Castle Center (Nintendo 64)

The Castle Center is a location in Castlevania and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness. It is an experimental magical laboratory inside Dracula's Castle between the years of 1844 to 1852.
==Overview==
As far as any other stage goes, you'll see the most advanced gadgets and technology here (next to Tower of Science). Every electronic there is powered by magic; though clues suggest that some electronics are supplied by electricity from the generator room on the third floor. There are far more rooms in the Castle Center stage than any other stage in the game, at a total of 26. It has eight different floor-levels, all though the forth floor is grouped off since there are areas there that can only be accessed depending on what stairway is chosen from below to ascend up. Inevitably, during gameplay both routes will be taken. The fifth, sixth and seventh floor can only be accessed from the archives. And the eighth floor can only be accessed by a magical-powered elevator located on the second floor. Despite it all being a full research laboratory the scenery actually has a medieval castle feel to it.
===Floor 1 – 5 rooms===
On the first floor we have a torture chamber room. It is stashed with many sharp objects that look painful to use on others. Especially the restraints connected to a giant scythe in the middle of the room. This is also the room where Mandragora is stored.
*Quote from examining the sharp objects: "A rack of torture instruments. Just thinking about them chills the heart."
*Quote from examining the giant scythe: "A giant scythe. All around, The smell of fresh blood."
*Quote from examining the Mandragora: "Mandragora. Closely resembles the cure-all medicinal plant. A powerful scream will detonate the Magical Nitro."
There is also a battle room down the hallways from the torture chamber room. Most notably, you can find a dead bull lying in the middle of the room. It doesn't look like there's been a battle here for a while. The entire floor there is made of dirt and mud, while the stands are made of stone.
There is a hidden room that can be accessed from the battle room, but has been completely sealed off with a stone wall and powerful magic. Players must use the clues given in the stage to help figure out how to get there.
The room leading upstairs to the second floor is assumed a place where experiments are stored. It's a wide room, but the only real thing that is noticeable here are the cages stacked against the wall. Strong iron bars prevent these live rodents from escaping.
===Floor 2 – 1 room===
On this floor there is an elevator here that must be taken if anyone is to actually reach to the higher levels of Dracula's Castle. It transports you to the eighth floor of Castle Center.
A statue of a beautiful goddess can be found in this room too. Unlike the other goddess statues this one actually sheds tears of blood. What does this mean?
*Quote from examining the statue: "The high wall can be destroyed using Magical Nitro. Could this lead to some kind of code?"
**Quote in Legacy of Darkness: "'Gold is the color of Venus, 2nd child of the Sun.' 'The high wall can be destroyed using Magical Nitro.' Some kind of code?"
===Floor 3 – 4 rooms===
In the generator room there are gears here to operate electricity, though it's unknown to what it's actually supplying power to since everything is operated by magic.
A statue of a beautiful goddess can be found in this room too.
*Quote from examining the statue: "A slight shock can cause the Magical Nitro to explode. Could this lead to some kind of code?"
**Quote in Legacy of Darkness: "'Red is the color of Mars, 4th child of the Sun.' 'A slight shock can cause the Magical Nitro to explode.' Some kind of code?"
There is another room on the third floor with an unknown name, that has machines in which infinitely spawn Poison Heavy Lizard Man during gameplay. Could these machines actually be supplied with electricity?
===Floor 4 – 13 rooms===
On this floor we have a bar room which two pale-skinned waitresses look after. These beautiful maids will always be ready to serve anyone in need, and they don't accept payment in gold either... if you get my tip. Drinks are all lined up in the background. You can see a candle holder placed on every table.
Next to the bar room is a room filled with odd gadgets, blueprints, models, radios, and other electronics that look greatly out of place. How long they've been there is unknown.
There is a friendly Lizard Man that hangs out in a room next to a funny-looking table covered in blood. According to the Millennium Official Castlevania 64 Strategy Guide it is supposed to be a castle bedroom. Many candles are hung in this room.
*Quote from examining the table: "A device to turn people into demons. Bloodstains are everywhere..."
There is a storage room right next to the castle bedroom that can be entered from two ways. Various supplies are stored here, including the Magical Nitro.
*Quote from examining the Magical Nitro: "A row of bottles containing red liquid. Magical Nitro... Explosive magic item. Warning attached. Danger! Will explode from slight shocks or vibrations."
An archives room can be found on this floor too. Unfortunately, access to this room has been sealed off for unknown reasons. Many books here are placed neatly on the shelf. Oddly enough, every book is on the same topic of the sun.A statue of a beautiful goddess can be found in this room too.
