Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse — How to Break Yellow Blocks With Smash

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse places floors and blocks with golden cracks all over Paris and Dracula’s Castle. Your whip, spells, and weapons can’t break any of them. They stay in place until Rose learns Smash, a downward dive she gets in the middle of the game. Once you have it, these blocks are the way into hidden rooms with chests, heart fragments, and stat books.

Quick answer: Smash becomes available after you defeat Talos (The Builder) in the Clock Tower’s Final Trap. Leap, then use down + jump with Rose suspended over the cracked block.

Smash controls for breaking golden-cracked blocks

Smash only works in the air. Pressing down + jump while standing on the ground does nothing. The input is the same on every surface you break:

Thick golden-cracked floors need a longer fall

Some cracked floors don’t break from a normal Smash. The move has several power levels, and the level you get depends on how far Rose falls before she lands. A later tutorial called “Heavy Stomp” explains this. A higher drop means a harder impact, and only the harder impacts break the thicker floors.

If a floor survives your dive, get more height first. Climb to the highest ledge above it, or drop from a platform overhead, then press down + jump. The Library’s smashable floors are all the thick kind, so expect to need a high drop there.

When you get Smash in Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse

Smash is the third ability in Rose’s set of five movement skills. Long before you can break them, you’ll encounter many golden-cracked blocks in Paris Streets, Holy Innocents’ Cemetery, and the Catacombs of Paris. Mark their locations on your map, then return when you can smash them.

Order	Ability	Area	District
1	Arcane Whip	Paris Streets	Abandoned Sewers
2	Holy Light	Paris Streets	Stairs to the Tower Roof
3	Smash	Clock Tower	Final Trap
4	Aerial Rush	Library	Observation Tower
5	Double Jump	Notre-Dame	Choir

You need the first two abilities before you can reach Talos. Arcane Whip lets Rose aim and hook onto glowing anchors or enemies to cross gaps. The route to the Final Trap depends on it. Holy Light creates a halo that clears Chaos Shard from the tunnels inside the Clock Tower. Tapped at the right moment before a hit, it also works as a parry that blocks damage.

Route to Talos in the Clock Tower

Talos waits in the Throne of the Builder, in the lower-left corner of the Clock Tower. The path starts on the tower’s east side, climbs up, and then drops down along the west side.

Beating Talos and confirming Smash is unlocked

In the Final Trap, Rose comes across a floor that looks fragile. She asks, “This looks fragile. Who would build such a thing?” A voice replies, “I did not have enough TIME to barricade all the corridors of the castle against interlopers. I certainly don’t now…” and then adds, “And perhaps with Talos’s strength, you may smash your way through.”

Talos	Value
Health	5000
Attack	35
XP	900
District	Throne of the Builder
Arcana card	The Builder
Reward	Fist of Talos (spell)

The fight takes place in two locations and has several stages. Talos is a chained colossus that attacks faster as his health goes down. Partway through, a 1:30 escape sequence starts, and you have to get through crushers and spiked shafts before climbing back to the throne room to finish him. He is immune to bleed, burn, freeze, petrify, launch into the air, slam down, Chronomantic Dive slow, Freezing Path link, and Infernal Pyre launch. Plan your damage around direct hits.

Beating Talos gives you The Builder, Arcana number 5, which has the Smash ability and two clues. It also gives you the Fist of Talos spell. That spell costs 50 mana, has 40 attack power, and slams a giant fist into the ground that hits hardest directly underneath, while also setting off a small earthquake across a wide radius.

A “SMASH” box signals the ability, then a tutorial appears. It teaches that diving with down + jump can break golden-cracked objects and damage enemies. Smash is then added to your abilities menu. Try it immediately on the golden-cracked floor beside the arena.

Fists of Talos chest after the fight

Before you leave the Clock Tower, open the chest on the right side of the Builder’s Bureau, in the room at the bottom of the tower. It contains the Fists of Talos, a melee weapon. It is separate from the Fist of Talos spell the Arcana gives you.

Its special effect builds up weapon damage the more often you hit enemies, so it works best when you keep attacking without breaks.

Golden-crack block locations by area

Every area except Master’s Quarters has smashable floors. Notre-Dame has far more than anywhere else, and almost all of its floors are thick ones.

The Clock Tower also has 14 floor buttons that you press by landing a Smash on them. Behind the blocks you’ll find:

• Relic and weapon Treasure Chests
• Brave Heart and Wise Heart Fragments, including a Wise Heart Fragment under a thick Library floor
• Stat Enhancement Books that raise attack or defense
• The Eldritch Talisman relic, under a golden-cracked floor in Notre-Dame’s East Gallery
• Brauner’s stone sculpture, which also breaks with Smash and is a step on the way to Notre-Dame

Smash against enemies and Works of Mercy

Smash isn’t only for floors. A dive that lands on an enemy below Rose also damages it. That counts toward one of The Builder’s Works of Mercy, which asks you to kill 15 enemies with the smash. The other two tasks on the same card are tied to the Fist of Talos spell: kill 3 enemies with one fist, and kill 10 airborne enemies with a fist as they fall. If you aim your dives at groups of enemies while exploring the cracked floors, the Smash count fills up as you go.