Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse Notre-Dame Collectibles and All 31 Secret Areas

Notre-Dame is one of the densest areas in Dracula’s Castle in Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse. It holds two Arcana fights tied to puzzles, five weapons, five relics, and 31 Secret Areas spread across more than 20 sub-areas. Most of it opens up only after you find the right clues, so it helps to know what is there before you start pulling levers.

Quick answer: Notre-Dame has 31 Secret Areas, 9 breakable walls, 5 relics, 5 weapons, 3 Brave and 3 Wise Heart Fragments, 4 ATK UP and 3 DEF UP books, 3 Mirrors of Life, 19 XP statues and 4 whole meat.

Notre-Dame collectible totals

Use these counts to check your completion as you go. Each golden XP statue in Notre-Dame is worth 300 XP and breaks after a few hits.

Small heroine and tall armored knight stand on a wooden bridge beneath giant flames and a gothic cathedral. — The heroine and a dark armored knight face each other on a bridge as flames engulf the city and Notre-Dame towers behind them.

Collectible	Count	What it does
Secret Areas	31	Hidden rooms, often holding loot
Breakable walls	9	Smash to open a secret
Relics	5	Equippable passive effects
Weapons	5	Three in chests, two from bosses
Brave Heart Fragments	3	Four = +max health
Wise Heart Fragments	3	Four = +max mana
ATK UP books	4	+1 ATK each, permanent
DEF UP books	3	+1 DEF each, permanent
Mirrors of Life	3	Save and fast travel
XP statues	19	300 XP each
Whole meat	4	Restores all lost health
Clues	7	Point to Arcana fights

How Secret Areas open in Notre-Dame

Every one of the 31 secrets uses one of four openings. The game warns you that some are tucked behind walls and that both visual and audio cues give them away, so listen as well as look.

Hidden passage: a fake wall Rose can walk straight through.
Breakable wall: hit the cracked section with your weapon.
Lever gate: pull a nearby lever to lift the gate.
Smash floor: Stomp through it; thicker floors need a longer fall first.

Stomp has several power levels based on how far Rose falls before landing. Drop from high enough and she breaks the thick floors, including the one sealing the Sealed Scriptorium.

When you spot a secret you cannot reach yet, drop a map marker on it so you can come back later. The marker button is Square on PlayStation and Space on PC, and you get 50 markers to work with.

Paris Streets map at Central Sewer Drain with the cursor over the sewer route while placing a marker — The map screen with the Place/Erase Marker control, used here on the Central Sewer Drain route in Paris Streets.

The Gloomstone helps with secret hunting: while equipped, it gives Rose a signal near a secret. Find it in the Master’s Quarters rather than Notre-Dame; collect it first if you want to search the cathedral in a single sweep.

Notre-Dame organ puzzle: The Shadow, Vampire Killer and War and Famine

Death has corrupted the Great Organ, and clearing it is how you reach the fight that grants The Shadow Arcana. Five of Notre-Dame’s clues feed into this chain, found in the Transept, Great Organ Room, Collapsed Crypt, La Flèche and Sealed Scriptorium.

Go to the Transept and interact with the organ pipes. This gives you the first clue, which confirms Death fouled the pipes feeding the organ.

Clue #1 — The Corrupted Pipes of the Notre-Dame Organ, the clue that starts the organ chain. Shown at 00:14 in Skryux’s video. Image: KONAMI

Head into the Great Organ Room and read the plate by the stairs, then talk to the spirit there. You receive the Melody Sheet for the Fugue of Notre-Dame, which tells you to track down the cathedral’s Music Masters.

Clue #2 — The Melody Sheet for the Fugue of Notre-Dame, read in the Great Organ Room. Shown at 00:53 in Skryux’s video. Image: KONAMI

In the Collapsed Crypt, find the concealed passage and talk with the spirit there. It says one Music Master escaped to La Flèche, while the other went to the scriptorium.

Climb La Flèche past its laser traps to the spirit holding the Melody Sheet for the Concerto of Notre-Dame. Then Stomp through the thick floor into the Sealed Scriptorium for the Melody Sheet for the Sonata of Notre-Dame.

Return to the Great Organ Room and step on the organ pedals in the zodiac order from the clue sheet: Sun, Moon, Cancer, Taurus, Leo. This clears the corruption and opens the way to the fight.

Defeat Death in the Choir. You know it worked when The Shadow Arcana and its spell, Soul Harvest, appear in your deck, Rose learns Double Jump, and the Vampire Killer is awarded.

