Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child/Unholy Ground

Unholy Ground 1


As soon as the level starts, you will see a few Headless strolling around the graves. When you walk through the gates, Stumps and Gasbags will appear. Once in the graveyard, look at the crypt in front of you. It’s not hard to miss. There are two Elemental Tablets and a Health Bottle behind it.

Secret: You will find a plaque reading DISCO on one of the tombstones. Destroy it. Go to the crypt and pick up damage boost inside.

Secret: There’s a chapel with a wooden door which can be destroyed. Smash it and kill a Ballbuster inside. When you smash the stone carving in the chapel, another Ballbuster will appear behind you. Jump through the moving wall of flesh and pick up a Blood Rose. Be careful since each time you visit the niche where the Blood Rose is/was, a new group of knee-high monsters will appear.

Open the gates and go through them.

Secret: After opening the gates and making not more that two steps, look up. Use your Scourge on the branch to pick up a Rage Orb.

When you proceed forward to the second part of this level, gates behind you will close and an army of Headless will attack you. On top of that, an Arachniclown’s hysterical laughter will indicate that this foe is somewhere nearby.

The road leads under a bridge with big structures which look like stone teeth behind it. Slightly to the left of the bridge you will see a Spawner which will wake up as soon as you come close enough, so better get rid of it as quickly as possible. Also as soon as the Spawner awakens, another group of Headless will appear.

When you cross the bridge under it, stone teeth will fall down cutting off your escape. Some Headless will appear again. You will also have to fight a Ballbuster on a narrow bridge ahead and a Fat Lady which is right above you (and she will definitely start throwing her internal organs at you when you make a few steps ahead). But the real bad news are that you must avoid the space near the stone teeth since each time you go there, a new group of Headless will be spawned.

If you’re having trouble, try to get rid of the Ballbuster first before coming from under the bridge. Also don’t forget to crouch. After that you can just rush to the third part of this graveyard, with a few graves open. There you will meet much more enemies, but there’s also much more space to maneuver. The Fat Lady you’ve met before won’t chase you since she’s too fat for the narrow ledge to descend.

After you defeat the Fat Lady above and destroy her corpse, you can ascend and go through the passage behind her. There you will find an Air Tablet but the passage behind you will close forcing you to go under the big bridge again and thus fighting Headless again. It’s up to you to decide if you need air ammo that much.

The third part of the graveyard is quite dangerous. Once you go there, a lot of Headless will jump from the ground. Don’t fall into open graves since it’s a sure death. If you go to the far side of the graveyard, some Gasbags will spawn and another Fat Lady will spot and attack you. A small crypt holds some useful items to be picked up.

After you’re done here you might want to destroy the Fat Lady’s corpse to provide yourself with more space to maneuver. It’s needed to evade the Stumps that will charge at you from a Spawner around the corner once you come close enough.

The way through the gates leads to the pre-final part of this level. If the gates are closed, kill the Fat Lady. And again, once you walk in, the gates will shut close behind. Here are two Spawners (one on the first floor and another one above you), an Arachniclown, some Gasbags and a lot of minor enemies. And also a lack of space to maneuver.

When you deal with these enemies, go up the stairs and through the upper Spawner (destroy it to proceed) to a lever that opens the gates ahead. There’s also an Elder Plate. Nice!

Here’s a hint: When you’re low on health and the upper Spawner is destroyed, rush to the lever ignoring other enemies. Picking up the armor piece will increase your health to 200 making it easy to deal with what’s left of the foes.

The last part is the shortest and the easiest one. You will see two Spawners at the end of the corridor. If you’re quick and skilled enough, you can destroy them one by one without even letting them produce a single enemy.

Destroy the floor in the next room and jump down.

Unholy Ground 2


Pretty soon you will find yourself in old catacombs. There are no enemies yet, only giggles and laughter are heard. Creepy. Jump to the ground floor. You will hear more sounds but still see no enemies. There’s only one way: up the stone stairs to a dead end. Where to now? Maybe you missed something?

Go back to the previous hall, then back to a hall where the dead end... WAS. Now one of the walls has a hole in it and a Ballbuster is waiting to deal with you.

The next hall holds an Arachniclown, a Spawner and a lot of knee-high enemies. You have to deal with them since only after that the path will appear. You will see a cut scene where the path will be shown and new enemies will appear after that.

Secret: Use a grave in the hall. A niche nearby will open revealing an Angel Charm.

To begin with, two Fat Ladies will appear outside the hall you needed to clear. Due to their big frame they won’t be able to reach you if you stay in the hall. Smaller enemies shouldn’t be much of a trouble but the Spawner above will produce Gasbags. You saw him in the cut scene and he's hard to notice now.

