Sword Familiar

A Sword Familiar is a sword that has its own will that generally attacks on its own without being weilded in its owner's hands. This is essentially a Bloody Sword that helps the hero instead of trying to kill them.

=Sword Familiars in Castlevania= Symphony of the Night introduced the Sword Familiar. In addition to randomly slicing enemies on the screen, it had a personality, could talk, could level up and gain new abilities, including the ability to be used as a regular sword. Soma Cruz can summon a similar familiar called the Alastor Familiar in Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow by obtaining and using the Alastor soul.

Appearance in Symphony of the Night
The Sword Familiar is available once you find the Sword Card in Olrox's Quarters. This card can be accessed once you can turn into a bat and is located in the room right below the one the Olrox battle took place in. However, it is not accessible from the Olrox battle room, you will have to access it from a hallway that runs a bit below that room, then break the ceiling near where the Holy Water is.

The Sword Familiar becomes the active familiar when you activate the Sword Card in the Relics menu. When it is first activated, it says "Have you power enough to wield me"? It will then hover around and every now and then head towards an enemy and twirl, exclaiming "Slice!" or "I won't let you get in the way!". As the sword levels up, it will become more powerfull and aggressive.

The Sword Familiar is the only familiar that can use a Spell. The Sword Brothers spell is accomplished by pressing down, then rolling the directional pad 180 degrees forwards and holding up for two seconds, and then suddenly press down and attack at the same time. The sword will perform a move that damages all enemies on the screen. This will consume a heafty 30 MP, the second highest consuming spell after the Soul Steal.

Once the Sword Familiar is levelled up to beyond 50, it proclaims "You have grown mighty, my master. I grant you my power. It's my pleasure" can be equipped as a normal Sword. When equipped in a Hand, its attack strength is equal to its level. The Sword Familiar will not level up when used in the hand though. It will be the strongest sword in Alucard's arsenal once it can be equipped, unless you have played more hours than the level of this sword, in which case the Badelaire will be stronger. Even at its weakest equippable point, it is already stronger than the Alucard Sword, the strongest constant-strength sword. It has no special attacks while equipped though and you cannot perform the Sword Brothers spell.

There is a famous Sword Familiar Glitch which can allow you to go to areas of the castle you normally cannot and increase your percentage game complete to levels higher than intended.

Appearance in Aria of Sorrow
The Alastor Familiar essentially a watered-down version of the Sword Familiar found in Symphony of the Night. It does not talk, does not level up, cannot gain abilities, does not have a special on-call attack move, and cannot be equipped in the Hand. Despite this, it is still a fairly usefull Guardian Soul. Randomly attacking enemies every once in a while can make things go better. The only other Familiar in this game in is the Imp Familiar, which can be obtained much earlier in the game, but is not nearly as good. The Alastor Familiar causes about four times the damage, consumes the same amount of MP, attacks more often, has has a greater attack range.

The Alastor Familiar can only be found near the very end of the game in the Chaos Realm. The first one is found a little bit before you reach the second Save Point. If you have collected ALL of the souls, the Chaos Ring is found in a room adjacent to this one as well.