History DemonicSpiders / Castlevania

** Pretty much every Demon enemy counts. The Earth Demon gets an honorable mention for being in ''the fourth screen of the game'', and with attacks far more damaging than anything you have yet encountered, or even anything you will encounter up until the first boss. Tough to dodge, too. But the one that is by far the worst is the Ice Demon. It spams an attack that gives next to no warning, requires ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'' level platforming skills to dodge even if you know where it's coming from, and if it hits, you're as good as dead. It freezes you in place, which means you WILL get hit again, and when you do, it's for '''three times the damage'''. Think you can just whip the attack away like you could with the Fire Demon? Yeah, that'll cause it to shatter, all right. Into shards that are equally as deadly as the original attack, only even harder to dodge. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the Ice Demon is fought near the end of the Underground Waterway, a location where the water is inherently harmful to you. Players who made it this far without the Cleansing magic item will - not ''may, will'' - loathe being stuck in that water while waiting for the Frozen status to wear off. By contrast, the non-elemental Demon, a seemingly intentional BossInMookClothing to the point where the room at the end of the BonusDungeon consists of just one of them, isn't half as deadly as this one attack.

** The Devil that appears late game is a royal pain, being nigh-impossible to kill without sustaining heavy damage as he just spams loads of random crap at you. It's tough to even get by him!

** Pretty much every Demon enemy counts. The Earth Demon gets an honorable mention for being in ''the fourth screen of the game'', and with attacks far more damaging than anything you have yet encountered, or even anything you will encounter up until the first boss. Tough to dodge, too. But the one that is by far the worst is the Ice Demon. It spams an attack that gives next to no warning, requires ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'' level platforming skills to dodge even if you know where it's coming from, and if it hits, you're as good as dead. It freezes you in place, which means you WILL get hit again, and when you do, it's for '''three times the damage'''. Think you can just whip the attack away like you could with the Fire Demon? Yeah, that'll cause it to shatter, all right. Into shards that are equally as deadly as the original attack, only even harder to dodge. The non-elemental Demon, a seemingly intentional BossInMookClothing to the point where the room at the end of the BonusDungeon consists of just one of them, isn't half as deadly as this one attack.

** A devil-type enemy that appears late game is a royal pain, being nigh-impossible to kill without sustaining heavy damage as he just spams loads of random crap at you. It's tough to even get by him!

* The [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaI original game]] has the aforementioned Fleamen. These nimble little creatures move roughly ''three times'' as fast as you do (not that that's saying much, since poor physics make Simon slow and clumsy as an ox), and they do enormous damage. They attack by rushing into you. And since they are shorter than your whip swing, that means that you either have to hit them during one of their hops, or duck and try to whip them before they rush you. Think about how bad that is, then consider this: In the third area, they are on cliffs high above you, and they will simply blast off the cliff towards you when you get close enough. You will get hit. Then, after that sinks in, consider this: In the fourth area, during the long stretch after you exit the sewers, birds will fly by and drop Fleamen willy-nilly onto the stage to attack you freely. Then, after ''that'' sinks in, consider the sixth and final area: The birds still fly and drop fleamen, but now you are jumping across giant bottomless gaps and climbing stairs. If you so much as pause you will either be swarmed or knocked into a pit (and you usually will be anyway).

* The GoddamnedBats in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaI'' love to fly into you ''[[LedgeBats just]]'' [[LedgeBats as you made a tricky jump, causing you to plummet]]. Even worse are the Medusa heads, which move up and down so that you have to guess when to attack/jump... and in later games, ''turn you to stone on impact''. In fact, the series is full of annoying enemies like this, but the flea men are synonymous with "nuisance enemy," with their fast, unpredictable movements, and their being such small targets. Just to rub it in, ''Castlevania'' is quite NintendoHard, which meant that everyone, including the 'Bats, has to cause just as much damage as the bosses.
** To add insult to injury, later games include enhanced versions of Medusa Heads (gold ones that can petrify you, often right when you are on a gear or conveyor belt headed straight for a spiked wall) and the Fleamen (Rippers, which move faster and throw Daggers at you). All in all, ''Castlevania'' has turned "annoying enemies" into a performance art.

* The GoddamnedBats in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaI'' love to fly into you ''[[LedgeBats just]]''[[LedgeBats as you made a tricky jump, causing you to plummet]]. Even worse are the Medusa heads, which move up and down so that you have to guess when to attack/jump... and in later games, ''turn you to stone on impact''. In fact, the series is full of annoying enemies like this, but the flea men are synonymous with "nuisance enemy," with their fast, unpredictable movements, and their being such small targets. Just to rub it in, ''Castlevania'' is quite NintendoHard, which meant that everyone, including the 'Bats, has to cause just as much damage as the bosses.

