The Graveyard Palace

Graveyard Statue

The Graveyard Palace is a step-up in difficulty from the previous two palaces.  The game now throws some interesting puzzles at you, traversing the dungeon is now interesting to say the least, our boss is a challenge to deal with and the enemies we have to contend with to reach him are a pain as well.  Slowly we gain the skill we need to easily traverse these palaces, but at first, we don't have that.

One would think that this palace, being in such close proximity to a graveyard, would have a graveyard theme to it.  But you don't have to deal with any ghosts (just the floating eye enemies) and your boss, I suppose, could be said to have this kind of a theme...the mounted rider (who later shows up as a sub-boss as well) is a royal pain.  A mounted iron-knuckle, unless you have maximized your statistics, he is an excellent defender and loves to counter your attacks, not to mention he shoots sword beams himself even when he isn't at full health (how is that fair, eh).

One way or another, this level forces us to be in this position really, which sets us up better for the rest of the game and lets the difficulty for the rest of the game fall off a bit.  With the exceptions being the Hidden Palace and Great Palace, the Graveyard Palace is one of the hardest palaces in the game.