Final Guard

Final Guards (also known as Guardians) 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 BIG FUCKING SHIELD and wield a BIG ASS SWORD. The Final Guard usually has impressive elemental resistances, but often has a weakness to one particular tactic or type of attack; this is often Hit damage in the older games.

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 it. Their attacks consist of an overhead slash, a rapid-fire thrusting attack, and a sword sweep that sends out a wave of blue flames. In addition, Guardians can summon a shield which renders them totally invincible for a short time (not even attacking them from behind 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 pressing the attack button repeatedly, even if they are not actually taking damage; walking into the room swinging the Crissaegrim will thus mean they will 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.

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 which 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 fire 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.

Though he resists all forms of attack, Hit damage in Aria of Sorrow is not a form of attack and thus all enemies are automatically neutral to it. This means that a Final Guard can be destroyed fairly rapidly 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
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 device connected to it. Casting Chain Lightning on this device 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 one of the Final Guards each time will 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 strategy is to attack him with Skull Ball, making sure to slide-kick the skull to inflict massive damage. About three or four of them may be necessary to defeat a Final Guard in a normal game.

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness
In this game, the Final Guard is, as usual, the most powerful of the "Armor" enemies. They are first encountered in the Infinite Corridor. This time around, it glows with a blue aura when it is 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 will attack, giving the player a small amount of time to counter and attack the elite guard.

They are the first reliable source of Adamantine in the game.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
As his description says, 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, such as 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 just simply cast the 1,000 Blades dual crush 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 be able to 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.

Trivia

 * It can be interesting to note that the Final Guard and the Iron Golem enemies swap their roles in Portrait of Ruin. In Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, the Final Guard took decent amounts of damage while the Iron Golem only took one point of damage with each attack. In Portrait of Ruin, the Final Guard only took one point of damage, but his HP was reduced down to 50, while the Iron Golem took regular damage, and as such, had his HP count increased to 999.
 * Another point of interest is that in Symphony of the Night, while being one of the strongest regular enemies, he is also the best source of experience while being the easiest to beat. If a player has acquired the Moon Rod, all you need to do (regardless of your level) is press ↓, ↘, → + [ATTACK]. The Moon Rod's special attack will summon four blades that will target the nearest enemy. If used while the Final Guardian is in the same room, but far away, not only will the Final Guardian not attack or defend, but the four blades will make quick work of him. At level 25 you will only need to use this attack twice to kill a single Final Guard, netting you insane amounts of experience, easily letting you surpass the level 45 and higher marks in a matter of minutes.
 * In Aria of Sorrow, it's possible to make the Final Guard to use its fireball above the pit. Instead of a fireball, a small quake will be created.