History GameBreaker / Castlevania

* Richter's "Hydro Storm" is incredibly broken, allowing you to beat every boss except [[ThatOneBoss Galamoth]] with no real effort.

* Maria on the Saturn port. You can beat the whole game and every boss without taking any damage and in record time if you don't mind abusing her invincibility spell. Even without that spell, she still kills every boss in seconds, probably a minute for Galamoth. Only a broken Alucard beats her in a speed kill against Galamoth and a few other bosses.

* ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]]'' has the Mandragora soul. It simply sends a screaming mandragora out for 30 MP. The range is insane, the damage is very good for such a cheap costing soul, and while a little grinding may be needed for it, you can get it as soon as you get into the Garden of Madness. The somewhat rarer and later Great Axe Armour soul costs more and is only a little more powerful, but the range is massive, similar to the Red Minotaur soul but less broken.
** There's also the Devil soul, which gives you a huge Strength stat boost in exchange for doing 10 HP of damage each second. The Devil soul is also very easy to get, appearing fairly early in the game. Using it in combination with the Valmanway (see "Crissaegrim" under ''Symphony'', because being broken in just one game apparently wasn't enough), it can beat the game's Boss Rush mode in just over 4 minutes (taking into account the long waiting times to gather the healing orb after every battle).

* Hector can be pretty break-y too if you're prone to experimenting with weapons. Using the replica of Isaac's spear against him in the second battle is almost unfair because your combo is faster than his recovery, and if you keep hitting him from behind (FoeYay abounds with those two), you can get him stuck in perpetual recovery stagger until he switches modes, or until one of the [=IDs=] lambasts you.

*** The Iron Shield by itself is a GameBreaker, if a more situation one, giving Alucard a few seconds of invincibility every time a projectile hits it.

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaJudgment'' has Grant from VideoGame/CastlevaniaIIIDraculasCurse: While he's something of a FragileSpeedster, his power lies in his full charge A attack where he throws a FlechetteStorm that can do up to 64 hits for little over an ultimate in damage;!paired with the fact that his non-charged knives let him play a game of keep-away, he's a nightmare to deal with.

* Before the patch, Charlotte had a special accessory combination that essentially gave her infinite health to both herself and her teammates. All you needed was her Heal spell and an Astral Ring that allows her to cast spells using HP instead of MP: this allowed her to heal herself for more HP than the spell cost to cast, and naturally it healed any of her teammates for the full amount. Adding a Skull Ring turns her into what fans dubbed "Super Saiyan Charlotte", due to the convinient status increases it gives her as well as a yellow glow from being cursed that reduces her MP to 0, which didn't matter to her since she didn't use MP to cast spells with this setup.

* The Valmanway. Just...the Valmanway. Remember the Crissaegrim from [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight SOTN]]? The Valmanway is the very same weapon, but weaker. However, it slashes 4 times per second, making 14 damage into 56 damage. With stat-increasing items it can deal a maximum of 35+ damage per hit. This makes it a staple for Somas and Alucards on Hard mode. Needless to say, a lot of people who believe the game is meant to be experienced "fairly" abhor the existence of this sword.

* [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance HoD]] has yet another quirk that makes it piss easy: you can store up to 99 of any consumable item, as opposed to 9 for later Metroidvanias. While you could do the same in Symphony, you could only use healing items when they were equiped in your hand slot (denying you the use of a secondary weapon or a shield), you had to use them during actual gameplay and each one either took around 5 seconds from using one to actually having your HP restored in case of potions or resulted in the healing food item being thrown to the floor, where you had to pick it up again to recover health with it: compare this to [=HoD=] and most of the later games, where healing items are used in the menu and take effect immediately, allowing you to tank almost any number of hits that don't kill you outright as long as you have potions to spare. With enough money on you, you can stock 99 Potions and Hi-Potions, which makes an already-easy game even easier.

** Finally, there's Duplicator + Power of Sire/Pentagram/Bat Pentagram. You can only buy one after you've cleared the game and you'll have a hard time gathering up enough cash for it unless you use the GoodBadBug to amusingly first duplicate your sellable jewels, but once you get one and equip it, the Duplicator gives you an infinite supply of any usable item even if you only had one of it in your inventory, which in case of those 3 items means you can hit everything on the screen instantly for tons of damage.