* The GoddamnedBats in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaI'' love to fly into you [[LedgeBats ''just'' as you made a tricky jump, causing you to plummet]]. Even worse are the Medusa heads, which move up and down so that you have to guess when to attack/jump... and in later games, ''turn you to stone on impact''. In fact, the series is full of annoying enemies like this, but the flea men are synonymous with "nuisance enemy," with their fast, unpredictable movements, and their being such small targets. Just to rub it in, ''Castlevania'' is quite NintendoHard, which meant that everyone, including the 'Bats, has to cause just as much damage as the bosses.

** The aforementioned bonus dungeon, called the Large Cavern, is ''infested'' with all of the game's Demonic Spiders, often having to fight ''multiple ones at the same time''. Your only saving grace is by the time you've found this dungeon, you most likely have the glyph that gives you flight. This can turn the tide, or be worse than useless. You ''can'' access Large Cavern ''before'' you get the flight glyph, but that's a SelfImposedChallenge.

* The GoddamnedBats in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaI'' loved to fly into you [[LedgeBats ''just'' as you made a tricky jump, causing you to plummet]]. Even worse are the Medusa heads, which move up and down so that you have to guess when to attack/jump... and in later games, ''turn you to stone on impact''. In fact, the series is full of annoying enemies like this, but the flea men are synonymous with "nuisance enemy," with their fast, unpredictable movements, and their being such small targets. Just to rub it in, ''Castlevania'' is quite NintendoHard, which meant that everyone, including the 'Bats, had to cause just as much damage as the bosses.

* The [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaI original game]] has the aforementioned Fleamen. These nimble little creatures move roughly ''three times'' as fast as you do (not that that's saying much, since poor physics made Simon slow and clumsy as an ox), and they do enormous damage. They attack by rushing into you. And since they are shorter than your whip swing, that means that you either have to hit them during one of their hops, or duck and try to whip them before they rush you. Think about how bad that is, then consider this: In the third area, they are on cliffs high above you, and they will simply blast off the cliff towards you when you get close enough. You will get hit. Then, after that sinks in, consider this: In the fourth area, during the long stretch after you exit the sewers, birds will fly by and drop Fleamen willy-nilly onto the stage to attack you freely. Then, after ''that'' sinks in, consider the sixth and final area: The birds still fly and drop fleamen, but now you are jumping across giant bottomless gaps and climbing stairs. If you so much as pause you will either be swarmed or knocked into a pit (and you usually will be anyway).

* The Chupacapras (or Cave Trolls). There's a reason they love to pack the BonusDungeon of each game with these things. They're fast, hop around, and if you get too close they create an electrical field that hits you repeatedly for high damage. On every hit. Depending on the game, that field can one-shot you if you can't get out of the way in time.

* Gorgon heads were pretty bad too. They would fly at you, change directions randomly, and were completely out of context, this being gothic horror and all. Fine. But they also appear in ''every single platforming section of a level ever''.

** Floating Eyeballs behave similarly to the "Hump-Bot" from ''JourneyToSilius'', except they usually come in swarms.

* The GoddamnedBats in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaI'' loved to fly into you [[LedgeBats ''just'' as you made a tricky jump, causing you to plummet]]. Even worse are the Medusa heads, which move up and down so that you have to guess when to attack/jump... and in later games, ''turn you to stone on impact''. In fact, the series is full of annoying enemies like this, but the flea men are synonymous with "nuisance enemy," with their fast, unpredictable movements, and their being such small targets. Just to rub it in, ''Castlevania'' is quite NintendoHard, which meant that everyone, including the 'Bats, had to cause just as much damage as the bosses.\\

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To add insult to injury, later games include enhanced versions of Medusa Heads (gold ones that can petrify you, often right when you are on a gear or conveyor belt headed straight for a spiked wall) and the Fleamen (Rippers, which move faster and throw Daggers at you). All in all, ''Castlevania'' has turned "annoying enemies" into a performance art.

** The witches from the same game and ''same area'' fly around erratically, constantly put up shields whenever you try and attack normally, and sometimes when you don't, spam orbs, skulls, and CATS that do surprisingly high damage, and are just a pain in the backside. Your only hope half of the time is just to get out, fast! Oh yeah, if you do kill them, they turn into a cat and run until the room ends or they hit a wall. They can still do high damage. Luckily, this isn't a problem in later games. Luckily, there is an item in the game called Cat-Eye Circlet, that restore huge amounts of HP by cat contact. That make the witches pathetically easy. Also, they can be ''stopped'' by stopwatch.

