Enemies Encountered: Flea Rider.

Learn how to defeat the pesky Flea Riders in the Castle Keep of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. This guide details strategies for clearing them out to access new areas and relics.

This section details encountering and defeating Flea Riders in the Upper Castle Keep. After navigating the initial dark room and acquiring the Falchion sword, players will find themselves in a save room. The objective is to explore the grayed-out areas of the Upper Castle Keep. From the save room, proceed left through a door with a red carpet to find a broken staircase. Players can use gravity jumps or the bat transformation to ascend and enter the room on the right.

This room contains Life and Heart Max Ups, and importantly, the Ghost card relic, which grants a ghost familiar that drains enemy life. After obtaining the relic, transform into a bat and fly left, returning to Alucard form upon hitting the wall. Landing on the red carpet leads back to an area from the Prologue. A switch behind the entryway threshold can be activated by attacking the top of the entryway, revealing a ladder.

At the top, players can find various items in pots, including Frankfurter, pot roast, turkey, Sirloin, resist stone, resist dark, resist holy, and platinum mail. The guide then directs players back to deal with the Flea Riders in the Castle Keep to clear map coverage and facilitate flight. The strategy for defeating Flea Riders involves gravity jumps to lure them, followed by attacks during descent. Once cleared, players can use the bat form to reach a pocket beneath the top of the keep, obtaining the Power of Mist relic and Fire mail. The Power of Mist enhances the Mist ability, allowing for extended use at the cost of magic.

With the Castle Keep mostly explored, the next objective is to head to the Royal Chapel on the far left. This involves dropping down from the Flea Rider area, exiting to the right, dropping further, and proceeding down a long hallway through red doors. The Royal Chapel (2) is suggested for Level 27 and contains items such as Morningstar, Boomerang, TNT, Ankh of Life, Shuriken, Magic Missile, and Mystic pendant.