Balore

Balore is a recurring boss from the Castlevania series.

Overview
Balore is taken from the Celtic mythology of Ireland Balor. Balor was the king of a race of giants known as the Fomorians who possessed unusual physical properties, Balor himself having only one eye. As a child, Balor was observing druids preparing noxious spells and the fumes entered his eye, this granted his eye incredible destructive power and so his eyelids grew heavy so that the destructive forces could be contained behind them.

In the Castlevania series, Balore is giant and wields a destructive eye-based attack, both features shared with his origin. The most recent interpretation shows severe damage to Balore's face (perhaps a remainder of his childhood incident), as well as a deathly gray color to his skin in Dawn of Sorrow onwards rather than the normal, somewhat bronzed tone he had in Aria of Sorrow.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
120 mp to cast powerful punch attack. 2nd strongest soul in the game under the Red Minotaur soul.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

 * 1/1 Level
 * 0 MP/Use
 * "Touch the Touch Screen to shatter certain blocks."

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Noted as "A demon with a fear-inducing gaze". Balore is a fearsome enemy. Soma first enters the room to find a Giant Bat materialize in front of him, implying a boss fight with it. However, a giant fist comes and crushs the bat instantly before a low chuckle is heard from Balore. To fight Balore, Soma must attack his eyes while looking out for Balore's fist. Near the end of the fight, Balore switches eyes (literally) and constantly sweeps the floor of the room with a fire beam. The easiest way to defeat him at this point is to use the Medusa Head soul to hover near his eyes, avoiding the ground fire and gaining a clear shot. Defeating Balore rewards Soma with the Balore and Giant Bat souls. The Balore soul gives Soma an extremely powerful punch attack, whilst the Giant Bat soul grants him the ability to transform into a bat and fly.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Soma Cruz once again encounters the Balore in the Wizardry Lab who demonstrates his power by destroying a massive wall of ice that stands between him and Soma. This time around Balore has been completely redesigned. His skin is now blue and the upper half of his body is shown on the left hand side of the screen, perhaps to show that he has indeed been slain by Soma, but has come back to life through a zombification process. The player can also stand on Balore's fist to be level with Balore's face. Balore's face is shown to have rotten on one side and metal bolted on the other. The rotten side of his face can be seen when he screams "Gaaaahhh!" and fires his eye beam or when he is killed and disintegrates.

Weaknesses
Weak against stab attack and slash attack.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
In Castlevania: Portrait Of Ruin, Balore appears in The Nest of Evil, as the first boss. He has the same attacks from Dawn of Sorrow, only he is facing the opposite direction, which may slightly confuse players who were familiar with his attacks in the previous game. He is also the first boss to challenge players in the first boss rush challenge.