The Nest of Evil resembles both a coliseum and a black market fighting arena. Its portrait depicts an empty and dark hallway leading to nothingness, possibly representing the mystery of the level itself. This hidden and optional area acts as other challenge modes from other Castlevania titles in which the player goes through a series of rooms and does battle with increasingly tougher groups of monsters. The last challenge of every floor is an encounter with a boss that makes a guest appearance from previous games, although most of these come from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.
The music of this stage accelerates each time the player descends a floor.
How to unlock[]
To gain access to the Nest of Evil, there are a number of requirements the player must first satisfy:
Have at least one free "quest slot": The player is only allowed to be working on five quests maximum at a time. If there are no free "quest slots" available, even if they have already completed 13th Street, the quest won't be able to be selected. The player must then complete any of the other currently accepted quests to free a slot; however, if there still are any other quests stacked in queue before "The Nest of Evil", the player must keep completing them until it finally becomes available.
Have at least 888% map exploration rate: Having a 100% map exploration rate in all of the castle's paintings still won't be enough to open the entrance to the Nest of Evil. What the player must do at this point is to explore most areas within Dracula's Castle (Entrance, Buried Chamber, Great Stairway, Tower of Death and Master's Keep). In a normal playthrough, it is likely that the area comprised between the Entrance and the Nation of Fools will still remain unexplored when the quest first becomes available, so that's a good place to start. If this is still not enough, then the player should check all of the maps in the menu and look for those stages which still have areas unexplored.
Find the entrance: The quest only states that "the path to the "Nest of Evil" will open at the castle gates". This should be a hint to know where to look for the entrance to this area. If the player checks their map, they will notice a new small gap appearing on the floor of one of the rooms at the Entrance. This passageway can be found below the castle's drawbridge (in the same room where the Change and Call Cubes were found at the beginning of the game).
Room count[]
There are a total of 64 rooms in the Nest of Evil. Each division of this area consists of a floor with three challenge rooms, followed by a vertical "breather" room without enemies on the left side of the map that leads to the floor below, which likewise consists of two more challenge rooms and a boss room at the end. After the boss room there is another vertical "breather" room on the right side of the map with a Warp Point in the middle which precedes the next set of challenges, then the same layout repeats. There are also two Save Points in this area, one at the beginning and one near the end, just before the Doppelganger's boss room. During their descent, after having completed each division, the player can use the respective Warp Point to warp back to the Save Point at the top of this area to heal up, save their progress, and even return to the main castle to restock on supplies.
The most devastating Dual Crush in the game, Greatest Five, is located inside the final room following the defeat of the Doppelganger. Additionally, most of the lair masters may drop rare or exclusive items when defeated.
The Eastern Cemetery in the 2004 Game Boy Advance game Shaman King: Master of Spirits, also by Konami, has a similar design to the Nest of Evil, with the latter apparently being a reused asset rather than a nod to that game. In addition, many enemies and the overall structure of some levels in that game seem to be inspired by the Castlevania series, especially the spirit equipment system being similar with that of Tactical Souls.
