#gergoth

Last week, VVizard and Dopefish revealed one of the new Final Frenzy characters joining Rivals of Aether Workshop - Gergoth, from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow! I had the honors of drawing the beast's portrait art, and I wanted to make sure it felt as tremendous and grotesque as possible!

Anyhow first we’ve got the Flea Man! This is a classic enemy of the games and wonderfully weird and corny, which is why I’m glad the animators included it!

I have to feel bad for the Flea Men, they’re mostly a joke given their irrelevance to Trevor and Sypha. Then there’s that poor Flea Man who tries to rush ahead of everyone else into battle, only to get anticlimactically skewered for it... And the one that’s used as a meat shield against the holy water arrows! Despite being stronger and more versatile than vampires, it seems night creatures don’t get any authority nor respect among them; They really need to unionize!

Next we’ve got the trio of Dusty, Rusty, and Crusty! I love these crab brawler night creatures, and I wish we could’ve seen them return in the final battle; They’re a very unique and weird, yet fun design, especially with Rusty’s crab claws that function as arm switchblades! Love these lobster humanoids.

Spooder is a hilarious name and a fitting distortion of Spider, just like the creature itself! I love the acid blossoms it spits out through on its back, it’s so wonderfully video-gamey, and I’m grateful that the latter half of Castlevania seemed to embrace the colorful weirdness of the source material more!

These monsters are called Mad Drivers, based on the Mad Divers from Lament of Innocence!

I have to question the arbitrary name change... Maybe it’s because they don’t ‘dive’ into the ground unlike the games, instead driving the people of Danesti to Dracula’s castle? Perhaps the true Mad Diver of the show is that mummy that Trevor fights, whose abilities are much more in line with the game counterpart.

GERGOTH! I love Gergoth and he’s such a metal and gnarly, twisted design... Looking at the games, I feel like his face is less detailed in the show VS the source material, and thus less grisly for it- But otherwise this is a faithful recapturing!

And I loved the show even giving some explanation and backstory to Gergoth’s open ribs, I love this type of subtle worldbuilding for even character designs, as the adaptation gradually connects further and further to the original!

Also from Lament of Innocence are the golems, one of which is named Fist- But I like to call them Koranot after Super Castlevania IV, since that’s a unique name and reminds me of the word coronet. Again, I appreciate the show going weirder and more outlandish with rock monsters, whose stone seems to be more of a carapace to an actual flesh and blood creature within.

Finally we have the Armored Beast, from Order of Ecclesia! This one died so quickly and early in the penultimate episode that I forgot it even died at all, until I rewatched to see if it did.

Rahab is actually much harder to beat without a weapon that arcs above you, since most of your attacks just won’t reach it while it’s submerged.

I am STILL fucked up about Gergoth even after all those years, so fighting her is more like putting her out of her misery, at this point.

Idunno how people even get through this game’s Clock Tower WITHOUT exploiting Buer’s soul to defend themselves from the Medusa Heads, but I know they’re more resilient people than I am.