* [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance HoD]] has yet another quirk that makes it piss easy: you can store up to 99 of any consumable item, as opposed to 9 for later Metroidvanias. While you could do the same in Symphony, you could only use healing items when they were equiped in your hand slot (denying you the use of a secondary weapon or a shield), you had to use them during actual gameplay and each one took around 5 seconds from using one to actually having your HP restored: compare this to [=HoD=] and most of the later games, where healing items are used in the menu and take effect immediately, allowing you to tank almost any number of hits that don't kill you outright as long as you have potions to spare. With enough money on you, you can stock 99 Potions and Hi-Potions, which makes an already-easy game even easier.

[[folder:Castlevania I & II]]
* The Holy Water, which damages enemies as it falls to the ground, and when it does, it explodes into a flame that freezes whatever enemies are caught in it and inflicts continuous damage. Pick up a Double or Triple Shot and watch every boss except ''Dracula'' go down in mere seconds, including [[ThatOneBoss Death]]. Not even Dracula's final form gets off unscathed, as while it won't deal any damage to him, it ''will'' freeze him, allowing you to whip away for free. It retains this game-breaking property in ''Castlevania III'', which runs on the same engine, but by ''Super Castlevania IV'', it was nerfed to make it a more balanced subweapon. Definitely a GameBreaker of that time.

* [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance HoD]] has yet another quirk that makes it piss easy: you can store up to 99 of any consumable item, as opposed to 9 for later Metroidvanias. While you could do the same in Symphony, you could only use healing items when they were equiped in your hand slot, you had to use them during actual gameplay and each one took around 5 seconds from using one to actually having your HP restored: compare this to [=HoD=] and most of the later games, where healing items are used in the menu and take effect immediately, allowing you to tank almost any number of hits that don't kill you outright as long as you have potions to spare. With enough money on you, you can stock 99 Potions and Hi-Potions, which makes an already-easy game even easier.

* [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance HoD]] has yet another quirk that makes it piss easy: you can store up to 99 of any consumable item, as opposed to 9 for later Metroidvanias. While you could do the same in Symphony, you could only use healing items when they were equiped in your hand slot, you had to use them during actual gameplay and each one took around 5 seconds from using one to actually having your HP restored: compare this to HoD and most of the later games, where healing items are used in the menu and take effect immediately, allowing you to tank almost any number of hits that don't kill you outright as long as you have potions to spare. With enough money on you, you can stock 99 Potions and Hi-Potions, which makes an already-easy game even easier.

* [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance HoD]] has yet another quirk that makes it piss easy: you can store up to 99 of any consumable item, as opposed to 9 for later Metroidvanias. With enough money on you, you can stock 99 Potions and Hi-Potions, which makes an already-easy game even easier.

* The Holy Water, which damages enemies as it falls to the ground, and when it does, it explodes into a flame that freezes whatever enemies are caught in it and inflicts continuous damage. Pick up a Double or Triple Shot and watch every boss except ''Dracula'' go down in mere seconds, including [[ThatOneBoss Death]]. Not even Dracula's final form gets off unscathed, as while it won't deal any damage to him it ''will'' freeze him, allowing you to whip away for free. It retains this game-breaking property in ''Castlevania III'', which runs on the same engine, but by ''Super Castlevania IV'', it was nerfed to make it a more balanced subweapon. Definitely a GameBreaker of that time.
** It actually does the same thing in [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight SotN]] but compared to the other game breakers available it doesn't stand out.
** Actually, the Holy Water can kill Dracula's second form, however, you need to make it through the clocktower and to Dracula in one attempt, have the triple shot and have between 25-30 hearts to do it while throwing the Holy Water at his head.

* Ah, the Crissaegrim. It hits four times per swing, each time for about as much damage as any other normal sword which would only hit once, swings as fast as you can press the button, allows you to attack while moving normally while most weapons force you to stop moving when you use them, has triple the horizontal hit radius of any other sword in the game and a vertical one equal to a select few 2-handed weapons that decrease your defense a good amount and, oh yeah, you can hold one in each hand and attack with both at the same time.

** The Mourneblade just happens to be Crissaegrim's nasty little brother. Same exact stats, except it traded out the four hit bonus for an automatic Soul Steal worth 8 HP each and every time you hit ''anything''. Dodging is officially out of style with this thing: all you have to do is tear forward swinging like LeeroyJenkins and you'll gain more HP back than you're losing. Even against bosses. Even the final one.

** Poison Cloud makes boss fights ridiculously easy; because by the time you get it you have enough magic power to stay in form long enough to deal massive damage.

* Maria on the Saturn port. You can beat the whole game and every boss without taking any damage and in record time if you don't mind abusing her invincibility spell. Even without that spell she still kills every boss in seconds, probably a minute for Galamoth. Only a broken Alucard beats her in a speed kill against Galamoth and a few other bosses.