Arcana #1 — Soul Harvest in the Arcana menu, confirming The Shadow has joined your deck. Shown at 02:19 in Skryux’s video. Image: KONAMI

Go back to the organ and play the longer second melody. A trapdoor in the floor opens, leading to a chest that holds War and Famine.

Weapon #2 — The dual-blade weapon card that appears after opening the chest below the organ trapdoor. Shown at 03:16 in Skryux’s video. Image: KONAMI

The Great Organ also hides a fourth melody beyond these two sequences, so the organ is not finished once War and Famine is in your inventory.

Soul Harvest stats and Works of Mercy

Soul Harvest swings a slow, heavy scythe. Any enemy it kills bursts into four sickles that fly outward. It costs 60 mana and has 35 attack power.

Works of Mercy	Gifts
Complete the hidden puzzle in Notre Dame	Heal 4% max health if the spell hits only one enemy
Kill 44 skeletons of any type	A sickle that kills splits into 4 new sickles
Kill 4 enemies with one cast	Each sickle hit refunds 25% of the mana cost

How to get Excalibur and The Brittle King Arcana

Excalibur is stuck in a stone in the Chapel, and you cannot simply pull it. You need Fist of Talos, the spell tied to The Builder Arcana, which is earned elsewhere in the castle.

In the Chapel, find the sword embedded in stone and inspect its inscription. It reveals the Feat of Strength clue: someone with immense heart must pull the blade free to rescue France.

Pause and equip The Builder Arcana so Fist of Talos is your active spell. Spells can be swapped at any time from the pause menu.

Interact with the stone while Fist of Talos is equipped. The rock shatters and the fight against Arthur begins.

Defeat Arthur. The item screen shows Excalibur, and The Brittle King Arcana joins your deck with its spell, Stained-Glass Shield, which wraps Rose in a barrier that soaks up hits.

The Gallery of the Four Virtues holds one more Arcana for the area. Its plaque carries The Prophecy, the clue for The Self, whose spell is Absolution. Joan is also fought in Notre-Dame, in the Courage of Gabriel district.

Notre-Dame weapons: Stats and where to get them

All five weapons share a stagger power of 30. The two Masterpiece weapons sit at tier 3 with 75 ATK, and the three Legendary weapons sit at tier 4 with 100 ATK.

Weapon	Type	Rarity / ATK	Source
Vampire Killer	Whip	Legendary / 100	Death fight
War and Famine	Dual swords	Legendary / 100	Great Organ Room chest
Excalibur	Two-handed sword	Legendary / 100	Arthur fight
Joyeuse	One-handed sword	Masterpiece / 75	Path of the Penitent chest
Arondight and Lancelot’s Shield	Sword and shield	Masterpiece / 75	Tower Entrance chest

Weapon	Attack power	Mana per hit	Combo finisher
Excalibur	44	5	Blade Dive
Vampire Killer	40	3	Whip Drag
War and Famine	33	2	Blade Flurry
Arondight and Lancelot’s Shield	31	4	Shield bash
Joyeuse	30	3	Dash through

Vampire Killer is the Belmont heirloom. Hits landed with the tip set enemies alight and deal extra damage, and anything it kills explodes in flames.

War and Famine keeps a combo going if you press Attack again as the previous strike connects. The final hit of a combo leaves a zone on the ground that empowers Rose.

Excalibur fires bolts of light with its attacks. Hold and release Attack to charge a heavier swing.

Joyeuse rewards an attack made immediately after a backdash or slide with bonus damage. Look for its chest in a side room beyond the electric-beam course in the Path of the Penitent.

Statue #2 — The beam-and-spike corridor in the Path of the Penitent, which you cross to reach the Joyeuse chest and an XP statue. Shown at 05:20 in Skryux’s video. Image: KONAMI

Arondight and Lancelot’s Shield blocks frontal attacks while you hold Attack. The chest is on the lowest level of the Tower Entrance, past an armored knight.

Notre-Dame relics and their effects

All five relics come from chests. Rose has three relic slots, and you can swap relics freely from the pause menu.

Relic	Effect	Location
Beelzebub’s Seal	+30% damage, max life halved	Chapel of Patience, high left balcony
Soul Fragment	+50% mana on hits at 30% health or less	Nave, far-right upper balcony
Witch’s Brew	Each empty healing potion grants +20% damage	Transept, behind breakable wall
Eldritch Talisman	15s invulnerability after resting; double post-hit invulnerability	East Gallery, Smash floor secret
Infernal Medallion	Mana capped at 80%; spell cost −10	Reliquary, past lasers and spikes

Two shielded knights stand between you and Beelzebub’s Seal. To get Soul Fragment, swing from chandelier to chandelier high in the Nave. The Eldritch Talisman rests on an altar at the far end of a spike-filled gauntlet.

