Swords

Castlevania has traditionally been about a Belmont and his whip. This has helped distinguish the series from many other properties. Symphony of the Night was the first game to contain a sword-weilding playable character and swords have been weilded by protagonists in every game since.

Swords in Symphony of the Night
Although Alucard is able to weild a large variety of weapons, he is most comfortable with his family heirloom, the Alucard Sword. He is able to perform a special warp-attack with this sword. He is equipped with this powerfull sword at the beginning of the game until Death steals it. After this, he finds a multitude of swords.

The first basic one-handed sword he is likely to find is the Short Sword. This weapon may be replaced by increasingly strong longer standard swords such as the Gladius, Broadsword, Scimitar, Bekatowa, Damascus Sword, Gram, Bastard Sword, and Harper.

Unlike in other games, Alucard can equip different weapons in either of his hands. Two-handed swords will require both of these hands though. The terrible Red Rust, which fails to swing properly every now and then, is the first such sword encountered. While there are a few more worthless two-handed swords (Nakamura and Takemitsu), most of the other ones are nice and have a special ability to compensate for the use of the extra hand. The most powerfull two-handed sword would probably be the Masamune.

Alucard can also wield powerfull elemental swords, including the Firebrand (and its more powerfull cousin, the Marsil), Icebrand, Thunderbrand, Mormegil (Black Sword), Dark Blade, Luminous, Tyrfing (Cursed Sword, does almost no damage), Stone Sword (can turn enemies to stone). Most of these swords do elemental damage and have a special elemental attack.

Alucard has a number of swords with unique moves and abilities. The Runesword that returns to him when he throws it. The Sword of Dawn has the ability to summon an undead army to fight by your side. The Muramasa increases in strength the more blood it absorbs. The Jewel Sword causes enemies to drop jewels frequently and you can drop coins with a special swing.

Alucard is the only character who can control a Sword Familiar. It hovers around and slices enemies every now and then. After it levels up enough, it trusts Alucard enough to allow him to weild him with his own hands.

Swords in Legacy of Darkness
Both Reinhart and Henry utilize short swords to beat back at enemies that have gotten a little too close for their primary weapons to deal with.

Swords in Legends
Although no playable character weilds a sword in this game, Alucard appears and is equipped with his trusty Alucard Sword and tests Sonia Belmont's skills with it.

Swords in Circle of the Moon
Nathan Graves is primarily a whip-wielder. However, the Mars Card does enable him to transform his whip into other weapons, including various elemental swords. This includes a Fire Sword, Ice Sword, Rose Sword, and a Holy Sword.

Swords in Harmony of Dissonance
Maxim Kishine primarily uses a very quick and powerfull wakizashi sword. He is able to swing it several times before his feet touch the ground. He cannot use it while crouching though.

Swords in Lament of Innocence
Joachim_Armster is able to control several swords at the same time that revolve around him. He has two different styles of attack. He can send the swords to successively slash the targeted enemies or to pierce them. These swords can combine their power to form powerfull spells.

Swords in Aria of Sorrow
Soma Cruz can use a large variety of weapons like Alucard could. Most of his swords swing in front of him like Alucard's standard swords or swing in an arc above his head like most of Nathan's swords. Since he only equip one sword at a time, the number of hands a sword uses doesn't factor in as much. There is also less of an emphasis on special attacks than in Symphony of the Night in Aria of Sorrow. Soma is not able to swing his swords downwards as Alucard could.

Swords in Dawn of Sorrow
Many of Soma's weapons from Aria of Sorrow reappear in Dawn of Sorrow. Because this game is on the Dual Screen, which has more button than a Game Boy Advanced, each weapon is able to perform a special attack when a certain button is pressed. Yoko Belnades is also able to fuse Soma's swords with Souls to make them more powerfull.

Alucard makes an appearance in Dawn of Sorrow and is equipped with his trusty Alucard Sword. He is able to use its special warp attack and diagonally swing it downwards just like he could in Symphony of the Night.

Swords in Curse of Darkness
Hector is another character who can weild just about anything other than a whip. He builds his owns swords. Each type of sword have different combo sequences associated with them. Classes of swords include standard swords, large swords, and fencing swords.

Swords in Portrait of Ruin
Jonathan Morris is the first character introduced who is equally comfortable with a sword as he is with a whip. He can pretty much use any weapon.