* The GoddamnedBats in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaI'' loved to fly into you [[LedgeBats ''just'' as you made a tricky jump, causing you to plummet]]. Even worse are the Medusa heads, which move up and down so that you have to guess when to attack/jump... and in later games, ''turn you to stone on impact''. In fact, the series is full of annoying enemies like this, but the flea men are synonymous with "nuisance enemy," with their fast, unpredictable movements, and their being such small targets. Just to rub it in, ''Castlevania'' is quite NintendoHard, which meant that everyone, including the 'Bats, had to cause just as much damage as the bosses.
** Then, to add insult to injury, later games include enhanced versions of Medusa Heads (gold ones that can petrify you, often right when you are on a gear or conveyor belt headed straight for a spiked wall) and the Fleamen (Rippers, which move faster and throw Daggers at you). All in all, ''Castlevania'' has turned "annoying enemies" into a performance art.

*** Beat ''Castlevania 3'' and go through a [[NewGamePlus New Game + ]]. Medusa Heads are replaced by Flying Skulls. Imagine Medusa Heads with a random movement pattern.
*** There's also the Black Crows, which follow an erratic movement pattern. Castlevania's near-equivalent of ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'''s hawks.
** ''Castlevania'''s latest release proves that if it ain't broke, MAKE IT HARDER.
** Play a {{Metroidvania}} on Hard mode, and watch as GoddamnedBats that used to do 1 HP of damage now do at least '''60''' HP of damage!
* The Chupacapras (or Cave Trolls). There's a reason they love to pack the BonusDungeon of each game with these things. They're fast, hop around, and if you get too close they create an electrical field that hits you repeatedly for high damage. On every hit. Depending on the game, that field can absolutely one-shot you if you can't get out of the way in time.

