Awesome / Castlevania: Nocturne

WARNING: Spoiler tags are off per Moments subpage policy.

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Season One

A Common Enemy Against Evil

• Julia Belmont and Olrox's battle. It introduces a Belmont that had both Trevor and Sypha's abilities, and an Aztec vampire that can turn into a feathered serpent.
• When we catch up with adult Richter, he shows he's been keeping up his lessons. He first cuts a vampire's head in half with one stroke of the Vampire Killer, and holds off two more. Maria helps with her summoned birds, and eventually ends up taking one of the vampires down. Richter entangles the last one in the whip long enough get some information before dispatching him. Trevor's fights always felt at least a bit like him struggling to recall old skills; by comparison, Richter is just taking out the trash.

Horror Beyond Nightmares

• The group fighting off the vampires at the chateau, each demonstrating their unique skills and abilities. With a plan and the element of surprise, they could have made a sizeable dent in the vampire population, and even caught in their infiltration, they manage mostly to retreat in good order.
• Villainous and creepy awesome, but the automated Devil Forge manufacturing new Night Creatures. Whether someone's figured out how to make Night Creatures without a Forgemaster, or this Forgemaster is using the latest in steampunk gadgetry as their tools, its incredibly impressive, and does not bode well for our heroes.

Freedom Was Sweeter

• The psychedelic art shifts as Annette relates her story, perfectly highlighting the different emotions: first panic as she flees the plantation, then wonder as she meets Edouard.
• Edouard standing up to the vampiric slave owner and protecting Annette. He used his status as a respected freedman and opera singer to singlehandedly get the slave owner off Annette's trail, and then successfully smuggles her off the island and to the revolutionaries.
• One of the creature's Maria can summon when she really means business is something like a cross between a tiger and a wolf. . . that can Flash Step. The night creatures attacking her next Resistance meeting don't stand a chance.

Horrors Rising From The Earth

• The fight in the basement of the Abbey catacombs, again showcasing marvelous teamwork and superb skills from our heroes, all set to Edouard's gorgeous operatic singing, lending it a very different feel from most of the fight scenes in this or the previous series. It brings the focus more on the intense emotion behind why the fight happens, instead of just on the spectacle of it, though there is plenty of spectacle to be had.
  • As Edouard's singing fades, we get a new stage of the fight, with Richter dueling the Marquis shortsword to rapier, and Richter predictably cheating in grand style by drawing his throwing knives and using them as knuckle dusters. Meanwhile, Drolta takes on Annette, and the two are near evenly matched, with Annette's command over metal matching Drolta's vampire strength. A highlight is Drolta charging Annette with an electrified Flash Step, claws aimed like a spear, and Annette countering by blocking with a barred cell door, one of the bars perfectly placed to intercept Drolta's claws. Then Annette slams the door down on Drolta so hard the stone floor cracks! Not to be outdone, Drolta springs right back up, none the worse for wear.
  • Richter punctuates the fight in fine form:
    Richter: (scores a hit on the Marquis that draws everyone's attention as the Marquis screams and falls to his knees) I am Richter Belmont. (perforates the Marquis with an excessive number of throwing knives) Last descendant of the Belmont Clan. And I! Kill! Vampires! (draws shortsword, beheads the Marquis. As the vampire's head topples from his body, Richter aims his sword at the other night creatures in the catacombs) Who's fucking next?
  • And to perfectly counterpoint the above with villainous awesome, Olrox speaks, and Richter flees in utter panic.
    Olrox: Little boy Belmont. (Richter's face slams into wide-eyed terror) All grown up. (Richter turns, haltingly, to see Olrox. Richter drops his sword, Olrox approaches, extending a hand)
    Richter: We have to go. We have to get out of here. We have to fucking go! (turns and flees in blind panic)

The Natural Order

• Annette killing Vaublanc, her vampiric former slave master, by repelling him with a Christian cross, trapping him in a cage of more wrought-iron crosses — that painfully burn him on contact — and letting him slowly immolate in the rising sun. Even better, she completely shrugs off his attempts to break her spirit by telling her she will always be a slave, all the while he is having an obvious Villainous Breakdown.
  Annette: I haven't forgotten the way you cower before the Christian God! (later, as Vaublanc burns on contact with the crosses) That smell? Burning flesh. You should know it well. I'm not the one in the cage.
• The argument between Maria and Tera and the Abbot, showing how wise the show was to take on the French Revolution for its setting. Revolutions are complex, and even when one side is clearly wrong they both usually at least have good foundations for their positions, as well as extremists who make their side look bad. While Maria and Tera are on the side of liberty and freedom, as well as not being on the side that includes literal bloodsucking monsters, the Abbot points out the revolutionaries can be just as violent and oppressive as the aristocracy they're fighting to get rid of. No one comes out of the conversation completely clean, everyone is at least a little bit guilty.

Guilty Men To Be Judged

• Richter's magical reawakening is so intense, so powerful that all the vampires present attack him out of panic and he fries them without breaking a sweat, melts a war hammer, forms ice gauntlets and throwing daggers, and even imbues his whip with fire. Never mind the fact the reawakening started with a familiar massive burning magic cross. By the time only one of the vampire is left standing, he can barely keep the aim of his musket axe centered on Richter, who proceeds to unleash a massive jet of flame at point blank without even delivering the vampire the Badass Boast that he intended to. All of this is backed by an incredibly epic arrangement of Richter's theme from the games, "Divine Bloodlines". It's even more impressive than the previous series' use of "Bloody Tears" to kick off the final battle of Season 2.
  Richter: There's something you forgot about Belmonts. Stupid of me, I'd forgotten it too. [...] I was going to say something witty and cutting and brutal before I finished you off... (grabs vampire with a Facepalm of Doom) -but fuck it.

Blood Is The Only Way

• Vampires attack Tera and Maria, and the ladies again prove they're no damsels in distress. Tera, despite being caught by surprise, holds them off with her magic long enough to regoup and for Maria to overhear the battle and come charging in, first by riding a larger version of her bird summon. With another target to distract them, Tera slips behind a tree, and when a vampire chasing her comes around it she impales the vampire through the neck with an icicle. They defeat or drive of the vampires, except for one playing possum in the river. When she leaps up to shoot Tera with her (period-accurate, mind) gunblade, a whip cracks around her ankle throwing off her aim. . . because Richter Belmont arrived right in the nick of time. Richter channels his magical fire down the length of the whip, incinerating the vampire effortlessly.

Devourer Of Light

• En route to the abbey to rescue Maria, the heroes, plus Mizrak, are blocked off from reaching it by the Abbot's human knights, around 20 or so of them armed with sword and shield. When Mizrak's pleas to them to put down their swords and pray to God for forgiveness go unheeded, the quartet prepare to fight their way through... that is, 2 powerful and skilled magic uses equally deadly in mid-to-close range, a Belmont who's recently reawakened his full potential into a Magic Knight, and a Badass Normal who was the apparent top fighter in the knights' hierarchy. The battle is such an utter curb-stomp that it isn't even shown, just the quartet bursting in to interrupt the Abbot's sacrifice in the next scene and Richter alluding to having killed a whole bunch of monks and night creatures without breaking a sweat.
• The opening of the final fight at the Abbey. Again, the group uses great teamwork, but all have upped their game substantially since the start of the season.
  • Tera rescues Maria from her father set to sacrifice her by using her Speaker magic to clear a path through the night creatures protecting him.
  • Richter is never in the same space more than an eyeblink, constantly moving and distracting and disorienting the night creatures.
  • Annette and Mizrak keep the night creatures at bay and take them down with steady swordplay.
  • Once Maria is rescued, Annette breaks off to push the Abbot's Devil Forging machine back into Hell, while Tera stands aside and recites the incantation to open the portal. Leaving, Richter, Maria, and Mizrak to Hold the Line against the night creatures and arriving vampires. Richter barely uses his whip, using Full-Contact Magic to beat down anything that gets near, and Maria keeps her summons going. Mizrak duels a four-armed night creature to a standstill... then Drolta gets involved.
  • Drolta is a force to be reckoned with, but the heroes have a handle on her now, even if she is in an entirely new form. Maria spams summons like never before, holding Drolta back for some time until she's had enough and charges through them. . . but Maria was pulling a rope-a-dope, and her tortoise summon pops up with perfect timing to give Drolta a hell of an uppercut. Kudos to Drolta, this still doesn't slow her down, and Maria's thrown everything she has at her. Just as Drolta looks ready to finish the girl off, Richter steps between them, whip afire, and unleashes a fury of whipstokes at her that would make Trevor proud. He becomes the first to actually injure Drolta.
  • Down in the catacombs, Annette faces off against a gigantic, three-headed night creature, trying to evade it, but it's power is too much for her. Then Edouard starts singing, and two other night creatures remember who they were and hold the beast in place for Annette to finish it.
  • To put it simply, it was only because Erzsebet did make an appear in the nick of time and with the full power of a deity that the heroes got thwarted. It took the power of a god to stop the heroes, so Erzsebet could be called a Diabolus ex Machina!!
• At the end of the episode, Richter and company have been put through the wringer: Erzsebet Báthory has become the avatar of Sekhmet and become too powerful for the heroes to fight directly, summoned The Night That Never Ends, turned Tera into a vampire, and sent Drolta to eliminate Richter, Maria, Annette, and Mizrak as they retreat. What stops it from turning into a Downer Ending right then there? The grand return of Alucard, which sees him inject some much-needed hope for the heroes.
  • As Drolta and her minions descend upon Richter and company, fully intent on finishing them off, the son of Dracula effortlessly slays the powerful succubus by running her through with his iconic sword. Once Drolta's body hits the ground, Alucard calmly delivers a Badass Boast that sends her minions running for their lives.
    Alucard: I am Alucard, son of Dracula. And if you fight me, you will die. Like thousands of vampires before you.
  • This emphasizes just how much Alucard has become Legendary in the Sequel: in Castlevania, Dracula's generals and Carmila's soldiers thought they had a chance facing down Alucard alongside Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades. Now, three centuries and thousands of dead vampires later, Alucard just saying his name is enough to send vampires fanatically loyal to Erzsebet fleeing for their lives in mortal terror.