*Quote from examining the statue: "Magical Nitro cannot destroy the wall until the protective seal is removed. Could this lead to some kind of code?"
**Quote in Legacy of Darkness: "'Blue is the color of Neptune, 8th child of the Sun.' 'Magical Nitro cannot destroy the wall until the protective seal is removed.' Some kind of code?"
===Floor 5 – 0 rooms===
Since the area of the fifth floor is fully connected to the archives on the forth floor there are no rooms.
===Floor 6 – 1 room===
A single room that can only be accessed by a hatch hidden in the ceiling on the fifth floor. The room is quite small. It has a single elegant desk set up (with no chair), and a bookshelf filled with materials about astronomy.
===Floor 7 – 1 room===
Just like the room below, the area can only be accessed by a hatch hidden in the ceiling on the sixth floor. You can many star-like patterns up on the ceiling, all of it being projected on by the machine in the center of the room.
===Floor 8 – 1 room===
In this room you are on a 25 by 25 foot-square walkway made of stone. It is connected by two bridges made of wood the size of train tracks, to another area of Dracula's Castle. This is exit point of the stage. The rest of the room has no flooring, and will just be a nasty fall to those who walk otherwise. Out in the distance you can see torches set up around the room. One of the wooden bridges has apparently been destroyed.
As a stage it involves a lot of running back and forth, which is often criticized in gameplay, and there are more vampire types in this stage than any other stage in the game. Interestingly enough, the vampires will now attack you in groups. Sadly, as a group it does not make them anymore dangerous than they were before, due to the debuff in their HP.
The biggest threatening enemies in the Castle Center stage for Reinhardt Schneider is a tie between Cerberus (teaming up with Fire Cerberus) and the Mammoth Bull Demon boss. Cerberus and Fire Cerberus are marked up in threat simply because they stand a better chance at hitting the player than any other enemy or boss in the stage. If one gets behind the player while the other gets in front of them then it's chow time! And you'll receive some nasty bite marks when trying to get out of that situation. As for the Mammoth Bull Demon, while it may not have as good accuracy against a player who've mastered the advanced speed-jump technique, it still packs a massive amount of power behind its attacks, more particularly when it heaves (40 damage points). It only needs to hit the player a few good times to get the win. When attacking the inner body parts newcomers will have to be careful that they aren't standing too close so that they don't get poisoned.
Carrie Fernandez's biggest threat is the Fernandez Warrior. She fires so many power balls at the player that it becomes extremely difficult to dodge. They may lack the attack power that but the damage seriously racks up after a while.
Lastly, newcomers to the Castlevania games are likely to have difficulty carrying the Magical Nitro through the generator room on the third floor. Especially in Castlevania 64, where a camera's auto view cannot be changed to another view.
On Hard difficulty, Demon Head is an added enemy to the generator room, solely put there to kill players with their Magical Nitro. To beat this stage it will take some thinking, skill, and concentration. But most importantly, it will take patience.
==Life of a scientist==
Through these corridors lie mad scientists who have experimented on humans and other animal-like creatures that were captured and taken in against their will. The purpose of these experiments involved changing the test subjects into demons or into something along the lines of powerful, along with altering inner emotions. That way they can become part of Dracula's army. To get these results the scientists have had to toy and manipulate their test subject's feelings the worst ways imaginable. And for some test subjects, they've had their insides opened up physically. Most of the experiments died in the process, and failures had been disposed of. But the ones who did live, the ones that were a success had completely lost any sanity they had left. Without any resistance they would become part of Dracula's army. The life they once knew was now over, and a new life filled with death, hate, torture, and destruction of others would now begin.
Up to this day, there are only two failed test subjects in the Castle Center that have somehow managed to keep their sanity in check and arguably still live on afterwards: Heinrich Meyer and Rosa. The rest of the test subjects have either lost their marbles, died, escaped, vanished completely in a sacred ritual, or had been experimented on outside of the Castle Center.
===Confirmed scientists===
Actrise-bust.jpg|Actrise
Cv64-offart30.jpg|Death
===Assistants===
Gillesderais.png|Gilles de Rais
Lod-offart27.jpg|Ortega
Ada1.jpg|Ada
===Confirmed test subjects===
C64e mammothbulldemon.gif|An Unknown Bull
Warewolf2.png|An Unknown Beast from the legendary Werewolf Tribe
Lod-anthony.gif|Anthony
Lod-bess.gif|Bess
Lod-carriecous.gif|Camilla Fernandez
Darkchal.png|Charlie Vincent
Lod-clark.gif|Clark
Lod Cornell Wolf Form.JPG|Cornell
Lod-diana.gif|Diana
Lod-edward.gif|Edward
Lod-florence.gif|Florence
Cv64-offart35.jpg|Heinrich Meyer
Cv64-offart36.jpg|J. A. Oldrey
Malus.gif|Malus
Cv64-rosa.gif|Rosa
Note: Not all experiments were conducted in the Castle Center. The experiment on Charlie Vincent may not happen depending on what game ending is received.
