worked out, but I think it has to do with what its previous form was (never the same form twice in a row, for example) and its position especially relative to you.  If you fight it a lot of times, you'll start to be able to foresee what form it'll take, somehow.  I know this happened to me and I'm not even sure how it did.
* Stay on the side of it that gives you more space.
* In order to minimize damage, you pretty much HAVE to use the jump-kick.  Do not diagonal jump-kick into the Bat form.  Only use the vertical jump-kick, preferably onto its head.
* The Hand form's grab radius is surprisingly large.  Get grabbed and that's two hits on you.  Thankfully, you can generally diagonal-jump-kick onto the back of the hand.
* I suggest a swing weapon, maybe alternating with a heavy weapon (which does more damage) once you learn the timing.
* It's easy to hit the bat form because its hitbox is large, but its large hitbox plus the cramped boss arena means you will have to move quickly to get away from it too.  With some practice, you'll learn how to control where it goes next, because it tries to follow you and picks your position at a certain point in time.  Using the jump-kick off its head, you can cause it to go up, giving you a chance to swing at it before it moves back down.
* Don't get greedy with trying to hit it.  Play it safe.
* The back of the Hand form and the wrist can't be hit.  The Hand form's hitbox is the middle and front of the hand.
* The Moai form generates rings that you can dispel with weapon hits.  It also always moves downward away from you toward the side of the room, then moves up once and down once.  If you're close enough to the Moai form, and/or if you're lucky/skillful you can hit it a few times, but if you're too far away, just focus on dispelling the rings.  The rings can mutli-hit you because of how slow they are.

2.11 Paranoia

Your level should be about 21 when you get to Paranoia.

There's no save room near Paranoia, but I suggest saving in the save point off the bottom of the three Demon Guest House Big Rooms.  Coming out of that room, if you double-jump and bat-morph quickly enough, you can narrowly but consistently avoid getting hit by the incoming Ghost Dancer.

Lesser Paranoia:

* Spear weapon recommended.  You might be able to hit him without him attempting to hit you.
* It's much easier to deal with Lesser Paranoia outside the mirror, with his weak stab, than his lasers (which deal far more damage), so you want to maximize the time he stays outside.
* Whenever he comes out of the mirror, he'll move toward the side of the room you're in.  If you attack him then jump, your being in the air when he attacks will trigger him to go back into the mirror.  So, instead, jump over him, and then attack him as he moves toward you.  Rinse and repeat and you should be able to get several hits in before he tries to laser you again.
* WARNING: DO NOT TOUCH THE LASER HAND.

Greater Paranoia:

* Far more obnoxious than its smaller counterpart.
* Swing weapon or heavy weapon recommended.  You have few opportunities to hit him, and he flies around above you.
* Learn to read the path of the lasers quickly.  This will tell you how to dodge them.
* WARNING: DO NOT TOUCH THE LASER HAND.
* When he comes out of the mirror he has a short period of invincibility, which wears off once he reaches the side of the room.  Time your swing so that the end of your swing hits him.
* You should be able to get one or two hits on him before he tries to drill you.  When he tries to drill you, he'll telegraph it by exactly tailing your position.  Get the timing right (I do it by quickly alternating left and right for a moment) and walk away when he drills down, and swing at him then.  Rinse and repeat.
* Sometimes after drilling he may rise low.  Duck for a moment after he drills to avoid getting clipped by Greater Paranoia's feet.
* If you are ducking when he tries to tail you before drilling you, he may fly low, causing his feet to clip into your head if you try to move (sliding is really slow in this game).  So try not to duck unnecessarily.

2.12 Aguni

You should be about level 23 for this fight.

* Large but predictable.  Just give it a little range and don't get too aggressive.
* Most dangerous attack is its hand-smacks.  Don't make too many attacks when you think it's safe -- especially after it lands, or after it finishes spitting fire; the hand-smacks can happen with little warning.  They're easy to avoid -- just walk away from them -- but you have to actually try to avoid them.
* Duck to avoid getting clipped when it moves from side to side (what I call the low flyover).  It can do this up to three times in a row.
* A swing weapon is advised, as it has the vertical range to hit Aguni even while you're ducking (when it does its low flyover), and also has decent horizontal range.
* When it stops attacking, pause so you can read its next move, before choosing your next response.

