Bottomless Pits: Averted in some stages, notably Stage 3.

Boss-Only Level: Stage 8 consists entirely of the usual stair climb and corridor before the final confrontation with Dracula.

You also encounter two of them in the upper path of Stage 5'.

Boss in Mook Clothing: The Great Armor (Armor Lord) at the end of the alternate path of Stage 2'.

This also serves as a checkpoint should you lose to the boss.

Boss Corridor: Right before each boss, you enter an enemy-free room, filled with powerups and its own music track.

Boss Bonanza: Stage 6, where Shaft resurrects the first four bosses from the original NES game (Giant Bat, Medusa, Mummy, and Frankenstein's Monster) before taking the field himself.

Bloodier and Gorier: Unlike previous games, when Richter loses a life, it's not a pretty sight this time around.

Barefoot Captives: Can be seen as such with Annette as in one cutscene, she's barefoot while held prisoner in Dracula's castle.

Ascended Glitch: The secret area in Dracula's keep, accessed by jumping onto an invisible staircase, is a reference to a bug in the Famicom Disk version of Akumajō Dracula, where the player could keep walking up the stairs to the keep, into the open air after the stairs themselves had stopped, through the ceiling, and into a mire of glitched graphics.

Even during gameplay, the graphics have brighter and bolder look, with eye-popping primary colors and lush purples replacing the drab grays, greens, and browns that dominate the earlier games, especially Super Castlevania IV.

Art-Shifted Sequel: The first Castlevania game to adopt an anime-influenced art style, which is especially visible in the animated cutscenes.

Did you get killed by Shaft after beating the four bosses he summoned? Instead of fighting them all over again, you'll only need to fight him.

When picking up a new subweapon, your old one drops to the ground, and you can opt to switch back.

Let it touch you, and your character becomes trapped there instead, killing you instantly if this happens, though, the painting downright shatters, so whether it counts as this trope for them is debatable.

And I Must Scream: A unique enemy in the Ghost Ship is an evil painting which contains the soul of the ship's captain, trapped there for eternity.

After Boss Recovery: As usual, an orb will appear to replenish your health after a boss fight, but sadly, not in the middle of a Sequential Boss.

You'll need to discover different paths to unlock the alternate stages, and finding every exit for the levels that have them also contributes to your percentage rate. To achieve 100%, you must save all four women, beat every boss and every stage.

100% Completion: Each save file has a percentage attached to it.

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