==Enemy Data==
===Castlevania===
===Legacy of Darkness===
See Castle Center/Enemy Data 2
==Items==
===Castlevania===
Findings differ for each difficulty, but this is the chart for if you were playing Normal difficulty. It also assumes that you didn't pick up any items dropped from monsters.
Items from the battle room, and three other torches in the level have not been added to the Castlevania 64 chart yet.
Gold, Jewels and Power Ups	Items 	Item attack	Quest Items
Gold ×900 	Roast Chicken ×3	Axe 	Magical Nitro
Red Jewel ×70 	Roast Beef ×4 	Holy Water 	Mandragora
Power Up ×2 	Cure Ampoule ×2 	 	Chamber Key
 	Purifying ×4 	 	
 	Sun Card ×3 	 	
 	Moon Card ×2 	 	
*White Jewel ×7
*Contract ×2
===Legacy of Darkness===
Gold, Jewels and Power Ups	Items 	Item attack	Quest Items
Gold ×5,600 	Roast Chicken ×3	Axe 	Magical Nitro
Red Jewel ×130 	Roast Beef ×3 	Cross 	Mandragora
Power Up ×3 	Healing Kit 	Holy Water 	Chamber Key
 	Cure Ampoule ×3 	 	
 	Purifying ×4 	 	
 	Sun Card ×2 	 	
 	Moon Card ×2 	 	
*White Jewel ×7
*Contract ×3
==Secrets==
*On the forth floor upstairs from the generator room, but next to the bar room, has two to three knight statues standing in their respected corners. You can examine one of those knights to receive a reward of 500 Gold.
*There's a room upstairs next to the bar room (the room with the Contract in it) that has a whole bunch of electronic gadgets in it. You can find the following items by examining the gadgets: 500 Gold, Roast Beef. There is also a visible Roast Beef on top of a blimp model hanging from the ceiling.
*In the torture chamber room, you can climb the giant scythe to notice a visible Roast Beef sitting somewhere up there.
*On the third floor, when coming up from the second floor you'll notice two knight statues placed in the corners. Examine the one on the left to receive a reward of 300 Gold (Castlevania 64 only).
*On the third floor, when coming up from the second floor and going towards the direction of the doors you'll notice two knight statues placed in the corners. Examine the one on the left to receive a reward of a Red Jewel(L) (Castlevania 64 only).
*On the third floor, when inside the room with the broken staircase and White Jewel, there is a knight statue that is looking right at a door. Examine it to receive a reward of Purifying (Castlevania 64 only).
*There's a bar room on the upper floors (with two Vampire Maids) that has a pot sitting on the counter. Examine it to receive a Red Jewel(L).
*In the torture chamber room, if you examine the middle area of the shelf stashed with weapons you'll receive a reward of Purifying.
*In the storage room next to the friendly Lizard Man's bedroom, entering it the first time will trigger a cutscene. After it's finished you can examine the boxes next to the White Jewel to receive a reward of Healing Kit (Castlevania 64) or Roast Chicken (Legacy of Darkness hard).
==Trivia==
*In the first cutscene of Cornell's quest in Legacy of Darkness, an unknown person or creature (likely Gilles de Rais) can be seen walking through the corridors of Castle Center from a first person view.
*There are many rooms in this stage where the player has to destroy all enemies before the way forward can open. If the way the player is trying to go doesn't open, then it is advisable to double-check the room to make sure all enemies are defeated.
*In Castlevania 64, the fire Lizard Men in the gear room have unlimited HP and cannot be killed. In Legacy of Darkness, only Holy Water can kill them.
*When walking along with the gears in the generator room, it is recommended not to grind the player character against the gears and the wall at the same time. There are small cracks that they can slip through, but will ultimately crush and kill them.
*If playing on the Easy difficulty setting, then this is the last stage the player can explore before the game ends. Once cleared, the player is encouraged to try playing the game on Normal difficulty (Castlevania 64 only).
==Related stages==
*Art Tower - The stage Cornell takes instead of this one.
Category:Arenas
Category:Dungeons
Category:Laboratories
Category:Castlevania 64 Locations
Category:Legacy of Darkness Locations