Julius Belmont is another of those hidden characters who deserves mention for his own playing experience. His story: In 1999, the year of Dracula's predicted resurrection, the Belmonts returned after a years-long absence to reclaim their weapons and their birthright. It was Julius Belmont who defeated Count Dracula and vanquished him from this world; he and a brigade of vampire hunters, fearing the eternal cycle and its entailing struggle, tried to end the threat once and for all by using their combined powers to seal Dracula and his castle within the darkness of an eclipse. Julius, either by the virtue of the titanic battle or by the doings of the Catholic Church, lost his memory and spent the better part of the next thirty-six years trying to find his identity; ultimately, in 2035, he found himself wandering Dracula's castle, beckoned somehow by its evil glow. He eventually regained his memory, in large part to his meetings with Soma, and played out his role by keeping sharp the Dracula-absorbee. After the encounter, he agreed to assist the church in its undertakings.

Once you clear the two games' main missions, respectively, you can play as Julius, whose missions holds no relevance to the story and exists on their own. In Aria of Sorrow, it's a cut-and-dried run-through of little significance. In Dawn of Sorrow, though, he partakes in a "fantasy" mission, the appropriately named "Julius Mode"--a company's bid to hunt down Soma Cruz, who finally gave into temptation and took his place as the Dark Lord. As far as advancing the genes, he's not too far off from what Juste, Richter and Nathan Graves were working toward. Even at his advanced age, he was perhaps the quickest and smoothest jumper of the lot; with this in mind, he mastered the slide kick, the double jump, and the jump kick plus he perfected a new type of sidestepping dash for better defensive skill. Unhappy with John Morris' design, he brought back the boomerang prototype, and therein he finally instituted a separation by assigning "cross" and "boomerang" their own relevance, deeming them two individual weapons with their own separate quirks.

To see Julius in action in Aria of Sorrow, click here; for Dawn of Sorrow, click here.