Dracula's Castle

Dracula's Castle
Dracula's Castle in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Universe	Castlevania
Appears in	Ultimate
Availability	Starter
Crate type	Normal
Maximum players	8
Music Bolded tracks must be unlocked Ultimate Castlevania series music Main: Vampire Killer (Remix) Alternate: Divine Bloodlines
Tournament legality Ultimate Singles: Banned Doubles: Banned

“	On this stage, various characters from throughout the series will appear as guests and you can get items by breaking the candles. Including new and classic tunes, this stage has 34 total tracks to listen to!	”
—Super Smash Blog, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Official Site

Dracula's Castle (ドラキュラ城, Dracula Castle), also known as Castlevania, is a stage in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It is the home stage of Simon and Richter. They're both fought here in their unlock battles.

Stage overview

Dracula's Castle features two platforms to the left and right that move up and down. All the way to the right side is a set of stairs whose bottom half is broken off. Candles in the background can be destroyed, dropping items. Each end of the stage is surrounded by the darkness. Dracula's coffin appears in the background.

When hazards are turned off, the two platforms do not move and the candles never appear.

Background characters

During gameplay, various boss characters from Castlevania will make an appearance, including the Creature (also known as "Frankenstein's Monster", from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley) with Flea Man (also known as "Igor"), Mummy, Medusa, Werewolf, Carmilla (in her giant mask form from Simon's Quest), and Death. Each enemy has their own entrance based on how they appeared during the original boss battle (such as Werewolf leaping through a window). The silhouette of Kid Dracula from the Kid Dracula spin-off series appears occasionally. All these characters stay in the background, which means they don't interrupt the fight at all, even with stage hazards turned on.

When the moon disappears in the darkness and bats gather around Dracula's coffin, lightning will flash, revealing Dracula's shadow or Kid Dracula's shadow in the middle of a castle. Dracula himself appears as a boss in Adventure Mode: World of Light in a boss arena resembling Dracula's Castle, but with a flat and empty layout.

Ω form and Battlefield form

The Ω form and Battlefield form is set on a completely flat version of the normal form's main platform that is also resized and reshaped to match Final Destination and Battlefield, respectively. The stairs and candles are absent, and on the Battlefield form there are also three soft platforms that remain in place.

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  Ω form

• 

  Battlefield form

Origin

Simon fighting Dracula in the original Castlevania.

Throughout the Castlevania series, the top of Dracula's Castle is the endpoint of the protagonist's journey, where they fight the main antagonist Dracula. Dracula's Castle is always a large structure full of horrifying monsters and tortuous rooms; in the background is the clock tower, a recurring area in the Castlevania games. Candles are a common element in the Castlevania games and are broken to reveal whip upgrades, hearts, food, and items. Every time Dracula's Castle is destroyed, it magically rebuilds itself every hundred or so years, along with a reincarnation of Dracula.

This final area usually has the same structure: A long stairway leading to a short hallway, finally ending with Dracula's quarters. The Smash stage condenses this, making the staircase lead directly to Dracula's room. The broken staircase may be a reference to Symphony of the Night, where the staircase is broken into two pieces for most of the game.

Gallery

• 

  Lightning flashing on the stage, showing Dracula's shadow.

• 

  Medusa in the background.

Trivia

• It is possible that this iteration of Dracula’s Castle takes place in the present day, given the steps up to the room are broken in Order of Ecclesia, and are not repaired until Aria of Sorrow which takes place in 2035. The castle is still intact at that time, even with Dracula’s destruction.
• Areas of Dracula's Castle appear as various stages in Castlevania Judgment. This technically makes it one of six stages in the Super Smash Bros. series to be featured as a stage in other fighting games, the others being the Fountain of Dreams, Green Hill Zone, Pyrosphere, Suzaku Castle, and Midgar.
• Dracula's Castle is the only new third party stage to appear in Ultimate before DLC.
• Out of all the new stages, this is the most common stage in Classic Mode, and is fought on for more rounds than Great Plateau Tower.
  • Simon is the only character to travel to this stage more than once in his own Classic Mode route.
• Kaer Morhen was used as a stage in another crossover fighting game, specifically Soulcalibur VI, because Dettlaff, a villain who is encountered at that stage, was probably inspired by Gabriel Belmont, whose obsession to revive his wife Marie led him to being manipulated by Zobek, one the Lords of Shadow, into killing the other two, specifically Cornell and Carmilla who were leading the Lycans and Vampires, respectively, before becoming a member of the latter species after realising the truth, thus resembling Dettlaff's deception by Sylvia Anna, who lured the higher vampire into killing four knights who had a history with her similarly to the founders of the Brotherhood of Light who had allied against the Forgotten One before turning into rivals as the Lords of Shadow, with Sylvia's attempt to overthrow Anarietta as duchess of Toussaint being analogous to that of Zobek, whose appearance is almost identical to that of Geralt, the protagonist of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that in the Blood and Wine expansion fought Dettlaff as a monstrous boss comparable to Olrox, who in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was the penultimate enemy at the Vampire Castle, immediately followed by Carmilla, who actually wanted Gabriel Belmont, the game's protagonist that was later known as Dracula, to succeed Olrox in her protection, which in the case of Anarietta was only provided by Dettlaff, since she would be killed by her sister Sylvia, reflecting the hostility between the high elf rangers after their fall of their kingdom Quel'Thalas, which led to its survivors joining the Horde as the blood elves while Alleria and Vereesa Windrunner turned against their fellow sister and Horde's Warchief Sylvanas, an equivalent of Sylvia because of her name and close association with Varimathras, a Warlock of the vampiric Nathrezim race, who is leading the Forsaken, one of the two main factions of Undead alongside the Scourge, which had forcibly recruited Death Knights, thus encouraging the friendship of Thassarian, another character mirroring Geralt, and fellow Ebon Blade Knight Koltira, the latter of whom had been imprisoned by Sylvanas because of a truce with Thassarian after opposing him in a war for controlling Andorhal in the Western Plaguelands after the fall of Arthas Menethil as the Lich King and the predecessor of Sylvanas as the ruler of Undercity, which he created after killing his father Terenas to succeed him as the ruler of Lordaeron after switching from a Paladin to a Death Knight as a result of his pursuit of Mal'Ganis, another Nathrezim who was serving the Burning Legion like Varimathras did during the Battle for the Undercity.

External Link

• Article on the Castlevania Wiki.