Final Guard

The Final Guard, or Guardian, is an enemy in the Castlevania series. They are elite Armor Lords specially chosen to guard important areas of the castle.
==Description==
Final Guards are large armored knights that usually appear near the end of a game, guarding key areas of the castle. They are a step up from Great Armors. Typically resistant to most forms of attack, they bear a large shield and wield a massive sword.
The Final Guard usually has impressive elemental resistances, but often has a weakness to one particular tactic or type of attack, this being often Strike damage in the older games.
==Appearances==
===Castlevania: Symphony of the Night===
Guardians, found only in the two hallways adjacent to the clock room in the Black Marble Gallery of the Reverse Castle, have the highest level of any non-boss enemy in the game. Even among bosses, only Death, Shaft and Dracula have a higher level than them. Their attacks consist of an overhead slash, a flurry attack, and a sword sweep that sends out a wave of blue flames. In addition, Guardians can summon an energy shield which renders them totally invincible for a short period of time (not even attacking them from the rear can inflict any damage). Between moves, there is a brief downtime when they are totally vulnerable to attack.
Guardians will raise their shields in response to the player repeatedly pressing the attack button, even if they aren't actually taking damage; walking into the room swinging the Crissaegrim will thus mean they'll raise their shield before Alucard is even near them. They have no vulnerabilities, but have a substantial gap in their defenses when it comes to Hit damage; the rapid-punch command move of the Fist of Tulkas can make short work of a Guardian, and a high-level Bat Familiar will inflict heavy damage. Poison damage, such as that from the Terminus Est, is also highly effective.
Casting Soul Steal while a Guardian has his shield up won't harm him, but will still steal a good amount of HP from him.
===Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow===
This is the first modern appearance of the Final Guard. The Final Guard resists all forms of attack, acting as a much stronger version of the Great Armor, with an additional attack where the Final Guard touches the ground with the tip of his sword and shoots out a fireball that travels along the floor. It is otherwise identical in behavior and attacks to a Great Armor, having the same long range slash, close range slash, and block moves. Like the Shadow Knight, touching his blade causes Sword damage, touching his body causes non elemental damage, and touching his fireball causes Flame damage. All of them use 100% of his STR. The Final Guard has an additional move similar to its soul, during which he becomes invulnerable against any attack.
Even though he resists all forms of attack, Hit damage in Aria of Sorrow is not elemental and thus all enemies are automatically neutral to it. This means that a Final Guard can be defeated fairly quickly through use of the Mach Punch or Kaiser Knuckle. Though it places Soma at some risk of taking damage, crouching right in front of the Final Guard will mean almost all of his attacks will miss (even the close sword slash will just miss Soma's head).
===Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow===
In addition to all of his usual moves, the Final Guard in Dawn of Sorrow can now shoot his shield forward, tied with a chain. A room in The Pinnacle is notorious as it is inhabited by two Final Guards, each guarding one of the two entrances. In the middle of this room is a searchlight with a generator connected to it. Casting Chain Lightning on this device or attacking it with the Gungner will power it up and light up the searchlight, attracting a Mothman to it. Soma can then attempt to kill it to obtain its valuable soul. Unfortunately, more than one attempt may be necessary for this end, and defeating a Final Guard each time might take too much time and resources. The best strategy is to simply transform into a bat and fly over the Final Guard. Soma won't be harmed from touching the tip of his sword, as it only can deal damage when the Final Guard is performing an attack.
If, on the other hand, the player is hunting for the Final Guard's soul, a good option is to attack him with Skull Ball, making sure to slide-kick the skull to inflict massive damage. About three of them may be necessary to defeat a Final Guard in a normal game. As he cannot turn around, using the Substitute Puppet can also avoid most of the attacks.
===Castlevania: Curse of Darkness===
In this game, Final Guards are, as usual, the most powerful of the "Armor" enemies. They are first encountered in the Infinite Corridor. This time around, the guard glows with a blue aura when he's idle; as long as the aura remains, a green shield will appear out of nowhere and block all attacks, including area-of-effect abilities and the Rosario. When the aura disappears, he'll resume attacking, giving the player a small amount of time to counter and attack back the elite guard. He can make the lion effigy on his shield to breathe a powerful stream of flames.
They are the first reliable source of Adamantine in the game.
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===Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin===
As his description states, the Final Guard watches and guards key areas of the castle, such as the Master's Keep, and also appears in several of Brauner's paintings, like the Dark Academy and the Nest of Evil. His role with the Iron Golem has essentially been swapped in this game, taking only 1 damage per hit from most weapons, while having low HP (50). For a weapon to deal more than 1 point of damage to the Final Guard, it must do close to 200 damage per strike against most enemies in the game. This knocks out most of the available weapons at hand. The Final Guard is at its weakest against the Critical Art of the upgraded Vampire Killer/Undead Killer, however. With Konami Man obtained, high levels and immense Strength bonuses, these weapons can become the player's best line of offense.
An alternate strategy is to simply cast 1,000 Blades from a safe distance, which most of the times will leave the Final Guard with less than 10 HP (or, in rare cases, kill him if all knives make contact). Then the player can either get near and attack him until he falls or simply wait and cast another 1,000 Blades to finish him off.