When you leave the hall and follow the path, you will encounter an Arachniclown and two Spawners multiplying Stumps. If you haven’t used the Angel Charm from the secret above, now it’s time to pick it up.

After you deal with two Spawners turn to the right and you will hear Stumps’ barking. They are up above just like another Spawner which produces them. Scourge is a good weapon to destroy the Spawner through the wooden boards while staying out of Stumps’ reach.

Use the stone steps to get up but don’t step on the wooden boards. It will brake them and make a few Headless appear.

The only way forward now is through the breach in a wall behind a Rage Orb bonus. One Fat Lady is right to the right of the hole in the wall. Another one is waiting behind the wall across the first one. The third Fat Lady is waiting for you after the second one. This means, just running past them is not the wisest decision: they can surround you.

After you deal with them all, preferably one by one, your way is down. Better save your game. Jump down on the wooden planks across the pit. Now use your Scourge on either of two branches above to pull yourself out of the harm’s way. If you fall down to the quicksand (quickearth?) it’s a certain death since your Scourge won’t help you then. It’s possible to survive without the Scourge at all by performing a precise and quick jump.

Anyway, you’re back where you’ve been before but now a new path is open. Follow it. When near the stairs down, you will be assaulted by a Ballbuster from behind. Go down the first set of stairs and stop. Not only because there are two grinders which can easily turn you into a flat pancake but also because there’s a Fat Lady waiting for you. Better kill her from the safe spot.

Now you need to go through another similar trap and through wooded double doors. A Fat Lady and a Spawner will meet you there but they shouldn’t be much of a challenge.

And now the real trouble begins. Go to a grille blocking the level exit and back to the hall. Two walls will lower showing three Spawners to the left and a pair or Ballbusters and Fat Ladies to the right. Needles to say that the floor will be infested with a whole lot of small enemies like Headless and Stumps. Luckily, you can retreat through the grinder to the corridor. The Spirit Lance will prove itself to be a good tool here.

After you deal with this horde, the only thing you can do here is to proceed to the end of the level.

Unholy Ground 3


There’s a Health Bottle right above you which you might not want to miss since your health level might be quite low from the skirmish at the end of the previous level.

When you’re at the bottom of the set of stairs, a few Stumps will jump on you from ahead and two Gasbags will be spawned behind your back.

The next part of this level is divided into a few smaller sections. The first one contains a Unipsycho, the second one will produce some Headless once you walk up the stairs. It’s not the best way to retreat, better hide in the crypt nearby (with the 5 Health Vials one) and use the lid of a coffin there to activate a trap.

Now look at a stone fresco. When you try to proceed forward, the fresco will break apart revealing an Arachniclown. Gasbags nearby might also become a problem.

The most dangerous enemy in the next small area is a Unipsycho and it’s surrounded by a swarm of Headless. When you’re done, you can grab two Health Bottles behind the grille but once you open the way, a Spawner will awaken.

Proceed to the corridor. No matter if you turn left or right, you will find yourself in the open with a Ballbuster guarding an organ.

Secret: As you enter the corridor described above, turn right and use one of the coffins. A niche with the secret will open in the nearest wall.

The floor is lava – as soon as you touch it, a bunch of Headless will appear. Once you go up any stairs, try to keep yourself out of the ground.

The organ is your next destination. There are several spots you can reach it from. After playing it, a whole lot of knee-high foes will appear. Also a few Gasbags will attack you from above. At first you might want to deal with these creatures from the safe spot but the lowering ceiling will force you to leave the place near the organ unless you want to be crushed.

Now the door on the upper part of the level is smashed. A Fat Lady is waiting for you behind the door and you probably saw it in the previous cut scene. After her is a Spawner in a narrow corridor. Level design doesn’t provide you with enough space to maneuver, so be careful.

The vast hall after this corridor is the last part of this level. Once you appear there, two Ballbusters will assault you from behind. A few Gasbags will spit something green at you from a small window up above but they won’t be able to reach the hall.

When you descend to the floor, it will collapse making the hall look like the place where you started this level. Needless to say, a few Headless will also appear. Use the hook up above to return to now broken stairs. Since the door is broken, proceed to the outside of the building. Is that the same cathedral which was cleansed by the water avatar?

Unipsycho and maybe some Gasbags are ahead. Once you come closer to a carved grille, it will lower letting you forward. A Spawner is ahead. You don’t need a master’s degree to know that as soon as you approach it, it will wake up and start spawning enemies. A Ballbuster will attack you as well.

Pull the lever and proceed to the open where you will meet two Ballbusters and a whole lot of smaller foes. There you have to pull two levers in the cages opposite one another. Once you do it, the only thing you can do now is to use a mirror and finish the level.