Saint Germain is an enigmatic time traveler featured in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. He possesses a vast knowledge and the unique ability to alter his position within the flow of time, along with alter the flow of time itself.
Saint Germain first appears in Garibaldi Temple, dressed as a refined gentleman with a top hat and polite demeanor. He urges Hector to abandon his pursuit of Isaac. Saint Germain is later revealed to oppose Zead, dodging his attacks with his time manipulation abilities and vowing to return until Zead yields.
Saint Germain eventually falls into Zead's trap at the Eneomaos Machine Tower, losing some of his power. Although he isn’t truly an enemy, he challenges Hector to keep him from pursuing Isaac further.
After Hector defeats him, Saint Germain acknowledges his strength and encourages him to follow his path. Before leaving through a golden portal, he sarcastically asks Hector to send his regards to Zead. In a post-game message, he addresses the player, reflecting briefly on destiny and purpose, often hinting at the future with ambiguous comments, especially during his conflict with Zead.
Sword: A sword he wields in combat, using deft and quick strikes with them.
Pistol: A pistol he wields in combat, using it for quick shots.
Notable Techniques
Stop!: Saint Germain shouts "Stop!" as he stops the flow of time and attacks his opponent.
O time advance!: Saint Germain shouts "O time advance!" as he speeds up the flow of time, he will always do this if he's inflicted a status effect on his opponent. While time is advancing he will also have plants grow and decay at fast speeds, hurting anyone they come into contact with.
O time reverse!: Saint Germain shouts "O time reverse!" as he reverses the flow of time, allowing him to heal himself of his injuries and recover his stamina.
Teleportation: Saint Germain constantly teleports around his opponent and attacks them as he comes out of the teleportation.
Other
Standard Tactics: Saint Germain is an observer who cannot physically interact with the world, but in situations where he's freed from the fetters of time, he has utilized rapier strikes and manipulates time, either stopping time entirely or dealing a status effect on the target and speeding up time so the target repeatedly gets hit with the status effect. He has also used time to restore his own health bar.
Saint Germain is likely a reference to the hero of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's well-known book series The Saint-Germain Chronicles. In turn, the Count Saint-Germain character is based off a true historical figure, Comte Rakoczy de Saint-Germain. St. Germain lived most of his life in London and was an active occultist, philosopher and composer. Much of his origins are shrouded in mystery. He claimed to be centuries old and a son of Transylvanian prince Francis II Rákóczi.
Coincidentally, the union of Romania with Bukovina in 1919 was ratified by a document named the "Treaty of Saint Germain". Bukovina is one of the significant locations in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula.
While Saint Germain himself does not appear in Castlevania Judgment, he is alluded to. He appears to be a member of the time traveler organization Aeon belongs to, and is implied to be an individual whom Aeon enlists to fix issues through the timeline.
Aeon's alternate color scheme matches Saint Germain's. It is also possible to unlock a Silk Top Hat and the Angel Continental mustache which, if put on Aeon's alternate costume, will give him an appearance similar to that of Saint Germain.
He is the only character in the series to break the fourth wall.
In the ending to Curse of Darkness, when addressing the player, he implies that he knows about the Demon Castle War of 1999 and Dracula's final death during that time.
In the Japanese version, it is explicit that his intervention was to fix a possible problem through the timeline that would prevent the Demon Castle War from taking place.
Misconceptions
"Gaiden" means "Non-Canon" or "Alternate Timeline"
This stems from the belief that when Iga or a producer calls a Castlevania game a "Gaiden" it is therefore non-canon or an alternate timeline and can be dismissed. This, however, is not the case.
The term "Gaiden" merely just means a side story, spin-off, or a separate tale. The term "Gaiden" does not determine the canonicity of a work, it just lets you know if the game is a spin-off/side-story or if it's a main story. Take, for instance, the Kingdom Hearts series. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories would be considered a gaiden, as it's a side-story and spin-off title that isn't a mainline numbered title, however, it is in all manners canon and important to play to understand Kingdom Hearts II.
The same can be applied to Castlevania itself, Castlevania Symphony of the Night is a gaiden game. Yet it is very obviously canon and pretty important to play to understand more of Alucard's backstory. The idea of a Gaiden game for the Castlevania series itself would be any game not dealing with one of Dracula's main 100-year-resurrections, which in this case, even Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest is in a way a gaiden, despite being completely canon.
This is all to say that Gaiden does not at all mean "non-canon" or "alternate timeline" and should never be treated as such, the term itself has nothing to do with the canonicity of a product.
IGA Statements Quoted by a Fan
Any statements Iga has made about Judgment that don't come from this IGN interview or a sourced and reputable article are not usable. This is, of course, referring to the popular statements used when discussing Judgment's Canoncity about a fan asking IGA about the game's Canoncity on Facebook, here are some of them below:
Fan: You mentioned Legend of Cornell was an alternate continuity. However, Cornell appears in Castlevania Judgment, which I believe is not an alternate continuity. How does that work? is he from a different universe than the other characters? It is not really explained in the game itself so I was hoping you could give some clarification on the issue.
IGA: Judgment is a work that surpasses space and time and brings them together.
Fan: I get it. So, is the explanation I suggested in the previous reply possibly correct?
IGA: I don't think it's exactly correct. Judgment is a work born of thinking it would be fun to remove all the hedges and bring characters that appeared throughout the series together. I think that you need to view it as an event from another world which does not consider things like timelines or parallel dimensions at all.
Now these seem like pretty clear-cut statements until you start to try to find where these come from.