* Pretty much every Demon in ''Circle of the Moon''. The Earth Demon gets an honorable mention for being in ''the fourth screen of the game'', and with attacks far more damaging than anything you have yet encountered, or even anything you will encounter up until the first boss. Tough to dodge, too. But the one that is by far the worst is the Ice Demon. It spams an attack that gives next to no warning, requires ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'' level platforming skills to dodge even if you know where it's coming from, and if it hits, you're as good as dead. It freezes you in place, which means you WILL get hit again, and when you do, it's for '''three times the damage'''. Think you can just whip the attack away like you could with the Fire Demon? Yeah, that'll cause it to shatter, all right. Into shards that are equally as deadly as the original attack, only even harder to dodge. The non-elemental Demon, a seemingly intentional BossInMookClothing to the point where the room at the end of the BonusDungeon consists of just one of them, isn't half as deadly as this one attack.
** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon'' is ''full'' of DemonicSpiders—a lot of the [[AnimatedArmor Armors]] have very annoying attacks and appear more frequently than the demons. Flame Armors have a simple sword swing, but the hit range is way larger than what you'd expect, Stone Armors throw three boulders that get progressively closer ''and'' do splash damage, Thunder Armors fire homing orbs, Ice Armors throw two spears, one high and one low, both of which freeze you (see the Ice Demon above for all the fun being frozen gets you), and Poison Armors shoot tall clouds of gas that are difficult to jump over. All of these attacks hit really hard and make it tough to get close enough to whip them. None of their attacks can be countered with the whip, they often take four or five hits to kill, and if you revisit an earlier area late in the game, the Armors that were there are replaced by ''more powerful'' varieties.
*** The worst armours are probably the Dark ones, mostly because they fire these orbs at you. Easy enough to avoid right, except for the fact they're always places where you're trying to get up, and you'll get hit over and over and over... That devil guy who appears lategame is a royal pain as well and nigh impossible to kill without sustaining heavy damage as he just spams loads of random crap at you. It's tough to even get by him!
*** This is where the DSS magic system excels. Screw whip enhancements, rotating elemental shields and über-summons. None of them will help you much against the Armors and Demons. But if you have the right card, you can make yourself immune to any single element at a time. Those cursed Ice Armors in the waterway? They will now heal you. The aggravating lightning spam of the Thunder Demon? Heals you. Dark Armor/Devil magic? Heals you. With the immunity card and enough elemental cards to go with it, the game suddenly becomes a lot easier.
*** Well, good luck getting that Black Dog card -- you only find it in the Arena section, filled with all the previous enemies, WITH NO SAVEPOINTS.
*** Do note, though, that you can easily use a glitch that will give you the desired combo; see the page for details. If you don't mind cheating a bit (nobody would think less of you), you could, as soon as you get two cards you can use together, get the resistance from the beginning of the game, if you grind a bit as soon as the first earth demon. Magi mode also starts you with all cards fairly.
*** Don't forget that the Arena also drains all your MP, thus forbidding you from using the spell cards/magic to fight. You can cheat the system by using an MP-refilling item and then immediately activating a spell, but you will only get one off before you're empty again. So in reality: Whip attacks and item healing only. Hope you brought a lot of potions.
* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'', in its bid to ensure that nobody [[ItsEasySoItSucks ever complains about]] {{Metroidvania}} [[ItsEasySoItSucks being too easy again]], brings us a great deal of these guys, but one shines out beyond the others: the Tin Men. These anachronisms constantly charge at you, swinging an axe in an arc higher than your normal jump. They resist most everything you can throw at them, hit like a speeding bus, and are much faster than Shanoa. If you manage to damage them enough to stop their charge, they will whip out a ''machine gun'' and fire until one of you is dead. As you'd expect, Dracula's Castle can and will make you fight up to ''four at a time''. But at least during this sequence, you have higher ground on which to stand that they cannot reach. The Large Cavern is not nearly so generous. Never complain about [[PowerGivesYouWings Volaticus]] being a UselessUsefulSpell again. Oh, and worst of all, you can encounter them as soon as Minera Prison Island. '''Before''' you get your DoubleJump, or good enough armor to survive more than ''one'' hit from them, or good enough weaponry to put much of a dent in their HP. On completely flat ground. Have fun, and [[StealthBasedMission stay the f*** out of the spotlights!!!!]]
** Another example includes the Double Hammers. These soldiers walk on their hammers like stilts, move extremely quickly, and swing their hammers at you. Sometimes, they will grab their hammers with both hands and do a flip. All of these attacks deal enormous damage, in the multiple hundred HP range, and there is very little room in which to avoid it. The only real way to kill it is to fly behind it with Voltacious, which is an item that allows flight, and simply pound on it until it dies, avoiding it whenever it prepares for an attack. It has a high HP count; only bosses have higher. Thankfully, they only appear in the Training Hall (not, as the name suggests, a training area, but rather a gauntlet of the most brutal platforming challenges the game has to offer) and the Large Cavern.
** Weapons Masters, too, are extremely difficult. [[WalkingArmory They hold every type of weapon other enemies hold, from dual-bladed boomerang swords to enormous hammers to throwing daggers]]. They throw things at you, leap somersaulting into the air flailing its giant hammer, and swing swords at you. It is deadly, does as much damage as a Double Hammer, and has just as much HP as well. Thankfully, it also only appears in the Large Cavern.
** ''Order of Ecclesia'' includes the aforementioned bonus dungeon called the Large Cavern, which is ''infested'' with ''all'' of the game's Demonic Spiders, often having to fight ''multiple ones at the same time''. Your only saving grace is that to unlock this dungeon, you need the glyph that gives you flight. This can turn the tide, or be worse than useless. Have fun!
*** Correction: You ''can'' access Large Cavern ''before'' you get Volaticus. [[SelfImposedChallenge Try if you dare]].

* Frozen Halfs in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'', somewhat. While they are pretty easy to kill, if you let them live for too long, then after their first (underwhelming) attack, they will float up (typically out of reach) and shout "Maximum power!" And then OH SHIT WHERE ARE ALL THESE HUGE ICE BLOCKS COMING FROM WHEN DOES IT STOP ARRGH.
** The witches from the same game and ''same area'' fly around erratically, constantly put up shields whenever you try and attack normally, and sometimes when you don't, spam orbs, skulls, and CATS that do surprisingly high damage, and are just a pain in the backside. Your only hope half of the time is just to get out, fast! Oh yeah, if you do kill them, they turn into a cat and run until the room ends or they hit a wall. They can still do high damage. Luckily, this isn't a problem in later games.
*** Luckily, there is an item in the game called Cat-Eye Circlet, that restore huge amounts of HP by cat contact. That make the witches pathetically easy. Also, they can be ''stopped'' by stopwatch.
** Valhalla Knights can be very nasty, since they move very fast and can do a lot of damage. Especially on luck mode. Stopwatch cannot do anything about them.
** Azaghal, the strongest sword enemy in the game, who not only is hard to hit, but will probably hit you during his knockback animation, dealing high (about 60-80 when you first meet him) damage. However, they can be ''slowed'' by stopwatch but still deadly.
* ''ANY'' level 75 enemy in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness''. Ghouls? They can't be fazed, stunned, or pushed back by attacks, and if they grab you, they'll chew you to death. Fleamen? Superfast, hard to hit, and they deal a lot of damage. But the kings are the Red Ogres: Can move around easily despite their bulk, can shoot multiple EyeBeams, and swing a colossal club around. Any of his attacks can turn Hector into a pile of kebab without much effort.

