Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

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The second Castlevania game for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, released in 2005.

This installment takes place three years after Dracula's defeat at the hand of Trevor and his comrades. In Dracula's final breath, he cast a curse that ravaged the European countryside, spreading disease, mob violence, and heresy in its wake. During this time, Hector, a former henchman of Dracula's, seeks revenge against his former compatriot Isaac for the death of his fiancée Rosaly.

Gameplay-wise, it retains a similar design aesthetic to its immediate predecessor, with two important wrinkles: there's a lot of Item Crafting, and you can also forge your own Mons to follow you around and fight enemies. These "Innocent Devils" will evolve into new forms depending on what types of weapons you use, so there's a lot of different things to try.

Tropes used in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness include:

• A Load of Bull: One of the level bosses is a minotaur.
• An Axe to Grind: both two handed and one handed, although the latter tends to be more like Carry a Big Stick.
• An Ice Person: The Indigo can spit icicles and freeze foes with his Breath Weapon. Also, some Mage-Type Innocent Devils can do Ice-based spells
• An Interior Designer Is You: You can find chairs which you use to decorate a room.
• Anachronism Stew: Seriously, how Japanese Weapons, Sweatshirts, bombs, Ramen noodles, Pizza, miniguns, and a Laser Blade were avaible in the 15th Century Valachia? Unless Rule of Cool is invoked...
• Big Bad Friend
• BFS: the Dragonslayer sword takes the Cake. Not only it's really long, but is even broader than Hector Himself!!.
• The Blacksmith: Hector and Isaac are Devil Forgemasters, and can create both minions and weapons.
• Blade on a Stick: One of the five weapon classes. Also Isaac's Weapon of Choice.
• Blow You Away: using the above-mentioned spear class weapons, you can create a small tornado, which causes multiple Wind damage. Really useful against the Minotaur Boss.
• Bonus Boss: Legion and Nuculais.
• Bonus Feature Failure: Unlike in all other games, where you at least have the option of using bonus characters and items in a new game, here the item you get from beating the stupidly difficult and tedious Crazy mode isn't even useable in any other difficulty level, even though it does the exact same thing the one in Lament Of Innocence does.
• Cast from Hit Points: Your Innocent Devils essentially do this, as their health meter consists of Hearts instead of having Hearts and health in separate meters like most Castlevania games, and both casting and getting hit by an enemy will deplete their Hearts.
• Cool Sword: many, including Royal Rapier, Katanas Are Just Better, BFS, and even a Laser Blade!!
• Copy and Paste Environments: Not quite as bad as Lament of Innocence, but still noticeable.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The actions in Curse of Darkness are similar to Lament of Innocence (the previous Castlevania for the PlayStation 2), but the controls were moved to different buttons. Block went from R2 to R1, hard attack went from triangle to circle (and vice versa) and open door went from square to circle.
• Defector From Decadence
• Depraved Homosexual: Isaac via subtext. His behavior towards Hector seems more like a jilted lover than a betrayed comrade, and his confrontation with Trevor has some very rape-like undertones.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: the "Dragons" rode by the Skeleton Knights/Troopers are basically small, Fire-Breathing T-Rexes.
• Dishing Out Dirt: like the spear example, you can unleash earth-based attacks with the two-handed Axe Type weapons.
• Expy: Hector is similar in appearance, weapon skills, and his usage of familiars to Alucard.
• Flaming Sword: actually a Flaming Spear. For some reason, it bursts to flame when using finishing moves.
• Glass Cannon: The Rasetsu and Cadaver aren't really resilient against damage, but they can rip your enemy a new one with their swords and vicious attacks.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Trevor has Good Scars.
• Guide Dang It: Weapon forging, innocent devil raising, drops (Which you need for the forging), and steals, there's a lot of stuff that you'll be looking up if you want 100%.
• Headless Horseman: the Dullahan, minus Horse. He's still pretty Badass.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: St. Germain, if you consider him a villain.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Hector. In addition to objecting to Dracula's war on humanity, the other reason Hector leaves is to try and lead a normal life.
• Improbable Weapon User: A bat? A little weird considering the time period, but otherwise fine. A spiked shield? Not exactly conventional but you could see how that would hurt. Using an electric guitar, in the 15th century, to destroy the living dead through the Power of Rock? Now that's just silly.
  • Of course, this is discounting the minigun......Did we mention this game is in medieval times?
