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*Getsu no Fuma -- The non-CastleVania, CastleVania game that came between CastleVania and CastleVania 2 - Simon's Quest.

Characters

While Castlevania: Harmony of Despair can be played with up to six players at a time, there are only five playable characters available without any downloadable characters installed. Multiple players can pick the same character, where they pick from up to eight different palette swaps of these characters. Each character has their own unique special abilities, taken from their respective appearances, such as Alucard's mist form and Shanoa's glyph magic. Some items and weapons can only be equipped on certain characters. More characters have been released as downloadable content. However, characters using downloadable characters you do not own have the sprites of the Axe Armor instead.

Soma Cruz The protagonist of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Soma can equip a wide range of weapons and armor, including a pistol and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and can (at random) absorb souls from defeated enemies to use as special abilities. There are three types of souls Soma can use: Enchant (which provides passive benefits such as stat boosts, immunity to status ailments, and the ability to spot hidden breakable walls), Guardian (which Soma can summon to aid him, such as monsters, at the cost of draining MP), and Bullet (special spell/subweapon attacks that mimics the former owner of the soul). Finding duplicates of souls will increase the effectiveness of those souls. Soma can also use a special attack on certain weapons by using doing a quarter-circle-forward motion and then attacking. (Doing this will cost some MP.)

Alucard The protagonist of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Alucard is the only character who can equip shields and is one of the two characters at release who can purchase and use swords and other conventional weaponry. Alucard can only find spell scrolls as random loot (while starting off with Summon Spirit), and finding duplicates of spells will increase the power of those spells. Alucard also has the ability to temporarily transform into his mist form to dodge enemy attacks. Like Soma, Alucard can use a special attack on certain weapons using the quarter-circle-forward command.

Jonathan Morris One of the two protagonists of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Jonathan is the only release character to utilize a whip (the Vampire Killer) and sub-weapons (making him ideal for fans of earlier Castlevania games). Jonathan begins with the knife subweapon, but can collect other classics, such as the axe, the cross, and holy water, as random loot. Each sub-weapon has a certain MP cost, and their power increases the more Jonathan uses them. As the sub-weapon levels improve, so does the power of Jonathan's whip. He can also learn Martial Arts scrolls, special techniques which require a certain joystick and button combination, as random loot.

Shanoa The protagonist of Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Shanoa utilizes glyph magic to absorb spells from certain enemies and the Magnes ability to reach areas on the map that other characters cannot access easily (by attaching herself to small circular magnets floating in mid-air and launching from them like a bow). By holding up on the joystick whenever a certain enemy (ghost witches and nova skeletons) produces a glyph in the air, Shanoa would absorb it, which she can later use as spells. There are four elemental spells that Shanoa can absorb and, similar to Jonathan, using the spells increases her overall attack power with her main weapon glyph. She starts out with two Confodere rapier glyphs for weapons, and can later replace these with certain weapon glyphs found very rarely as loot, Lapiste and Pneuma.

Charlotte Aulin One of the two protagonists of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Charlotte can access a wide repertoire of offensive spells, such as fireballs, and defensive spells, such as healing. However, she only begins the game with Fireball, and must absorb enemies' magic attacks and certain projectiles with a magic shield to learn new spells and power up her existing ones. Charlotte is the only character who can heal allies around her, making her an optimal choice for a support character. Powering up Charlotte's spells (by absorbing the same spell multiple times) will also increase the power and range of her main weapon, which is initially pretty weak. Charlotte is the only character that cannot execute a jump kick from a double jump.

Julius Belmont A supporting character in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Julius is a downloadable character that was released on November 24, 2010 for 240 msp ($3). Like Jonathan and Richter, Julius also uses the Vampire Killer whip as well as martial arts and various sub-weapons. Despite his limited array of sub-weapons (only six) and martial arts (only two), Julius uses an enhanced version of the whip. He can swing it in one of eight directions (similar to Simon Belmont in Super Castlevania IV) and can swing from Magnes glyph points (previously reserved only for Shanoa).

Yoko Belnades A supporting character in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Yoko is a downloadable character that was released on November 24, 2010 for 240 msp ($3). Along with the Belnades Staff (which levels up the more spell scrolls she finds), Yoko uses three spells: Holy Flame (a powerful close-range fire spell), Holy Lightning (in which she throws out five enemy-seeking orbs of lightning), and Blue Splash (in which she surrounds herself with blades of ice). She starts with all three in her repertoire, and levels them up by finding duplicate spell scrolls.

Richter Belmont The protagonist of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and supporting character in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Richter is a downloadable character that was released on November 24, 2010 for 240 msp ($3). Like Jonathan and Julius, Richter also uses the Vampire Killer whip (although he is restricted in the number of directions he can attack with it), as well as various sub-weapons (which level up both the weapon and the whip by damaging enemies) and martial arts. Like Julius, he only has access to six sub-weapons (Knife, Axe, Holy Water, Cross, Ricochet Rock, and Bible). Despite not having full functionality of the whip and sub-weapons, Richter utilizes a variety of martial arts, making him more versatile in close-quarters combat and movement.

Maria Renard A supporting character in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Maria is a downloadable character that was released on November 24, 2010 for 240 msp ($3). She maintains her youthful appearance from Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and uses her various animal helpers as weapons.

Simon Belmont The protagonist of Castlevania (and its many iterations) and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Simon is a downloadable character that was released on January 26th, 2011 for 160 msp ($2). Unlike the other characters (with the exception of Getsu Fuuma), Simon is rendered in 8-bit form, no matter what level is being played. Like Jonathan and the Belmonts, he wields his version of the Vampire Killer whip, and uses subweapons (the same subweapon set as Julius and Richter). He cannot twirl his whip in any direction and can only whip left and right, but he is slightly quicker with it than the others. The sprites used for the whip change as Simon levels up. With a quarter-circle-forward motion, he can launch a fireball, a reference to Christopher Belmont.

Getsu Fuma The protagonist of Getsu Fūma Den. Like Simon, he appears as an 8-bit sprite. He is a downloadable character that was released on February 2nd, 2011 for 160 msp ($2). His basic sword attack emits a wave of energy that levels up along with Fuma's subweapons and a spin attack when he double jumps. Additionally, his Up command taunt (as seen in his portrait) can do a small amount of damage. Fuma has has access to three subweapons: the War Drum, the Throwing Stars, and the Hexplosives.

So this game is like a Castlevania love fest and not just some strange online game cut and pasted from GBA games. Thanks Leo now I really feel bad about not being able to play it.

HOLY CRAP WAS THAT AWESOME!

I just tried out The "Origins" stage with Shanoa. This is basically the CastleVania (One) Stage.

I thought to myself: "These little 8-bit critters have NO CHANCE against Shanoa!"

They officially RIPPED her a new butt-hole!

Imagine the flowing, fluidly-animated Shanoa versus the 2-frames of animation, Panthers and Ghouls of the opening corridor of CastleVania...

Seems like the less animation they have, the faster they are!

Those speedy little suckers killed her faster than a Boomerang to a Bat!

Seeing those familiar corridors, with the statues and the orange brick walls and platforms, seeing the ghouls pop up in the same places they always did, then encountering the first Boss of the game, the Giant Bat...

Wow! SUCH. MEMORIES!!