Juste being turned to stone by a slime in Harmony of Dissonance
Stone (also known as Petrify) is one of the basic status modifiers found in the Castlevania series.
Description
Once being hit by a stone-based attack, the protagonist will remain in a "petrified" state, unable to move and in a statuesque condition. The real danger of being put in this state is not actually being damaged by the attack, but to remain paralyzed while other enemies still can continue hurting him or her. An even more dangerous situation would be to be petrified over a spike-filled area, which would inflict heavy damage continuously. It should also be noted that, with the exception of Circle of the Moon, taking damage from enemies will not get rid of the petrification status.
In most games, the player requires to rapidly move the directional pad or wiggle the joystick in various directions, while also tapping the buttons, to slowly break through the stone and be able to move again.
In some games, the heroes might be able to get weapons, items and/or abilities which will allow them to turn enemies to stone, which some enemies are especially weak to. Most of the time, when these enemies have been petrified, they receive twice as much damage as normal. Enemies are not able to escape their petrified status in any way.
Starting from Symphony of the Night, the heroes would also be able to find items to remove the "stone" effect. Those items are usually dropped by the very same enemies who can inflict the stone status in the first place.
In most games, being petrified has a very similar effect as being Frozen or Paralyzed.
Various enemies through the Castlevania series may recur to this ability (gold medusa heads, cockatrices, basilisks, stone roses, catoblepae, gorgons, etc.), but perhaps the most prominent of them all is Medusa, who was cursed to turn to stone all living beings who were unfortunate to fall upon her sight.
Game Specific Information
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
If Alucard takes any damage while petrified, he will suffer damage roughly equal to touching spikes. This makes petrification very dangerous at higher levels; the more HP Alucard has, the higher the damage he suffers.
Gargoyle statue of Alucard from Symphony of the Night
If Alucard equips the Medusa Shield, he'll be impervious to being petrified and he'll also gain the ability to briefly summon a Medusa Head familiar which will fire two homing beams from her eyes that can turn enemies to stone. Alucard may also choose to be assisted by the Faerie Familiar, who is the only one capable to remove the Stone status from him by the use of a Hammer.
Medusa will attack with a petrifying beam coming from her eyes. When she dies, the tables will turn and it will be her who'll end up turning to stone.
Various enemies in this game have the ability to turn Alucard to stone, but an interesting peculiarity of this status is that sometimes he'll be turned into a big gargoyle statue. This doesn't affect gameplay in any way, however, and it's there only for amusement.
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Most of the DSS combinations that include the Cockatrice attribute card will grant Nathan the ability to turn enemies to stone in one way or another. Making use of these powers, Nathan can step on such petrified enemies, in a manner of platforms, to reach areas that were not intended to be explored at that point in the game.
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Being petrified on this game is especially dangerous, as the game won't provide any invincibility window of time after each attack. Juste's HP can be reduced greatly in a manner of seconds. To worsen the situation, no items may be used while petrified, forcing the player to break out of the status if Juste is to be healed.
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
The stone status will double the damage inflicted to both, player and enemies. An enemy will be petrified if it has stone elemental weakness and has been hit with a stone elemental attack. A petrified enemy can't cure the status itself. If an attack inflicts petrify status, the damage is always 2. Due to damage calculation formula, an enemy's stone elemental tolerance is redundant.
Trivia
- It seems that the term "Petrify" was most likely made popular by the gaming community. The official name for this status is "Stone".