< Castlevania

Castlevania/YMMV


What a terrible night to list tropes specific to this series:

  • Angst? What Angst?: Should Richter fail to rescue Annette, she is possessed by dark forces, and transformed into a succubus. While Richter laments that he was unable to save his beloved, he notes that his job as a hunter of the night comes first. While this is maddeningly depressing, it should be noted that vampirism in this series seems to be irreversible without the Sanctuary spell (which may not have existed at the time), so Richter was probably doing Annette a favor. Luckily, this is not canon, as Richter needs to rescue all four of the girls in order to confront Shaft's ghost, thus eradicating the one barricade in his way to Dracula.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Lords of Shadow: either played straight or averted by the voice of Patrick Stewart, depending on which side of the fanbase you're on, it's either an awesome cherry on top or doesn't make up for a pile of genericness. The presence of Hideo Kojima is naturally even more divisive, producing either good or bad audience reactions.
  • Animation Age Ghetto: Castlevania producer Koji "IGA" Igarashi attempted to sway younger audiences to the series with simplistic anime-style artwork for Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin. IGA went back to Ayami Kojima for the box art of The Dracula X Chronicles, suggesting that the anime approach didn't go too well. Part of it was Iga wanting Kojima to focus on one project at a time, though he did go straight to the anime style, rather than someone who could at least emulate the theme, if not Kojima's style directly.
  • Awesome Music: Has its own page.
  • Broken Base: There are fans of the original set of games who dislike the 2-d maze castles, and younger fans who only know the IGA titles and dislike Lords of Shadow and the original games.
  • Cargo Ship: Hector with chairs. Lampshaded, of all things, by the Woodman's Chair instructing you to "sit carefully, or it may look rather rude".
  • Complete Monster: Actrise is easily the most repulsive villain in the entire franchise. She pledged her loyalty to Dracula by slaughtering 100 children, one of whom was her own daughter. When she fights Carrie, she outright states that she feels no remorse about it. As Carrie points out, Actrise is really just a pathetic individual trying to gain power.
    • Walter. For the Evulz doesn't even begin to describe how morally reprehensible his actions are. Most of the villains here are like saints compared to this guy.
    • Shaft.
    • In Lords of Shadow, we have Satan (duh), Carmilla, and Cornell, the latter two being one of the lords of shadow, so this kind of behaviour is standard for them.
  • Designated Villain: Characters who battle Golem open the battle with their quote reserved for villains and during its Story Mode, the BGM for the villains' story plays.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Death. He is generally considered harder than Dracula and is more popular among fans.
    • Many characters not related to the Belmont family tend to be more popular than the central characters. Soma, Shanoa, Maria, Grant, and especially Alucard get this a lot.
    • And from inside the Belmont family, we have Richter and Julius. Fans of the latter are quite miffed that there still isn't a game chronicling Julius' battle in 1999 that did away with Drac once and for all.
      • Sonia from Legends gets quite a bit of this too, mostly in regards to her being written out of canon and Iga's perceived sexism regarding the matter. However, she does have a good number of fans who do genuinely like her.
      • The same rule of popularity coming from being exiled from canon (initially) applies to Nathan and Circle of the Moon as well, but again, there are many who like Nathan and his game.
    • Golem (or more specifically, his characterization from Judgment) is probably the only thing fans agree to be unanimously likable about the game.
      • Well, him and Cornell from Legacy of Darkness. In a game where the Death Note-inspired artwork was heavily bashed, his Wolf Knight design got the least flak of them all (if any at all). Cornell already had a small, albeit devoted fanbase; his fans were glad to see him make a reappearance in Judgment, and many others were intrigued by this character from an oft-overlooked title.
    • Hammer from the Sorrow games gets some of this, mostly due to not being playable in Julius Mode. Many are hoping for Harmony of Despair to change this, especially since some sound files buried in the game came to light.
    • A few other of Dracula's followers have a bit of this going for them too, such as Carmilla and (most prominently) Slogra. Galamoth from Kid Dracula and SotN is pretty memorable too, but mostly due to his status as That One Boss in the latter.
    • Though not on par with Death or others, Joachim has quite a large fandom who wants to see him return.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Despite his tragic backstory, Joachim seems to be a bit more endearing to the fandom than he should be.
    • Isaac from Curse of Darkness gets this too.
  • Evil Is Sexy / Horny Devils: The various succubi, and the related liliths. There is official artwork of the succubus from Symphony of the Night with her nipples exposed, her sprite is bottomless, and a figurine of her with a piece of tape over her possibly-exposed boobs was shown at a NECA convention.