There is no way to find anything sourced or verifiably proven that this person spoke to Iga. Trying to look up the person didn't get any real results either.
Translation: Regarding the Famicom version and the X68000 version, the X68000 version is an arrangement based on the Famicom version. The arrangement of a game is the kind of thing where you add a lot of different things as needed, so honestly speaking, it think they both should be considered legitimate. In conclusion, I think they should be considered as the same scenario of fighting to defeat Dracula, just with a different middle part. The Super Famicom version is different as well... If you simply must have a clear answer, the Famicom version must be given deference."
Now the quote itself doesn't state remakes or remasters are non-canon despite what people believe. It's moreso a quote of Iga stating that all of them are the same scenario, just with differences. However, an interesting point is that Iga says the NES version should be given "deference", as in to defer to the NES version.
Overall due to the quote itself having no source, it is unusable. The way we will treat remakes, remasters, or ports here however is that they are all equally canon unless stated otherwise. Most of these tell the same story with the only real differences being extra background information added, such as Haunted Castle having it be Dracula stole Simon's wife, though the same overall story still applies even here. Iga himself has already expressed that the original Castlevania's story is pretty simple[146] and Simon having a wife does not affect anything in the overall narrative. Super Castlevania IV notes that Simon is a vampire, though this was due to a novel writer making him a vampire in their novel. The novel was originally supposed to be an adaptation of Super Castlevania IV but was then dropped and made its own thing. Super Castlevania IV itself is still canon, but the subplot of Simon being a vampire is not. The most recent timeline even acknowledges it as canon[147].
A: This is a potent ability but has nothing to do with Attack Potency, there is no quantification for "destabilizing the flow of time", along with this, even if it was taken as physically, then it would be overtime as the effects are not noticeable throughout most of Curse of Darkness. Thus this is merely potent Time Manipulation.
Q: Shouldn't Dracula and by proxy anyone that scales to him get tier 2 for him being able to sustain his castle?
Q: Shouldn't Castlevania characters that scale to Death have Infinite speed due to Death being able to kill distance itself with his attacks?
A: Killing distance to attack is not a speed feat, it's a method of Spatial Manipulation by circumventing and ignoring distance, while one can say the attack spawns on you instantly, this is not really something quantifiable. Along with this, it would only scale to characters comparable to Death during post-Dawn of Sorrow, as Soma notes Death is far faster than he remembered from his fight with him in Dawn of Sorrow[160].
↑Castlevania Judgment Aeon's Hyper Attack on Death
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku Novel “I had said it before. I do not intend to bind the world with chaos.” “…… If so, why did you take power away from the crack in the eclipse’s seal? If you just intend to imitate like a monkey, isn’t your own power enough?” Those were the emotionless words of Death. In response, Olrox laughed his bold answer. “As I’ve said, I would equally gain control over the human world and the source of Dracula’s power, chaos. I do not intend to obey someone else’s mind aside from my own. That includes you who were born out of chaos.” “……” “You should be glad though to know yourself. Just by stealing power, my shameful monotonous time is over…… Even before Alucard appeared, just because I showed up and declared war on him.” Olrox’s voice was mixed with a tinge of thin delight. He respectfully bowed to Death who completely killed his emotions. “I would end the reincarnation cycle of this demon castle. I who understood and was spun out of the stains of chaos, swear to rob that power with my hands. Now, yield.” With Death’s reply, an explosive murderous intent rose. Two bronze colored scythes much larger than usual appeared; it advanced to the space in between the two men with an intention to cut off Olrox’s head. Kill the distance----- Kill the sound----- Just, faster, soon, die. It can be seen that the blades have certainly caught Olrox’s neck, but----- that is only an after image and the vampire is already at Death’s back. “……die.” That was said by the enemy who called on his servants. From the surrounding space, a group of purple bats rose, passed by Olrox’s arm with the speed of a bullet, attacking Death.
However, Death did not show any gesture of avoiding them. He simply faced Olrox and sprayed out numerous scythes. The bats and scythes cancelled each other out and the entire dance hall sparkled with blood."
↑Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Bestiary No. 44
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "From the time they stepped into the mountains, Curtis and Michelle felt malicious intent in the air.
Even though it is still far away, their bodies seemed to squeal [run away]. There was definitely no room for doubt. It is certain that the [castle] exists at the back of the mountains. The church’s greatest vampire hunter, Julius Belmont must be contacted. However, the conversation jumped into the matter of the disappearance of several village children."
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "A drawbridge suspended from the main gate is seemingly welcoming Michelle’s arrival. And her body was telling her [do not go] as her leg muscles were petrified like stone."
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "“Uh……aa……Mi……chelle……” That really is no doubt an obsession. The youth had more than 28 holes penetrating his limbs and body. His heart is already starting to fail and he is desperately trying to say something amidst the darkness. “Only…… protect…… you……-----“ When he said those words he must say, the man’s soul already left his body-----becoming one of the floating spirits that wander the halls of the castle. However----- Fate did not allow it. For those people who are involved with the demon castle, even the loneliness of death seemed half hearted----- The man’s soul is pierced by a small scythe that flew in from somewhere. That scythe did not exist physically. It was a diabolic blade created by some magic and possessed a strong soul."
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "This ominous vortex of magic was similar to what he felt in the [demon castle]. Among all the magic Soma knows, this particular type of sophisticated [power] belonged to----- “……I know I am being rude……” Faster than he can remember, that husky voice rang in front of Soma----- From the shadow of the forest, a large shadow emerged. “……tch!”
