Legion

Legion is a recurring boss prevalent among newer Castlevania games. The general design is a floating sphere composed of numerous featureless humanoid bodies that acts as a shell concealing a center core of varying identity.

The boss has appeared in the following games: Additionally, Legion appears as an enemy in Circle of the Moon.
 * Symphony of the Night
 * Harmony of Dissonance
 * Aria of Sorrow
 * Curse of Darkness
 * Portrait of Ruin

The origin of Legion's design is a biblical tale of a large number of demons who possessed a man. Thus, from the concept of being "composed of many" came the design of the shell composed of some large number of human bodies.

Generally speaking, the shell has to be defeated by repeated strikes before the core is exposed, and only by damaging the core can the boss be defeated.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
In Symphony of the Night, the shell has nine parts (arranged like spaces on a tic-tac-toe board), and destroying the center part (which covers the core) is sufficient to allow the player to damage the core. The shell "attacks" by dropping bodies which fall to the ground and then walk toward Alucard like zombies, and occasionally, if Alucard is closest to an undestroyed portion of the shell, lets out a growl and then scream followed by a shower of bodies that do not form zombies raining upon Alucard. If the portion of the shell Alucard is closest to is destroyed, then the one of the eight tentacles of the core fires off a powerful laser instead. Legion can be destroyed without first destroying all nine shell parts (eight 2D directions and one directly covering the core), but if all shell parts are destroyed, then in between single laser shots, Legion's tentacles fire off sets of homing laser shots that are extremely difficult to avoid. Legion is found as the boss of the Catacombs.



Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
In Harmony of Dissonance, there are two Legions:
 * Legion (Saint)
 * Legion (Corpse)

The first, "Legion (Saint)", is found in the Sky Walkway in Castle B, and is similar to the Symphony Legion, but only has four parts, and destroying any one of them will expose the core. It apparently floats in mid-air using a pair of angelic wings (only a graphical feature, not gameplay-relevant). Also, Legion (Saint) does not drop bodies, but only occasionally produces a smaller version of itself which flies over to the player for contact damage and inflicting curse status. Destroying the shells reveals a small core with three tentacles (that looks like a enemy in the final level of Gradius III) which can periodically shoot dashed laser beams.

The second, "Legion (Corpse)", is found in the Skeleton Den (a Catacombs-like area) in Castle A (it's the Skeleton Den you hit later). Instead of a shell of bodies, this Legion is protected by a shell of bones, mostly human skulls--a shell that is actually indestructible. However, hitting this shell sufficiently causes it to open, and reveal a bobbing-head skeleton at the bottom of it (along with a graphical touch of flies escaping), and this skeleton is its actual weakness. The skeleton must be hit repeatedly quickly enough or the creature will attempt to re-close itself. If the shell is to any degree open, it will also drop strange-looking maggots that crawl slowly along the ground toward the player-character. Also, notably, even well-into its death animation, it stays on-screen, damaging the player-character if it touches (contact confers curse status as well as damage to Juste Belmont and Maxim Kischine; Simon Belmont cannot be cursed).



Aria of Sorrow
In Aria of Sorrow, Legion returns to being a ball of bodies, and is located in the Catacombs. The chain of featureless humanoid bodies walking toward the center room leads to Legion, which occupies a large, square room with a smaller square box in its center. Legion first floats out of the box, then slowly chases Soma around the square "ring" between the walls of the room and the center box, occasionally dropping a few bodies when in horizontal passages. It has four shell parts and a center core, but notably, the center core can be damaged even before any shell part has been destroyed. While Soma isn't required to destroy the shell before the core, it is the only way to earn the Legion soul. If all the shell parts are destroyed, the core is revealed--a golden cage containing a fetus, with three tentacles. The tentacles act like those in Harmony ' s Legion (Saint), and the core continues to chase the player around the ring, but it can also retract its tentacles and bounce between the walls, moving much faster than when floating. Its death animation is most notable; the cage breaks, revealing what appears to look like a human infant, but it disappears shortly afterwards. Some players see this as foreshadowing of Curse of Darkness ' s Legion.



Curse of Darkness
In Curse of Darkness, Legion, when defeated, releases a creature known as "Nuculais". The Legion is fought in a tall room, seemingly composed of flesh under Garibaldi Temple. The Legion hovers in the middle and is reached by climbing a walkway protruding from the wall. The Legion itself doesn't attack, but zombies will rise from the floor and walkway and explode if they come into contact with Hector, for around 200 damage at level 50.

When the Legion is defeated it releases the Nuculais, which is a giant translucent white humanoid with no organs (except for a heart) that seems to have been corrupted by its early release from the Legion. The Nuculais is one of the hardest bosses in the game and has many attacks, including turning into a mobile pool of lava, throwing the aforementioned explosive zombies at Hector, and a powerful charge attack.

Portrait of Ruin
Graphically ported from Symphony, in Portrait of Ruin it appears as a boss enemy in the Nation of Fools portrait level of the game. Like its counterparts in previous games, it has a core with many naked men (possibly Homunculus or Zombie enemies) that fall from it and attack the player. Another theory is that Legion is composed of the former inhabitants of the Nation of Fools. This time, Legion has nine parts of body, excluding the core.

In Portrait of Ruin, Legion cannot be defeated without destroying its "body armor". Even if the player concentrates his attack on core, all the bodies will fall anyway, revealing the bare core. In this form, Legion will not only fire the blue lasers well known from other games, but it will also spin slowly and launch some kind of yellow gas under pressure from the tentacles, which is especially hard to avoid.

Trivia
Legion is considered by many players as one of the more disturbing bosses in the Castlevania series, along with Beezelbub and the Forgotten One.