2.13 Death

Your level should be 25, which means that all hits deal over 100 damage to you, except sickles which deal 45.

* Always stay to the side of the room with more space.  Watch that central pillar carefully.
* You have to fight him very carefully because he deals impressive amounts of damage.

Death's first form - large and unpredictable movements:
* Two-swipe: it'll head towards you.  Keep running away from the first swipe; dodge the second.  Then, if you're on the short side of the room relative to Death, use Puppet Master to get behind him -- you have a moment when he's still facing you where his hitbox doesn't re-form yet and you can actually jump right into his scythe.
* Don't use Puppet Master to avoid him if he's decided on a direction to swipe you from.  If you do, he will back up right through you just to be able to swipe at you.
* If he's on the ground, don't jump to attack him in his neutral pose, because your head will hit his hand.
* Use a straight sword to fight him.  Won't deal too much damage but it's a reasonably quick attack that has range.  Keep a swing sword handy to dispel the sickles that form when his scythe explodes.
* Always stay on the side of the room that has more space.  Don't let him push you into a corner.
* When he doesn't have his scythe, jump diagonally toward him to attack him.  When the sparkles start forming, keep doing this and then a moment later move toward him so you can just jump and hit him without further movement.  This will allow you to dodge his magical three-chop and also allow you to keep hitting him.

Death's second form:
* When he disappears and then reappears behind you, always move away from where he was, and double-jump almost immediately when he appears to avoid getting hit.  (Don't jump too early though, or he'll be too high for you to avoid him!)
* To avoid being chomped by the giant skulls, either walk away from the direction of the incoming skull (which will be dictated by side he shot the skull to).  It's always four skulls, alternating directions each time.  Alternatively, Bat Company to fly above them.  The skull blasts coming out of his hands won't hit you even as they fly through you.
* Always stay to the side of the room that has more space.  Once you see him move his scythe to the center of his body, move away from him to a far corner of the room, in order to avoid the spinning scythe.  Three sickles with weak homing capability will appear; they deal less damage than other things in this battle (but don't let them throw you into the path of the spinning scythe).  Do your best to avoid the three randomly-appearing sickles.
* DON'T SCREW UP THE SEAL.  Yes, I did this.  And it even cost me the victory.  Twice.

2.14 Abaddon

You should be level 27, with 432 HP.  Each hit deals 48 (per locust, often multi-hit) or 74 (touching him).

To properly deal with Abaddon you need to process not only the pattern Abaddon specifies in his conductor-like strokes, but also where you are relative to him.  This is because the patterns he generates depend on the way he is facing, and your strategy to avoid them depends on whether you're in front of or behind him.  It's better to be behind him, but sometimes you don't have a choice.

Using a straight-sword to fight him does decent damage and also can hit him when you're kneeling a couple paces behind him.

When you're behind him:
* Inverted L: hug the wall behind him.  Doesn't matter whether you crouch or not, but you have to be on the wall.
* Horizontal U: Make a full single jump (don't double-jump) and activate Bat Company.  Do not unmorph in mid air, but move downward after the stream of locusts has finished entering.  If you unmorph before moving down, you will get a locust to the head.
* Line: Crouch near the wall behind him.  You have a bit of positioning leeway on this one but you must crouch.
* Vertical U: hug the wall behind him and crouch.

When you're in front of him:
* Inverted L: Difficult to avoid getting hit.  Double-jump to the top of the room and and throw a puppet.  Requires good timing.  Hopefully he doesn't jump into the spot where your puppet is.  This is the big reason why to stay behind him.
* Horizontal U: Activate Gergoth's laser.  Remember that it takes a moment to activate.  About five hits should take care of all the locusts.
* Line: Activate Gergoth's laser.  Remember that it takes a moment to activate.  About one hit should take care of all the locusts in the lowest row.  Alternatively, jump, activate Bat Company, and fly downward; toward him if possible.  Get out of bat form in time to move out of the way in case he wants to jump on you.
* Vertical U: Double-jump to the top of the center of the room and switch to activate Bat Company.  If Abaddon is in the center of the room too, you can instead jumpkick him vertically.  Ducking in the corner in front of him can help but you may still get hit.

