Golem

The Golem is an enemy from many games spanning across the Castlevania series. Like other monsters in the series, its role in each game ranges from boss threats to nonexistent.

Most Golems are made of rocks or clay, including several boss varieties such as the ones in Haunted Castle, Super Castlevania IV, Harmony of Dissonance, Lament of Innocence, Aria of Sorrow and The Adventure ReBirth.

Circle of the Moon introduced the Iron Golem boss, which soon became a common regular enemy in its own right and is renowned for its incredible resistance to damage. Aria of Sorrow featured two Golems not found in other games, including the Wooden Golem (which was replaced later by the Treant) and the bizarre Flesh Golem, whose soul allowed Soma to eat otherwise harmful food. Lords of Shadow featured gigantic Golems known as Titans, as well as a smaller one called the Black Knight Golem.

Castlevania Judgment features a playable Golem who has obtained self-awareness and can be considered a character in his own right.

Origins
The golem was conceived long ago in Jewish folklore. During the Middle Ages, it was seen as a symbol of one's own great holiness and power to create a golem, and many prominent rabbis were rumored to have actually created a number of golems. A golem is built from the dust of the earth, much like how God made Adam. There are multiple ways to activate a golem:




 * By inscribing one of the many names of God onto its forehead.
 * By inscribing one of the many names of God on a slip of paper and placing it in the golem's mouth.
 * By inscribing a specific religious command using one's own blood on calfskin and placing it into its mouth.
 * By inscribing the Hebrew word emet ("truth") on its forehead.

It is always the wisest decision to never give the golem the ability to speak. If it has the ability to speak, then the golem is given a soul; and if it is given a soul, the Golem becomes anarchistic and cunning, in a sense. The golem becomes a wicked, foul creature. Another good idea is to always allow the golem to rest on the Sabbath (Saturday for Jews, Sunday for Christians), or else the golem will go berserk and become destructive of everything around it. If either one of these mistakes are made, or if for any other reason, there are also a few ways meant to deactivate the Golem.
 * If activated using the word emet, one must erase the "e" to form the word met ("death").
 * If activated using the calfskin parchment, the parchment must be removed from its mouth.
 * If activated using the slip of paper, the paper must be removed and destroyed.

In all definitions, a golem is meant to be a servant to the one who created it. While there are many forms of golems throughout Castlevania, they all really stay true to the original myths surrounding it.

Super Castlevania IV
Koranot is the King of the Golems. Simon meets him at the end of the Outer Keep after beating Puwexil. Koranot spelled backwards reads "Tonarok", this can be interpreted as "Ton of Rock", which is an accurate description of this boss enemy. A spectacular monster showcasing the, at the time, new Super Nintendo console's abilities, making heavy use of innovative Mode 7 effects such as rotation and scaling.

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
Golems appear in the first stage of Rondo of Blood. It's revealed during one of the introductory cutscenes that an army of Golems, along with the Behemoth and many other creatures, were responsible for razing the town of Aljiba, where they took Annette hostage. A couple of Golems appear toward the final segment of the stage. They have two attacks: punching forward and spitting three fireballs in a spreading manner.

Rondo of Blood also introduced a very different race of golems: the Bone Golem. Instead of being a huge juggernaut made of rock, this boss was composed by a multitude of bones from different creatures, assembling to form three different monsters:
 * 1) The first being a centaur-like creature with four arms.
 * 2) The second being a long-tailed flying creature.
 * 3) The third being a mass of bones which rammed from side to side of the room.

Castlevania: Bloodlines
In this game, the Golem is featured as the boss of the Atlantis Shrine (Stage 2), which takes place in Greece. After defeating the Wizard who was using his magic to force the waters of Atlantis to rise to threatening heights, the player rides the tide down to the bottom of the Atlantic palace and comes face to face with the Wizard's creation: the Golem. Its body has multiple layers the player must break in order to do damage to a red orb that acts as its head (and, therefore, its weak point). Its attack are mainly just pummeling the ceiling to cause rocks to drop down on the player and trying to slug them from a point-blank distance. After the Golem is defeated, it raises its fist, as if to threaten that it will return someday.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon


The Golem appears in two (or three, if counting the Iron Golem boss) forms in the game. The first is the Golem enemy, encountered in the Underground Warehouse, which slowly walks around. When damaged enough, its lower body falls off and he slowly crawls forward, as he cannot change directions anymore. The second is the Golem DSS card, which represents the element of Earth, thus creating earth effects when combined with other cards, such as earthquakes. When the Uranus card is obtained, the player can summon the Golem, which makes stones come out from the ground as the Golem emerges, doing extreme damage to weaker enemies.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Harmony of Dissonance was famous for its numerous boss fights, and the Golem joins this large cast too. He behaves much like his Bloodlines counterpart, even so far as to have the same red orb that acts as his weak point. He also has a ball and chain in place of one of his arms, although this is just only aesthetic, as he won't actually use it in battle. The fight has two phases:
 * 1) At first, the Golem will walk slowly, trying to punch Juste when he's close, and jumping from time to time to make rocks fall from the ceiling. He can be damaged by hitting any part of his body.
 * 2) After sustaining enough damage, the rock formations on his head and chest will break, revealing a red orb which acts as his weak spot. At this point, only the orb can be damaged, so Juste must resort to jumping or making use of the two nearby platforms to attack. In this phase, he constantly attacks by spewing a cascade of rock shards that cover a considerable distance.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
In this game, most Golems are relegated to being just very strong enemies. There are many more Golems than just the familiar stone giant, one of which, made of iron, is nearly impossible to defeat without use of the Killer Mantle's soul, Astral Veil, because its defense is ridiculously high. While most of them aren't bosses, the Golems make nuisances of themselves all the same. Regardless of their high defense, all Golems (except the Big Golem) can be destroyed with one hit of Astral Veil. This weakness also makes obtaining their souls much easier.

Wooden Golem
This is the weakest golem in this game and is the first one encountered in a normal playthrough. He has weakness to Fire and the second lowest defense among the other golems. He has two attacks, one is a low uppercut, which can send Soma flying, and the other is kicking a stone forward, which can be reflected using the Witch's or Giant Ghost's soul.

Golem
This is the second variant of golems. Despite having the lowest HP, his tolerance against every element makes up for it. He has the same moveset as the Wooden Golem.

Flesh Golem
Essentially, a large glob of flesh given life. He drops rotten items and does not give out a lot of experience. Despite his weakness against Sword and having the lowest defense among the other golems, he has more HP. His soul grants the Demon Stomach ability, which is useful for restoring health, as Soma can eat otherwise harmful food (like Rotten Meat and Spoiled Milk, both of which are dropped by the Flesh Golem) and restore HP instead of decreasing it. As the other golems, he has two attacks, a low uppercut and kicking a stone.

Big Golem
The Big Golem appears in the Dance Hall as the game's fourth boss, and later in the Underground Reservoir as a regular enemy. He has about thrice the height of the other golems and moves almost exactly as Talos did in Harmony of Dissonance, by slowly pacing back and forth while swinging his long arms near the ground, inflicting coincidental damage upon contact. He has two attacks:
 * 1) He thrusts the palm of his hand at Soma. He can thrust his palm downward or upward (he will bend his body to do this). Interestingly, each attack hits twice, displaying the damage received as only half of the actual amount.
 * 2) He opens up his mouth and spits rocks out at Soma. While not as devastating as the arm thrust attack, it covers some distance between him and the player, so it's best trying to avoid it. The Witch's and Giant Ghost's soul can reflect the rocks.

After defeating this boss the first time, the player will obtain the Skeleton Blaze soul, which grants the Sliding ability and allows Soma to slide underneath narrow places, which helps to unlock the Inner Quarters area. Also, Soma can acquire the Big Golem's soul, which grants the Guardian Golem ability. It behaves much like the Creaking Skull's and Cagnazzo's souls, mainly because it's a Guardian Soul, and it supports battle from behind the player. While not as powerful as Cagnazzo's soul, it is more powerful than the Creaking Skull's soul; however, it doesn't cover as much distance as the latter, so the player may want to equip the soul depending on the room's layout they're fighting in.