* Pluto + Black Dog can be this with a bit of luck. Yes, you turn into a slow skeleton whose only attack is throwing bones- a OneHitPointWonder one at that. So what makes it a potential game-breaker? Occasionally at random, you'll throw a huge bone. ''That does an almost-guaranteed 9999 damage.'' Turning every single enemy and boss in the game into {{One Hit Point Wonder}}s themselves...

** The Bible ''itself'' is the real GameBreaker. In addition to the Bolt combo, there's also the Ice combo, which demolishes more or less anything given sufficient MP. And when you're out of MP, you can use the Bible with no attribute- it's default attack is to spin out from you in ever-expanding circles, essentially hitting everything on the screen up to three times depending on size.

** Plus, there's a certain chandelier in the upper left part of the map that drops $400 each time it's broken. Like every chandelier, respawns when the player leaves the room. As if that wasn't enough, it's located right next to the door to the next room.

*** Added to this is the fact that standing with your back facing the enemy makes the soul hit TWICE (once when it arcs back to swing, the second when the swing makes contact). For a hefty 150MP, you can still do over 2000 damage in one attack. One can destroy bosses without even replenish their MP.

* ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]]'' has the Mandragora soul. It simply sends a screaming mandragora out for 30MP. The range is insane, the damage is very good for such a cheap costing soul, and while a little grinding may be needed for it, you can get it as soon as you get into the Garden of Madness. The somewhat rarer and later Great Axe Armour soul costs more and is only a little more powerful, but the range is massive, similar to the Red Minotaur soul but less broken.

* ''Curse of Darkness'' isn't too bad with regards to game-breakery in Hector's story, but playing in Trevor mode--dear god. Spamming the Dagger subweapon crush on some bosses means you can destroy their faces without taking a single hit. It pales to the more proactive approach, that being throwing on the right elemental whip and beating down whatever poor unfortunate monster just happens to be blocking your way.

** Unlike The End, Corpsey ''is'' a GameBreaker in his own right. Imagine a rotating machine gun turret that blows any enemy and some bosses off their feet, interrupting their attacks. Now imagine that turret being ''invulnerable.'' Said turret is also [[StoneWall insanely durable and agile when it has a hit box]], has low mp cost for attacks and [[DiscOneNuke can be obtained as soon as you get the battletype ID]]

* The ''1000 Blades'' Dual Crash is probably the worst example, though, because you get it so early in the game. It's not ''actually'' one thousand blades, just 48 (or 51 if your partner is on-screen), but even that will kill pretty much anything in a few strikes, and since each stuns separately the enemy is quite screwed. The high hit count also makes it perfect against Final Guard, a BossInMookClothing who has 50 HP... but with a DEF so high that it takes only 1 HP of damage per hit from ''everything''.

* In the proud tradition of ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' {{Game Breaker}}s, ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'' included a '''storyline-sanctioned''' breaker in the form of Dominus Agony. With it active you get massive stat boosts, but lose 66 HP per second. Combined with the Death Ring (even more massive stat boosts in exchange for becoming a OneHitPointWonder), you can drain bosses' hit points at a ridiculous rate. It can kill ''Dracula'' in about two hits!
** If you add in another Death Ring (you're already going to die in one hit anyway thanks to the first Death Ring so why not get another obscene stat boost) and equip the Nitesco Sword (Nitesco glyph + any weapon glyph), you're basically destroying half the screen every time you attack. Throw in a Queen of Hearts (reduces the heart consumption of Glyph Unions) and you're getting twice as much overkill as you were before.

* When playing as Albus you have access to the teleport ability, which you use by touching an empty spot on the screen. It's most useful outside of boss fights, as you can skip platforming segments with it.

* The Valmanway. Just...the Valmanway. Remember the Crissaegrim from [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight SOTN]]? The Valmanway is the very same weapon, but weaker. However, it slashes 4 times per second, making 14 damage into 56 damage. With stat increasing items it can deal a maximum of 35+ damage per hit. This makes it a staple for Somas and Alucards on Hard mode. Needless to say, a lot of people who believe the game is meant to be experienced "fairly" abhor the existence of this sword.

*** Soma himself is a complete game breaker with two of these, the succubus soul, the astral ring, and on some bosses the Medusa Head soul. This lets Soma hang in mid air, spam his Valmanways, and recover the health lost by the Medusa Head soul. Other than that, Soma can freely spam whatever soul he wants so long as he goes and hits a few enemies.