Another strategy is to use the Axe Bomber dual crush, which will deal significant damage to the Final Guard and kill him instantly if the player has reached a level near 50.
===Castlevania: Order of Shadows===
The Giant Armor is similar to Curse of Darkness's Final Guard. He is invincible except for when wielding a sword.
===Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia===
The Final Knight wields a giant sickle this time around and has the ability to unleash powerful energy shockwaves across the ground. They are only found in the lower corridors of the Final Approach.
He has two forms of attack:
#Crashes down his dual scythe-pickaxe.
#Shoves the sickle on the floor in order to create a powerful shockwave.
===Castlevania: Harmony of Despair===
The Final Guard is present in chapters 6, 7 and 8 of the game. While his appearance and attacks come from Dawn of Sorrow, he can only take 1 damage per hit as in Portrait of Ruin.
Probably due to the higher technical capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 than the Nintendo DS, its attack movements are more flexible and detailed.
===Castlevania: Valiant Guardian, Castlevania: Labyrinth of Love, Castlevania: Labyrinth of Fire===
The Final Guard is encountered after fighting some Skeletons during a Major Chance in the North American slot games Castlevania: Valiant Guardian and Castlevania: Labyrinth of Love. Defeating it secures at least a Major prize. The player then gets a Mega Chance and fights more Skeletons and a Wyvern.
The helmet of the Final Guard is depicted as the second highest symbol on the reel in Valiant Guardian and its shield is depicted as the the symbol just higher than an Ace in Labyrinth of Fire.
===Castlevania: Warrior of Darkness, Castlevania: Vampire Hunter===
The Final Guard appears in the artwork for the Skeletons battle for the Australian slot games Castlevania: Warrior of Darkness and Castlevania: Vampire Hunter.
===Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls===
===Dead Cells===
The Dead Cells enemy Guardian Knight appears in the true Dracula's Castle in the Return to Castlevania expansion when playing on at least Expert Mode.
==Item Data==
==Gallery==
AoS 104.png|Final Guard enemy list entry from Aria of Sorrow.
Final Guard COD Unused Portraits.PNG|Unused portraits of Final Guard from Curse of Darkness.
Dxc 144.png|Guardian enemy list entry from The Dracula X Chronicles version of Symphony of the Night.
HD 1koma 10.jpg|Final Guard in the official Koma comic strips of Harmony of Despair.
VG Final Guard.png|Reel art in Castlevania: Valiant Guardian.
LoF Final Guard Shield.png|Reel art for Final Guard's shield in Castlevania: Labyrinth of Fire.
==Trivia==
*In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, while being one of the strongest regular enemies, the Guardian is also the best source of experience while being the easiest to beat. If a player has acquired the Moon Rod, all they need to do (regardless of level) is press ↓ ↘ → + [ATTACK]. The Moon Rod's Special Attack will summon four blades that will target the nearest enemy. If used while the Guardian is in the same room but far away, not only will he not attack or defend, but the four blades will make quick work of him. At level 25, the player will only need to use this attack twice to kill a single Guardian, netting great amounts of experience and easily letting one surpass the level 45 and higher marks in a matter of minutes.
*In Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, it's possible to make the Final Guard to use his fireball above the pit. Instead of a fireball, a small quake will be created.
*Also in Aria of Sorrow, there's a crest on the Great Armor, Final Guard, and the Shadow Knight that resembles a nude woman.
*The Final Guard's sword in Portrait of Ruin is different from the one in Dawn of Sorrow, although the Final Sword in Portrait of Ruin is still using the same sprites from Dawn of Sorrow.
*The Final Guard and the Iron Golem swapped their usual roles in Portrait of Ruin. In Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, the Final Guard can sustain decent amounts of damage while the Iron Golem only takes one point of damage with each attack. In Portrait of Ruin, however, the Final Guard only takes one point of damage, although his HP was reduced down to 50, while the Iron Golem takes regular damage, but had his HP count increased to 999.
*In Order of Ecclesia, the Final Knight, along with the Rebuild, have the "number of the beast" (666) as their max HP.
*Also in Order of Ecclesia, the EXP the Final Knight yields upon defeat, 573, corresponds to an in-joke Konami uses in many of its games, as the Japanese language allows the numbers (5 = go, 7 = nana) to be read as kona, and the kanji used to the number 3 is very similar to the hiragana for of the 'mi' syllable; this allows the number to be read as "Konami".
==See also==
*Dark Armor
*Great Armor
==References==
*Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - Bestiary by Darth Nemesis at GameFAQs
*Mr. P's Castlevania Realm
es:Guardia Final
Category:Armored Enemies
Category:Fire Enemies
Category:Knights
Category:Undead
Category:Aria of Sorrow Enemies
Category:Curse of Darkness Enemies
Category:Dawn of Sorrow Enemies
Category:The Dracula X Chronicles Enemies
Category:Grimoire of Souls Enemies
Category:Harmony of Despair Enemies
Category:Order of Ecclesia Enemies
Category:Order of Shadows Enemies
Category:Portrait of Ruin Enemies
Category:Symphony of the Night Enemies