* ''Simon's Quest'' has Floating Eyeballs, which behave similarly to "Hump Bot" from ''JourneyToSilius'', except they usually come in swarms.
** The slime. Indoors, no problem, they cling to the ceiling before dropping and you can see them coming. Outdoors, an unpredictable, bouncing nightmare.
* ''Aria Of Sorrow'' comes with an enemy that constantly flies above your head and attacks downwards. They come in three flavors: one has a trident for better reach, and the other two poison and curse you on contact.

* ''Aria Of Sorrow'' comes with an enemy that constantly flies above your head and attacks downwards. They come in three flavors: one has a trident for better reach, and the other two poison and curse you on contact.

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'', in its bid to ensure that nobody [[ItsEasySoItSucks ever complains about]] {{Metroidvania}} [[ItsEasySoItSucks being too easy again]], brings us a great deal of these guys, but one shines out beyond the others: the Tin Men. These anachronisms constantly charge at you, swinging an axe in an arc higher than your normal jump. They resist most everything you can throw at them, hit like a speeding bus, and are much faster than Shanoa. If you manage to damage them enough to stop their charge, they will whip out a ''machine gun'' and fire until one of you is dead. As you'd expect, Dracula's Castle can and will make you fight up to ''four at a time''. But at least during this sequence, you have higher ground on which to stand that they cannot reach. The Large Cavern is not nearly so generous. Never complain about [[PowerGivesYouWings Volaticus]] being a UselessUsefulSpell again. Oh, and worst of all, you can encounter them as soon as Minera Prison Island. '''Before''' you get your DoubleJump, or good enough armor to survive more than ''one'' hit from them, or good enough weaponry to put much of a dent in their HP. On completely flat ground. Have fun, and [[StealthMission stay the f*** out of the spotlights!!!!]]

***** Well, good luck getting that Black Dog card--you only find it in the Arena section, filled with all the previous enemies, WITH NO SAVEPOINTS.

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'', in its bid to ensure that nobody [[ItsEasySoItSucks ever complains about]] {{Metroidvania}} [[ItsEasySoItSucks being too easy again]], brings us a great deal of these guys, but one shines out beyond the others: the Tin Men. These anachronisms constantly charge at you, swinging an axe in an arc higher than your normal jump. They resist most everything you can throw at them, hit like a speeding bus, and are much faster than Shanoa. If you manage to damage them enough to stop their charge, they will whip out a ''machine gun'' and fire until one of you is dead. As you'd expect, Dracula's castle can and will make you fight up to ''four at a time''. But at least during this sequence, you have higher ground on which to stand that they cannot reach. The Large Cavern is not nearly so generous. Never complain about [[PowerGivesYouWings Volaticus]] being a UselessUsefulSpell again.

*** Correction: You ''can'' access Large Cavern ''before'' you get Volaticus. [[SelfImposedChallenge Try if you dare]]

* ''ANY'' level 75 enemy in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness''. Ghouls? They can't be fazed, stunned or push back by attacks, and if they grab you they'll chew you to death. Fleamen? Superfast, hard to hit and they deals a lot of damage. But the kings are the Red Ogres: Can move around easily despite their bulk, can shoot multiple EyeBeams and swings a colossal club around. Any of his attacks can turn Hector in a pile of kebab without much effort.
** And even worse, in the second bonus dungeon, the Tower of Evermore (pretty much the only place you will meet those enemies), these are often ''combined in the same room''. Hector can at least bring stupid amounts of healing with enough fairies and potions. Trevor, on the other hand, only needs to get hit be the Red Ogres' grab attack once and is dead. No matter what. From full HP with max Armor. Forcing you to go through the ''50 floors'' of the first bonus dungeon again to even access the 50 floors of the second.

*** There's also the Black Crows, which follow an erratic movement pattern. Castlevania's near-equivalent of ''NinjaGaiden'''s hawks.