It's possible for Soma to slip behind the Big Golem by trying to walk past it, although he'll receive heavy damage (in Julius's case, he can warp behind him with no damage taken), once there, the player can attack him from behind and the boss/enemy will not be able to turn around, making it easier to beat. Caution needs to be considered, though, as Soma/Julius can still get hit if the Big Golem takes a step back, so a bit of spacing needs to be taken in mind.

Iron Golem
This is the strongest Golem and the most durable enemy in the game. He has 9,999 HP, 255 Defense, and tolerance against every element, making almost any attack do only 1 damage (occasionally, and on very high levels, some powerful attacks may do 2 damages to him). The only way to beat him fast is by using the Killer Mantle's soul, Astral Veil. For this reason, trying to beat him in Julius Mode is practically useless, since all of Julius's attacks will only deal 1 damage. He has two attacks, a downward punch (instead of the other golems' low uppercut), and kicking a stone.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
In perhaps his most memorable role, the Golem is one of the bosses Leon must defeat in order to open the door to Walter's Keep. It's worth mentioning that while traversing the Anti-Soul Mysteries Lab (the stage where the Golem dwells), Leon must find the "e" Tablet first and bring it to the boss's room. Once there, the tablet must be inserted into an epitaph that has the word "meth" written on it (this is one of the actual ways of activating a golem, by writing the word "emeth" on it; see Origins). However, this Golem does not seem ready to obey the man who brought him to life, thus attacks Leon. He is basically a bruiser boss, many of his attacks consist in swinging his arms, throwing punches in a wide arc and covering a considerable area around his vicinity, or jumping to create an area-of-effect shockwave around him. He can also smash the ground with both of his fists to create yet another shockwave, this time causing Paralysis.

After his first HP bar has been depleted, the rock formations on his head and chest, along with his right arm, will crumble, revealing an inner red orb (very similar to his Harmony of Dissonance counterpart). At this point, he can only perform one swing with his remaining arm, although it has a much wider range. He can also take aim and shoot his arm at Leon, pulling it back to him via a concealed chain attached to it. At this point, only the red orb can be damaged, so Leon must resort to jumping in order to attack him. When defeated, as usual, it once again returns to the peace of the earth.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Three golems appear in Dawn of Sorrow: Golem, Treant (replacing the Wooden Golem from Aria) and the Iron Golem. Their sprites have been redrawn to fit the more-demanding graphical capabilities of the Nintendo DS.

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness
The Golem is a Level 2 Battle-Type Innocent Devil in Curse of Darkness, which is an ally instead of an enemy. He can be obtained by evolving a Magmard by collecting 40  Sword  or  Special  Evo Crystals.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Appearing in the Buried Chamber, the Golem from Portrait of Ruin is the same which first appeared in Rondo of Blood. They are simple enemies who have resistances against most of Jonathan's sub-weaponry.

Castlevania Judgment
$Judgment$

The Golem is a playable character in the 3-D fighting game Judgment for the Nintendo Wii. His design seems to be a mixture of both the Golem and Frankenstein's Monster. It's revealed throughout his story mode that the Time Rift the game takes place in has granted the Golem a measure of self-awareness, which he uses in an attempt to make himself fully human. However, only in the rift can his sentience be maintained. The rift would doom humanity if he remains extant; as such, the Golem sacrifices his chance at humanity to help seal the rift and save mankind. After the Golem mends the rift in time, he loses his sentience and becomes a mindless monster once more. Sadly, he was later destroyed by a vampire hunter. His theme is "Tower of Dolls", a song from Castlevania Chronicles.

Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth
In The Adventure ReBirth, the area boss of The Chapel (Stage 4) is an enemy that resembles a Golem. He is capable of smashing, jumping into the air and landing (creating a shockwave), and summoning several mini-golems which float around. His head is not shown until the end of the battle, although when he's collapsing, it's shown that it bears the uppercase Omega (Ω), the final letter of the Greek alphabet.

Enemy Data
$Enemy Data$

Trivia

 * The Golem from Harmony of Dissonance is one of only two bosses in the game who receives non-neutral damage from an element, Golem resisting Thunder, and the Skull Knight, who is weak to it.
 * In Aria of Sorrow there is a rare chance a wooden golem would look like an iron golem, a good place to find it is in Dance Hall.