  • Epileptic Trees: It is commonly speculated that Maria convinced Alucard not to return to his eternal sleep after the events of Symphony of the Night. It is also thought that he stayed with her during her lifetime and fathered children, whose eventual descendant generations later would be Eric Lecarde. Konami has stayed silent about this possibility either way.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight/Harsher in Hindsight: The fact that Iga believed that Sonia and Alucard settling down in Legends and having a child believed to be Trevor from III would ruin the Belmonts' family history by making them descendants of Dracula could definitely be seen in a different light thanks to Order of Ecclesia.
  • First Installment Wins: Symphony of the Night is near-universally regarded as the best Metroidvania in the series, despite it having been released in 1997 and with many games following after that attempting to emulate its style.
  • Game Breaker: In almost all of the pre-Metroidvania games, every major enemy and every boss had the universal weakness of the Triple Boomerang Spam; that is, getting a Cross/Boomerang and a III icon, which lets you throw up to three at once.
    • Also the triple Holy Water spam in the Classicvania games, especially in the first. It can outright paralyze many bosses, including Death and Dracula's second form.
    • Symphony of the Night is loaded with many weapons and item setups that completely wreck game difficulty. The Alucard Shield and Shield Rod combo makes you invincible and gives you practically limitless ammunition. The Crissaegrim and Yasustsuna strike multiple times per attack, and allow you to move unimpeded while attacking. Let's not mention the Ring of Varda, which provides absolutely insane stat boosts.
    • In Portrait of Ruin, a bug enabled you to get quest rewards again and again, meaning you could sell them for potentially infinite gold. This coupled with the fact that the shop was right next to the quest reward guy, and that the shop sold the $30000 Holy Claymore, meant that you could get one of the most powerful weapons in the game before fighting the first boss.
    • Curse of Darkness. Bone Storm.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Koji Igarashi said the series is more popular in the US than in Japan, with Dracula X and Order of Ecclesia being released here first.
  • Goddamned Bats: and also Goddamned Medusa Heads. And Goddamned Tin Men, but only for Shanoa, since it wasn't that Goddamned for Alucard...
    • Goddamned Birds, too; the avian species in Castlevania, especially older titles, rival their Ninja Gaiden kin for being plain old pains in the ass... or wretched, mongrel, hateful freaking birdbrains, if you will. Just ask Deceased Crab...
    • Goddamned Flea Men. (They have Palette Swaps in Aria of Sorrow that are elevated to Demonic Spiders status, too.) Also, almost every enemy in Circle of the Moon is one of these, many of them bordering on Demonic Spiders.
    • Curse of Darkness is the only game in the series without Goddamned Bats.
    • Flea Men/Rippers on Crazy Mode. That is all.
  • Late Arrival Spoiler: It was all a plot to resurrect Dracula early. Now, which game am I talking about?
    • Soma is the reincarnation of Dracula. Dawn of Sorrow's box and intro cutscenes make no attempt to hide this.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Dracula. No doubt about it. Even if he's an Obviously Evil vampire lord who uses the power of darkness, he's quite charming and charismatic. His plans for his servants to resurrect him always work time after time, even if he's not at full power once it does. With his "As Long as There Is Evil" gig, this makes sense. He very often never loses his cool, and his aspiration to remake the world is motivated by his love for his two lost wives Elizabetha Cronqvist and Lisa. And what makes it even more magnificent is his affinities for patiently waiting for the heroes' arrivals as well as drinking wine glass and tossing it to the ground and breaking it before entering battle with them.
    • Mathias Cronqvist, his previous identity, can also count as one, since he pretends to be bedridden but is actually planning to become the immortal Dracula himself.
    • Celia Fortner of Dawn of Sorrow could very well count as well, seeing as though she's very affable plus she has all kinds of plans and tricks up her sleeve. Not to mention she's quite a Manipulative Bitch as well. Of course, she didn't count on Dmitrii using the Mina doppelganger she created to fool Soma to make a surprise comeback and later using her as a sacrifice to gain dominance over an extremely powerful demon found in the abyss.
    • Death, Dracula's Dragon and Battle Butler, certainly counts, as he comes up with all kinds of plans to revive his lord as his lord has planned. He even fooled Walter into thinking he controlled Death himself, and despite being a skeletal Grim Reaper-esque diety, he, like his master, is quite sophisticated.
  • Memetic Badass: An infamous Nintendo Power cover, created to promote Simon's Quest, depicts him holding Dracula's severed head. Coupled with the fact that he's the first Belmont and one of few to take on Dracula by himself, twice...
    • Richter's pimpin' stride is considered incredibly manly... even divine.
    • The only reason Julius climatic final battle against Dracula in 1999 hasn't been chronicled? It wouldn't do him any justice.
  • Memetic Mutation: Dracula's infamous "miserable little pile of secrets" line from the PSX version of Symphony of the Night.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Lament of Innocence fandom seems a bit too fond of Joachim Armster.
  • Misblamed: Heavily debated, but generally the accusations that IGA is sexist, mostly for removing Sonia and Castlevania Legends from continuity. Not helped by his clumsy explanation when interviewed by EGM and asked whether fans could expect a female protagonist at some point in the future:

IGA: "It's possible I guess. Although, I purposefully left the Sonia Belmont character (from Castlevania: Legends for GBC) out of the official Castlevania chronology. (laughs) Usually, the vampire storyline motifs, females tend to be sacrificed. It's easier to come up with weak, feminine characters. I'll think about it more in the future, though."

    • Many suspect Shanoa was an attempt to avert these claims once and for all.
    • It's true that his words above sound damning. But consider that even with Sonia out of the picture, there has been no shortage of strong female characters all throughout the series; Sypha, Maria, Carrie, Yoko, Charlotte, and of course Shanoa. And that doesn't even count the villainous examples, such as Carmilla. It's possible that IGA was just put on the spot during that interview and said some things that would later be taken out of context.
  • Most Annoying Sound: The death jingle in the "Classicvania" games. Get used to it.
  • Narm: Has its own page.
  • Narm Charm: Many of the above have caught on via Memetic Mutation.
  • Needs More Love: It's woefully uncommon for a Castlevania game to sell over a million units.
    • Cristopher and his son are easily the most obscure members of the family. Christopher did however, have a comic line attributed to him in 2005, Castlevania: The Belmont Legacy.
  • Older Than They Think: Carmilla, according to Judgment. The game's version of Sypha comes from before 1476, and while Dracula was alive back then, she does not know him and treats him like a generic vampire that needs to be vanquished. Meanwhile, she knows Carmilla by name and Carmilla knows enough about Sypha's life to taunt her about it. The logical conclusion is that Carmilla was doing her thing even before Lisa's death.
  • Scapegoat Creator: In certain fan circles (particularly the Castlevania Dungeon forums), Iga is blamed for almost everything that is wrong with series.
  • That One Boss: Death. Goddamned scythes...
  • That One Level: Mention the Clock Tower to any Castlevania player and they will fall on the floor crying in the fetal position.
  • Tough Act to Follow: Developers are trying to surpass Symphony of the Night.
  • Toy Ship: Carrie and Malus in Castlevania 64, Maria and Eric Lecarde in Judgment.
    • The latter gets very eye-crossing when one considers the WMG of Eric being a descendant of Maria and Alucard.
  • Ugly Cute: The Golem
  • Unfortunate Implications: Internet Backdraft occurs when one discusses the merit of Sonia's story and whether Iga was being sexist in removing her. His own words don't help. "Usually, the vampire storyline motifs, females tend to be sacrificed. It's easier to come up with weak, feminine characters. I'll think about it more in the future, though. It's tough to fit a female hero into the early history of Castlevania, but as you move into the modern day, females can then more easily become a hero."
  • The Woobie: Golem's own "Mama" finds the concept of it thinking for itself to be absurd. And even after Death affirms its sapience as close to achieving humanity, he tells it that it should be mindless. Given his strength, he potentially reaches Iron Woobie levels.
    • Gabriel.
    • Laura.
    • Dracula in several of the games is basically portrayed as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, considering the deaths of both his wives (first by suicide, the other by witch-burning). In the latter event, Dracula, upon learning of his wife's last wish from Alucard after being defeated by him, is implied to now feel remorse for his actions.
  • Woolseyism: The series is known as Akumajō Dracula ("Demon Castle Dracula") in Japan. Likewise, "Belmondo" was changed to "Belmont" in Western releases, "Ralph" to "Trevor," Kurusu Sōma the Japanese high school student to transfer student Soma Cruz, among other things.
    • The skull-kicking skeleton enemies were originally named "Soccer Boy," but the English translation gave them the much more amusing name of "Yorick."
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