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaJudgment'' has Grant from VideoGame/CastlevaniaIIIDraculasCurse: While he's something of a FragileSpeedster, his power lies in his full charge A attack where he throws a FlechetteStorm that can do up to 64 hits for little over an ultimate in damage, paired with the fact that his non-charged knives let him play a game of keep-away, he's a nightmare to deal with.
** In the same game, Aeon's clock-sword charges constantly during the battle, and has three levels of charge. The first charge is blue, and allows him to fire a [[WaveMotionGun huge laser beam]] that rotates quickly and does a lot of damage. The second level is green, and, while it does less damage than the laser, it comes out faster and also covers a wide area around Aeon, making it perfect to keep the enemy away or punish a mistake. Lastly, and most broken of all, the final charge is gold. ''[[TimeStandsStill It allows him to completely stop time for a while.]]'' So Aeon can do anything he wants to his opponent, ''including'' his SpecialAttack, which, [[AwesomeButImpractical while capable of hitting the enemy in any state (hurt, downed jumping, rolling, guarding, etc), you would normally never, ever use it (despite how cool it is) because it's the only special that requires the character to stand still for a long time while he charges his attack.]] But the Time Stop lasts long enough for Aeon to finish his charge and use his special, which of course deals at least half the lifebar in damage. Given the lenght of time required to charge the weapon to gold, at this point the opponent probably has less than that. In short, if Aeon manages to get his Gold charge, don't EVER give him even the smallest opportunity to use his Time Stop, because if you do, '''''you're fucked.'''''
*** And then it gets worse if your opponent figures out that his counter (which itself leaves you open for a basic combo) instantly gives Aeon a charge of his click, it means that he can play the battle defensively by spamming counters and then unleash hell upon you with the charge of his choice.

** It actually does the same thing in [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight SotN]] but compared to the other game breakers available it doesn't stand out.

* ''Curse of Darkness'' isn't too bad with regards to game-breakery in Hector's story, but playing in Trevor mode--dear god. Spamming the Dagger subweapon crush on some bosses means you can destroy their faces without taking a single hit.

* The Ring of Varda. The Ring (yes, [[LordOfTheRings that one]]) is an accessory granting stat boosts so disgustingly gigantic that the game flatly refuses to drop one at all unless there's already a cleared save game file on your memory card. And yes, you can equip two of them.

** The Sacred Flame is thrown like Holy Water, freezes enemies like Holy Water, and explodes into a vertical column so you can even hit low-flying enemies. Merely jumping and throwing Sacred Flame at Dracula while he's in the process of appearing is the other ''OTHER'' way to destroy Drac. (Really, Drac is pathetically easy in ''{{Castlevania}} II'' no matter what method you use.)

[[folder:OrderOfEcclesia]]
* In the proud tradition of ''{{Franchise/Castlevania}}'' {{Game Breaker}}s, ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'' included a '''storyline-sanctioned''' breaker in the form of Dominus Agony. With it active you get massive stat boosts, but lose 66 HP per second. Combined with the Death Ring (even more massive stat boosts in exchange for becoming a OneHitPointWonder), you can drain bosses' hit points at a ridiculous rate. It can kill ''Dracula'' in about two hits!

* There is a glitch in Chapter 10 involving Soma's Puppet Master soul which allows you to completely bypass 3 of the 6 minibosses and go straight through the lift to the Clock Tower into Dracula's Tower.

* Before the patch, Charlotte had a special accessory combination that essentially gave her infinite health to both herself and her teammates. All you needed was her Heal spell and an Astral Ring. Skull Ring optional to turn her into what fans dubbed "Super Saiyan Charlotte".

* Ah, the Crissaegrim. This is the weapon that the Valmanway wants to be when it grows up. It hits four times per swing, each time for about as much damage as any other normal sword which would only hit once, swings as fast as you can press the button, allows you to attack while moving normally while most weapons force you to stop moving when you use them, has triple the horizontal hit radius of any other sword in the game and a vertical one equal to a select few 2-handed weapons that decrease your defense a good amount and, oh yeah, you can hold one in each hand and attack with both at the same time.

** Soul Steal. While the pad movement for it is a little awkward at first, it deals horrendous damage to most early bosses and also heals you as part of the bargain, and can be used to kill enemies from safe areas you really have no business being able to attack them from. Each soul siphons 8 HP, and some enemies you can steal multiple souls from in one go. It quickly gets less useful as other game breakers become available to you, but you can use Soul Steal right after Death steals all your equipment and leaves you with just a fist to attack with.
** Finally, there's Duplicator + Power of Sire/Pentagram/Bat Pentagram. You can only buy one after you've cleared the game, but once you do... the Duplicator duplicates an item the moment you use it, meaning you essentially have an infinite supply of any usable item even if you only had one of it in your inventory. The Power of Sire, Pentagram, and Bat Pentagram are usable attack items that '''''completely clear the screen of enemies when you use them.''''' Forget the Alucard Shield + Shield Rod or the Crissaegrim. This thing doesn't even bother with attack values, freezing enemies, or healing you. Everything else just '''''dies''''' whenever you press the attack button.