  • The minigun at least has the Hand Wave that the key ingredient must be taken from St. Germaine who is a time traveler. Still doesn't explain the infinite ammo, though.
  • While it isn't a weapon you wield, the Ironside ID has a machine gun built into its arm, and it just requires you to beat up many enemies with Ironside to obtain, unlike the minigun example above.
• Infinity+1 Sword: The Death Scythe; the list of ingredients needed to create this weapon is just as absurd as its damage output. This include many extremely rare ingredients (to create other weapons needed for this weapon), a few one-per-playthrough items, and one particular item that has a specifically staged half-a-second opportunity to steal from the penultimate Boss. The sheer difficulty and patience needed to achieve this is not even funny.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Despite the Gothic Horror-like settings, there's a huge Wyvern residing on the top of Bahljet Mountains. Also one of the possible final evolution of the Bird Type I.D., specifically the Carmesi and Indigo.
• Invincible Minor Minion: In addition to the traditional Red Skeletons, there's one that works for the player: the Fairy type of Innocent Devil. They can't be hit by enemies, but they can't attack enemies themselves; they're meant for healing Hector and opening certain locked chests.
• Item Crafting: Hector can create weapons and Innocent Devils from the materials found throughout the game.
• Joke Weapon: LOTS! The mentioned infinite-ammo minigun and electric guitar are only a few compared to a deck brush (a spear type weapon), a frying pan (mace type weapon), unlimited shurikens, a whip shaped light-saber, the Death's Scythe (to a certain extent, due to its absurd damage and difficulty to create), and many, many more...
  • Go on, try to whack your opponents to death with the Piko Piko hammer.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Happens when Trevor Belmont mistakes Hector for Isaac.
• Lightning Bruiser: Corpsey, Rasetz, Indigo, and Crimson are fast, durable, and strong
• Light Is Not Good: Legion's second form, the game's Bonus Boss, is one of few monsters in the game that's light elemental.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Julia turns out to be Isaac's sister.
• Mighty Glacier: the Mercury Golem and Ironclad Innocent Devils are like this. Slow yet very durable.
• Mons: The Innocent Devils are a cross between this, Summon Magic, and Attack Animal. Hector "forges" them to fight alongside him in combat (and presumably did the same for Dracula when he worked for the Count). You can have one out at a time and they will evolve into different forms depending on what weapons you are using.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sarcastically lampshaded by Isaac.
• Old Save Bonus: If you have a save file from Lament Of Innocence present on your memory card, a Moai Head spawns near where you start the game: it can either heal you for 573 HP or be sold for ten times as much gold.
• Possession Equals Mastery
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Isaac and Hector again. Isaac, the red-haired villain, is shown to be crazed and passionate, whereas Hector is more calm, logical, and collected.
• Replacement Love Interest: Julia.
• Restart At Level One: Justified. Hector abandoned all of his powers and equipment to live a normal life, but when Isaac ruined it, he came after him for revenge with the only weapon he had on hand. Isaac taunts him for trying to do it With This Herring, and then sets up means for Hector to regain his powers so it'll be worth it when they fight.
• Sdrawkcab Name: Zead. Sorta.
• Secret Character: Trevor Belmont is playable after beating the game.
• Sissy Villain: Isaac, until you fight him.
• Stuffed Into the Fridge: Isaac gets Hector's wife Rosaly accused of witchcraft and manipulates the trial to ensure her conviction. She's burned at the stake and Hector vows revenge.
• Technicolor Toxin: When poisoned, Hector will turn green and emit green bubbles. However, at least one poisonous attack is a purple liquid spit.
• Time Master: The mysterious St. Germain, who gives vague advice to Hector and throws insults at Zead. Some of his ability is showcased during his boss fight, but it's stated that he is not permitted to use his full potential in most instances.
  • This is also one of the primary features of the Mage-type Innocent Devils.
• Treacherous Advisor
• Underwater Boss Battle: Type II against the Skeleton Diver. It's also a Dual Boss
• Unwitting Pawn
• What Happened to the Mouse?: When Isaac attacks and nearly kills a weakened Trevor, Julia mentions she found him and patched him up, but after that, he disappears for the entire rest of the game, even the ending.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Hector.
• The Worf Effect: Sort of: Isaac's Innocent Devil, Abel, is supposed to be one of the strongest Innocent Devils. Yet, in one cutscene, Hector sends him flying with a single punch, and later Trevor Belmont got rid of him with a well aimed dagger. May also be Cutscene Incompetence of Abel's part.
• Xanatos Gambit: Dracula via Isaac runs one through the game.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness Death's victory quote and general attitude.