When repositioning yourself, move quickly.  If he turns around and then you jump-kick behind him and then he does a horizontal U, you're pretty screwed.

Trivia: Gergoth's laser is actually useful for something, it turns out.

2.15 Menace

Your level should be 29, you should have 456 HP and 304 MP.

Menace's first form:
Easy as pie.  Standing beneath the right and jumping on a diagonal is recommended, so as to lure the boss to attack the outer parts.  Unfortunately you have to get through this tedium (3000 HP) to get to the second form.

Menace's second form:
Unlike the first form, this form is patently unfair at a low level with no recovery items.   It feels more like a difficult-but-fair fight if MP recovery is available.   Lemme explain why.

First, let's go over how much damage you can take.  You can take basically three hits (or "mistakes" as I started calling them).  Four hits and you're dead, as everything hits you for like 126 damage, assuming you're wearing Olrox's Suit and Satan's Ring.  Chompers (see below) and contact damage with Menace's body do the same amount of damage, I think -- or, at least, it's not different enough to be noteworthy.

Even worse, stuff hitting you in mid-air will knock you back very, far away, necessitating that you jump back up if you want to hit its head.  It's possible to jump between mid-air platforms with a single jump (reserving your double-jump for dodging attacks), but a double-jump is required to get up to the bottom platform.

Anyway, you need to defeat the knee and the face (inside the mouth).

* The knee just takes damage anytime something hits it, while its positioning can make it difficult to hit without you also touching some part of Menace's body, such as its foot.
* The face snaps shut after each hit and only reopens after a couple seconds, preventing easy consecutive hits.  Both have 3000 HP each, I think.

I suggest the Fragarach straight-sword to give you some lateral range while retaining speed, which you'll need to hit things like the knee easily, but more importantly, to avoid being hit by the chompers (again see below).  You'll most likely be doing 27 damage per hit with your weapon, and 30 damage per hit with Abaddon's flies, so this means 100 to 112 hits total to both parts.

Okay, "chompers".  These are easily the most annoying thing in this battle.  The boss spawns "chompers", or whatever you want to call those little pods that try to rush you (I got a friend who calls them "wallets" since the teeth look like zippers).  They self-destruct on you when they hit you.  They also each have 200 HP, which makes them very durable since you'll most likely be doing 30 damage to them per hit with the Fragarach, and 38 damage per hit with Abaddon, so this means they take 6 to 7 hits to dispatch.  Chompers can easily rush at you from what seems like offscreen, and they spawn randomly, and there can be some 4 of these on screen at once.  You can try to use a swing sword against them but that's slow and they are especially dangerous when desynched.  Meanwhile they deal contact damage so I don't recommend the close range of fists or knives, so this is why I use the straight sword Fragarach in this battle.  But this means that you're less effective at using weapon attacks against these relatively small targets.

Your best bet is to use Abaddon to help deal with chompers -- every time you see one spawned, throw an Abaddon and it'll deal usually 4 or 5 hits to each chomper.  Abaddon will likely also hit the face once or twice in the process, and the knee a few times in the process.  And you pretty much need Abaddon to do "crowd control" anytime more than one chomper has spawned.  Note that how many hits Abaddon deals to a chomper can vary, and sometimes if you're unlucky it might hit only once or not even at all, but generally you'll get a few hits in -- so be prepared to clean up using another Abaddon or hitting it with your weapon.  If you've only got one chomper on screen, and Menace is offscreen, you can try conserving MP by just attacking it with your weapon (which also allows your MP gauge to refill).