* The Holy Water, which damages enemies as it falls to the ground, and when it does, it explodes into a flame that freezes whatever enemies are caught in it and inflicts continuous damage. Pick up a Double or Triple Shot and watch every boss except ''Dracula'' go down in mere seconds, and not even Dracula's final form gets off unscathed, as while it won't deal any damage to him it ''will'' freeze him, allowing you to whip away for free. It retains this game-breaking property in ''Castlevania III'', which runs on the same engine, but by ''Super Castlevania IV'', it was nerfed to make it a more balanced subweapon. Definitely a GameBreaker of that time.

* The Holy Water, which damages enemies as it falls to the ground, and when it does, it explodes into a flame that freezes whatever enemies are caught in it and inflicts continuous damage. Pick up a Double or Triple Shot and watch every boss except ''Dracula'' go down in mere seconds, and not even Dracula's final form gets off unscathed, as while it won't deal any damage to him it ''will'' freeze him, allowing you to whip away for free. It retains this game-breaking property in ''Castlevania III'', but by ''Super Castlevania IV'', it was nerfed to make it a more balanced subweapon. Definitely a GameBreaker of that time.

* Pluto + Black Dog can be this with a bit of luck. Yes, you turn into a slow skeleton who can throw bones with Up + B - a OneHitPointWonder one at that. So what makes it a potential game-breaker? Occasionally at random, you'll throw a huge bone. ''That does a guaranteed 9999 damage.'' Turning every single enemy and boss in the game into {{One Hit Point Wonder}}s themselves...

** And you never really need any cards beyond the Mercury/Salamander, the easiest cards to get in the entire game, because of a similar glitch. If you pause the game when turning on the cards you can change the combination to any combination at all, even if you don't have them. Using this and the Mars+Black Dog glitch requires an irritatingly massive amount of menu handling.

** Finally, there's Duplicator + Power of Sire/Pentagram/Bat Pentagram. It only works on after you've cleared the game, but once you do... the Duplicator duplicates an item the moment you use it, meaning you essentially have an infinite supply of any usable item even if you only had one of it in your inventory. The Power of Sire, Pentagram, and Bat Pentagram are usable attack items that '''''completely clear the screen of enemies when you use them.''''' Forget the Alucard Shield + Shield Rod or the Crissaegrim. This thing doesn't even bother with attack values, freezing enemies, or healing you. Everything else just '''''dies''''' whenever you press the attack button.

''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' was not meant to be a challenge. Most people trying to play the game and actually challenge themselves first have to set up a mental checklist of what they're ''not'' going to do. For everyone else, the players who love the idea of mass carnage and raping the forces of darkness while they can't even touch you, Konami provided more ways to do so than you can shake a stick at:

* The Uranus + Thunderbird DSS combo. One use and every enemy that isn't a BossInMookClothing (or an actual boss) is just plain ''dead''. Not only is it the strongest attack in the game (besides the [[AwesomeButImpractical all-but useless]] Pluto + Black Dog), it's a guaranteed hit on every enemy within a radius that extends ''beyond the screen''. As if that weren't enough by itself, you're invincible for about 5 seconds after using it, so you can even use it as a very effective defense.
** Pluto + Black Dog isn't actually all that useless. Yes, you turn into a slow skeleton who can throw bones with Up + B - a OneHitPointWonder one at that. The catch? Occasionally at random, you'll throw a huge bone. ''That does a guaranteed 9999 damage.'' Turning every single enemy and boss in the game into {{One Hit Point Wonder}}s themselves...

** Finally, there's Duplicator + Power of Sire/Pentagram/Bat Pentagram. It only works on after you've cleared the game, but once you do... the Duplicator duplicates an item the moment you use it, meaning you essentially have an infinite supply of any usable item even if you only had one of it in your inventory. The Power of Sire, Pentagram, and Bat Pentagram are usable attack items that '''''completely clear the screen of enemies when you use them.''''' Forget dealing the Alucard Shield + Shield Rod or the Crissaegrim. This thing doesn't even bother with attack values or swing speed.

''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' was not meant to be a challenge. Most people trying to play the game and actually challenge themselves first have to set up a mental checklist of what they're ''not'' going to do. For the players who love the idea of mass carnage and raping the forces of darkness while they can't even touch you, Konami provided more ways to do so than you can shake a stick at: