Memes / Castlevania

"But enough talk... have at you!"

For many years, Dracula has fought against the Belmont family, and these documentations have provided the Internet with a handful of memes.

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Please add entries in the following format if possible:

• The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ^ExplanationLike this.
  • Further mutations and successor memes, if any.

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Series Wide:

• Wall Chicken ^ExplanationA long-running joke in the fandom stemming from all the health-restoring chickens you can unveil by whipping walls. Often given Shout Outs by other Metroidvania games.
• Stairs of doom. ^ExplanationIn the classic games, your character moves slowly on stairs, can't always jump off (or it's risky to do so), can't attack, and can fall through stairs trying to jump onto them. A ROM Hack based entirely around Castlevania stairs was made to examine this phenomenon, and Snatcher has an optional conversation where Castlevania's stairs are explicitly discussed during a conversation.
• Medusa Heads.^ExplanationMedusa Heads are enemies that move in sine waves across the screen and have a strong tendency to knock the player around, often into a bottomless pit. In some games they can petrify the player and make them take additional damage from enemies as well as preventing them from moving, usually in areas with rotating or falling platforms.
• The death jingles.^ExplanationThe "classic" Castlevania games feature death as the norm rather than the exception, resulting in the various games' iconic death jingles being drilled into players' heads for eternity. You can listen to a collection of them here.
• The wine glass.^explanationIn some games, Dracula begins the fight by first drinking from his wine glass and then tossing it. To the point that it gets referenced in outside media:
  • I Wanna Be the Guy parodies the entire exchange from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night's intro, on top of turning the wine glass lethal (as mentioned below).
  • When Koji Igarashi^note Castlevania's most famous head-honcho, particularly famous for introducing Metroidvania promoted his upcoming game, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, even he couldn't resist throwing a wine glass! (Including a sprite version of him in one of the game's trailers, and a live-action version in the release trailer.). When the game finally is released, Miriam, the heroine, has the ability to chuck wine glasses as an attack, obtained from an enemy who does exactly that.
  • Dracula can be seen throwing a glass at the start of his boss fight in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• "EROTIC VIOLENCE" ^ExplanationA phrase used to promote the 2015 pachinko game is adopted by fans to mock the game for seeming to pander to the Perverse Sexual Lust crowd. It is also used to criticize Konami for not developing any "real" games since the Lords of Shadow saga, which was polarizing anyway.
• Igaaaaaa^ExplanationIt's a Niconico tradition to spam "IGAAAAAAAAAA[etc.]" whenever Koji Igarashi's name comes up in the credits (and he even is credited as "IGA" in most Castlevania games)
• This is not a castle, this is a series of code violations masquerading as one!^ExplanationThe ease of which one can go out of bounds via Good Bad Bugs is "explained" as the result of cost-cutting measures by Dracula's architects and/or construction workers; in Japan, Dracula's castle has the fan nickname "Aneha's castle" in reference to a notorious corruption scandal which resulted in many collapsed and/or unsafe buildings
• Leaving/Breaking out of the castle^ExplanationWhat the Japanese/Chinese fandom calls going out of bounds in any given Castlevania game; this makes most recent TAS of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow ironically hilarious since the out of bounds glitch is performed from the starting village, so Soma never even goes *into* the castle proper to begin with!

Castlevania:

• "CHRISTOPHER BEE" ^ExplanationDuring the first game's "Credits", there are no actual credits, the names are just parodies of classic horror movie actors, like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and the aformentioned Christopher Lee.

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest:

• What a horrible night to have a curse. ^ExplanationThe text whenever the sun sets. Very slow.
• GET A SILK BAG FROM THE GRAVEYARD DUCK TO LIVE LONGER. ^ExplanationSimon's Quest has a number of villagers who, through either design intent or mistranslation, often have incredibly useless information. This is a key example, and yes; the dialogue really is referring to a waterfowl. This one is intentional. The manual states the villagers mislead you to prevent you from completing your quest and reviving Dracula.
• Hit Deborah Cliff with your head to make a hole. ^ExplanationAnother example of useless information.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night:

• The entirety of the infamous opening to the PlayStation version is insanely quotable.
  • "Die monster. You don't belong in this world!"^ExplanationRichter's opening line to Dracula and fondly remembered for its strange delivery.
  • "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!" ^ExplanationWhile the whole dialogue can be considered memetic, this is the most quoted line and is subjected to a few snowclones to fit the context.
  • What is a man? Pssh! GAME OVER PRESS R TO TRY AGAIN^ExplanationIn I Wanna Be the Guy, the scene plays out like normal (albeit with the squeaky-voiced protagonist speaking Richter's lines), except Dracula will drop his wine glass on you, killing you, if you don't jump out of the way.
  • The version of the opening where an entire server starts quoting the whole speech is loved for how much of a train wreck it is. The hilarity is increased thanks to the fact that the whole thing uses bits and pieces from the speech and add in any repeats or mistakes when quoting the whole opening.
  • The animation made out of it: diemonster.wmv, isn't far behind in being beloved by the fandom for its hilarious Deranged Animation and great Visual Puns.
• "As you can see, this is a PlayStation black disc. Cut number 1 contains computer data, so please don't play it... but you probably won't listen to me anyway, will you?" (secret music track plays) ^ExplanationThis track plays when someone tries to play the disc in a regular CD player and the part about computer data refers to the fact that older CD players, not knowing how to handle data on a CD that isn't Red Book audio, would screw up when trying to play data for a computer or game console. (It's supposed to be Alucard delivering the message.)
  • "DOG METAMORPHOSIS!" (Or, alternately, "DOG MEN OF OFFICES!") ^ExplanationHow some players misheard "Dark Metamorphosis." Ironically enough, Alucard can metamorphose into a wolf... but it's not via that ability. (Canine office workers, by contrast, are nowhere to be found.)
• "I'm interested in this." ^ExplanationAlucard says this in a somewhat un-interested tone when you open the Librarian's shop menu. It's become a stock response to any sort of good news pertaining to Castlevania due to how hilariously understated it is.
• "This game was disappointingly enjoyable"^Explanationa paraphrase of part of Gaming in the Clinton Years's review of the game, which was riffed on by Retsupurae.
• Richter spamming Hydro Storm because of its sheer Game Breakability.
• "Behold my true form, and this pear!"^ExplanationMondegreen of "Behold my true form, and despair!"

Castlevania: Judgment:

• Those are a sacred gift! ^ExplanationThe game portrays Maria as a breast-obsessed Pettanko. This is her response to Sypha (who would become a Sweet Polly Oliver) bemoaning her own femininity.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin:

• Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte! Jonathan! Charlotte! ^ExplanationThe main characters of Portrait of Ruin call each other's names when tagged. This can be spammed rapidly, and speedrunners frequently do so to speed up their attack rate. The TAS also spams it for fun while the two characters are wallzipping, and given that they use the Japanese voices this sounds memetically suggestive.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence:

• "I'll kill you AND THE NIGHT!" ^ExplanationLeon's Narmful response to Walter's declaration that he is "beloved by the night".

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow:

• D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Dueh! ^ExplanationIn tool-assisted speedruns of Julius mode, this is what Julius' fastest movement style (rapid-fire jump kicks, with Julius emitting the same grunt at every jump kick) sounds like.
• The first boss, Creaking Skull, has become a Memetic Badass of screenshot hoaxes that portray him hijacking other bosses or invading other games.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

• No-No-No-No-Not bad. ^ExplanationIn the online multiplayer Castlevania game, you're provided with sound bits for basic communication in a character's voice. Players who are quick and/or clever enough with their inputs can interrupt a given sound bit by having their character start another. This, being a particular instance of the player spamming the input for the 'Good work' basic communication option as Soma Cruz, is but one of many, as seen in the other examples below.
  • Cra-Cra-Cra-Crap. ^ExplanationWhat a player quickly mashing the input for the 'Oops' basic communication for Soma Cruz sounds like ingame.
  • Not— Sorry. ^ExplanationSoma Cruz again, this time involving the player interrupting his 'Good work' sound bit by hitting the input for the 'Sorry' basic communication.
  • Take this crap. Here's crap.^ExplanationAnother Soma Cruz instance, involving his 'All Yours' and 'Here' sound bits respectively interrupted by doing the input for his 'Oops' basic communication.
  • He-He-He-He-He-He-He-Here.^ExplanationA near-universal instance, in this case what a player quickly mashing the input for the 'Here' basic communication option would sound like ingame.
• Emo Charlotte. ^ExplanationA common setup for Charlotte before a balance patch was having her use HP instead of MP for magic and then have her heal. She'd heal more than she'd use for the spell and so had limitless HP and MP.
• Somanway. ^ExplanationThe most common setup online and easily the most overpowered is equipping Soma with two Valmanway+1s. The sheer power of each hit and the large number of them per second, plus the fact that you can attack while moving, causes the amusing sight of Soma just walking in a straight line to the end of the level, everything in his way dying.
  • Most likely inspired by the roughly-4-times-as-powerful Crissaegrim abuse in Symphony of the Night.
• Pull out your bible and SPIN SPIN SPIN! This is the power... the power of RELIGION! ^explanationA song about how the Bible is the greatest subweapon.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon

• LEVEL UP^Explanationthis notification takes priority over everything else in the game and happens each time you level up, so if you don't grind them individually expect to see it multiple times whenever you kill a boss—most infamously, in the any% speedrun of the game, killing Dracula causes this to happen twenty four times in a row.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance:

• "Hmm! Hmm! Hoi!" ^ExplanationThis is what Maxim's grunts sound like. Due to a certain tool-assisted speedrun of Maxim mode, they became synonymous with glitching through and inside walls within the nicovideo TAS community.
• Juste Belmont, Interior Decorator ^ExplanationJuste decorates an empty room in the castle with all the furniture he's collected in his adventure. Why? Because he can.