All 7 Notre-Dame clues

Clue	Arcana	Location
The Corrupted Pipes of the Notre-Dame Organ	The Shadow	Transept
Melody Sheet for the Fugue of Notre-Dame	The Shadow	Great Organ Room
The Masters of Music hide from Death	The Shadow	Collapsed Crypt
Melody Sheet for the Concerto of Notre-Dame	The Shadow	La Flèche
Melody Sheet for the Sonata of Notre-Dame	The Shadow	Sealed Scriptorium
Feat of Strength	The Brittle King	Chapel
The Prophecy	The Self	Gallery of the Four Virtues

One related clue sits outside the cathedral. A Strange Painting of Notre-Dame, in the Main Hall’s Gallery of Eternal Night, shows freshly painted cathedral art signed “Brauner” and belongs to The Artist Arcana.

Notre-Dame district checklist: Secret Areas and pickups

Sub-areas are grouped by the Mirror of Life closest to them, so you can clear one cluster per trip. The secret count includes every opening type.

Orange-haired Rose speaks in a dialogue box while Joan kneels on a rampart before a burning cathedral and giant flames. — Rose tells Joan, “But… you haven’t been saving your people, Joan. You’ve been killing them,” on a rampart overlooking burning Notre-Dame.

West Triforium cluster

Sub-area	Secrets	Pickups
Narthex	1 (breakable wall)	ATK UP book, 1 XP statue
Nave	3 (lever gates)	Soul Fragment, 2 XP statues
Transept	1 (breakable wall)	Witch’s Brew, 1 XP statue
Tomb of the Chevaliers	6	2 ATK UP books, 2 XP statues, 2 whole meat
Tower Entrance	2 (breakable walls)	Arondight and Lancelot’s Shield, 1 whole meat
West Triforium	1 (hidden passage)	Mirror of Life, 1 XP statue
Tree of Saints	0	Brave and Wise Heart Fragments, ATK UP, DEF UP
La Flèche	0	Brave Heart Fragment

Find the Narthex book on a balcony above the nave by wall-jumping up its left side. Tomb of the Chevaliers packs the most secrets into one sub-area: four hidden passages, a lever gate and a breakable wall. Tree of Saints has four pickups in the same room, while the La Flèche fragment sits atop the summit gargoyle.

Notre-Dame Undercroft cluster

Sub-area	Secrets	Pickups
Notre-Dame Undercroft	1 (hidden passage)	Mirror of Life, 1 XP statue
Great Organ Room	3	War and Famine, DEF UP book, 1 XP statue
Path of the Penitent	0	Joyeuse, 1 XP statue

The Great Organ Room DEF UP book sits across a spike run you cross with grapple points.

Mirror of Life #1 — A Mirror of Life, the save and fast travel point anchoring each cluster of sub-areas. Shown at 00:32 in Skryux’s video. Image: KONAMI

East Gallery cluster

Sub-area	Secrets	Pickups
East Gallery	2	Mirror of Life, Eldritch Talisman, 2 XP statues
East Triforium	2	Ferryman’s Wharf, DEF UP book, 1 whole meat
Chapel of Patience	0	Beelzebub’s Seal, Wise Heart Fragment, 1 XP statue
Reliquary	1 (breakable wall)	Infernal Medallion, 1 XP statue
The Forest	1 (hidden passage)	Brave Heart Fragment, 1 XP statue
Chapel	2 (hidden passages)	Excalibur, 2 XP statues
Apse	1 (hidden passage)	Wise Heart Fragment, 2 XP statues

Search the dark roots for the Chapel of Patience fragment, tucked into an alcove. In the Apse, the fragment lies beyond a passage lined with spikes and energy beams. Reaching the Forest fragment means crossing laser corridors and yellow doors.

Secrets with no pickups listed

Four more sub-areas each add one Secret Area to the 31. The Collapsed Crypt and Sealed Scriptorium secrets hold clues for The Shadow. The West Gallery and Small Tower each have a single hidden passage.

Clear all three clusters and the four stragglers, and Notre-Dame is done: two Arcana from puzzles, five weapons, five relics and a Ferryman’s Wharf in the East Triforium for getting around the rest of the castle.