Since you're using Abaddon to crowd control, and Menace can easily spawn enough chompers to have four on screen at once at multiple times during the battle, and considering Menace's very high HP amounts, you are pretty much guaranteed to run out of MP, as Abaddon takes 45 MP per use.  At this point, you can either choose to use MP recovery items, which is what I decided to do after attempting Menace without MP recovery items an insane number of times, or you can jump around the arena and dodge chompers until your MP recovers.  If you're going to try the latter method, all I can say is, good luck, and let me know if you succeed.  Preferably, record yourself; I'd be quite impressed to see how you did it.  Meanwhile, I've been able to do this fight with using 3x High Mind Ups, 1x Mind Up, and finally 1x Mana Prism but having about half my MP bar left over when the fight finished.

Menace itself tries to attack you in a few different ways.  First, it moves around, lumbering slowly, but it is very large, and every bit of it will do contact damage to you.  Then it has two different punches, one an uppercut and one a straight punch.  The straight punch, when it retreats, hits one platform level downward.  You'll need to know the signs and timings of these two punches very very well to maximize your damage output against the face.  If you're on a lower platform or on the ground, Menace will also try to stomp you with its right leg (the vulnerable knee is on its left leg).  If Menace has cornered you on the left side of the screen while you're on a middle platform and it tries to stomp you, this counts as at least two "mistakes" -- in other words, you are guaranteed to get hit at least twice, so be prepared to drop down and run/slide underneath Menace's foot if you see yourself being cornered.

As for a strategy, I recommend starting this second form by jumping diagonally to attack Menace's knee three times, then (if you're allowing MP recovery) throwing an Abaddon at the knee while you walk away and start climbing the platforms.  You'll be fighting the face first, because fighting the face and chompers using Abaddon means that the knee takes some free hits.  Try to take potshots at the face with your weapon whenever you can (i.e.  when there are no chompers), while using Abaddon whenever (A) there is a chomper near Menace so you can hit the chomper and also hit one or both Menace parts at the same time (preferably casting Abaddon from a middle platform), or (B) there is more than one chomper on screen at once, in which case you need to do crowd control ASAP.

Try not to let chompers get on your left; if they do they are first priority.  In fact, chompers should be first priority anytime -- whenever there's a chomper on screen, even if Menace is an available target, and even if the chomper is taking hits from Abaddon, attack the chomper anyway, because Abaddon probably won't finish it.

Rinse and repeat until the face is destroyed, then do the same with the knee, which should fall much faster if you're using Abaddon, and still mildly faster than dealing with the face even if you're not using Abaddon.  Chompers will keep coming, but at least you won't have to deal with platforms too.

So, basically...
* with MP recovery items, this fight is about being appropriately conscious of your surroundings and doing crowd control when necessary to reduce the number of chompers hounding you to a manageable number (i.e.  zero) while taking what potshots you can make on Menace itself, and being able to do this consistently for several minutes.
* without MP recovery items...well it's largely the same except you can't do crowd control as effectively so you will have to dodge and weave around multiple chompers.  I hope you're good at that.  I don't actually know whether it's possible, and chompers DO follow a certain pattern, so it probably is possible, though it's difficult to make them do what I want them to, especially since they're so often desynched and any weapon swing involves Soma doing a thing that can't be interrupted easily for that moment in time.  If you can master fighting Menace with fist or knife weapons, and are quick with your reflexes, you may be able to accomplish this.

3.  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND CONCLUSION

Thanks to Konami for making this excellent game.  And for the rest of the Castlevania series, too, with all the excellent gameplay and music that it contains.

Thanks to a friend named Blinge for motivating me to get this finished.  I put down the game for a whole year after attempting numerous times to defeat Menace without items and failing miserably (I got as far as breaking the face or the knee individually but not both together).  And this was two years after finishing my Enemy Grinding Guide without actually knowing how the Imp soul worked and then realizing what it did and needing to go back and revise it.  And that was six years after playing the game for the first time.

I hope you found this guide interesting and helpful.

And if you wanna try to beat Menace with no items at level 29, please, be my guest.