Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Brave Heart Fragments for More Health

Alexandru Popescu tracked each fragment down while exploring for Map Master, and the Castlevania Belmont’s Curse interactive map and guides cover the rest of Rose’s upgrades. Five of the eight are behind a hidden wall or in a secret room, so if you only follow the main path, you’ll walk past most of your extra health.

How Brave Heart Fragments Work: Four for Each Health Upgrade

A fragment does nothing until you have four. Each set of four adds 20 to Rose’s maximum health, and one to three on their own won’t change your health bar, so finish a set before a tough boss instead of stopping at three. The game spreads 24 across its areas, enough for six upgrades in all.

Wise Heart Fragments work the same way for mana, and the Collector trophy asks for all 48 between the two kinds. The Wise Heart Fragment locations are often in the same areas as these, so clearing an area for one usually turns up the other.

Brave Heart Fragment Locations in Paris Streets

Paris has two of our eight, both in the city’s courts and towers. One is behind a granite wall on the western side of the Court of Justice, which the Castlevania Belmont’s Curse Paris Streets map of the Court of Justice places. The other is beside a drop point on the eastern side of the Prison Tower, and you reach it with a chain of Luminous Anchors.

The Court of Justice fragment is the easier one to miss, since nothing on the main route points toward that wall. Get used to striking suspicious walls early, because the hidden areas behind breakable walls hide a large share of the game’s upgrades, not just this one.

Brave Heart Fragment Locations in the Catacombs of Paris

Both Catacombs fragments are tests of movement. The first waits at the bottom of a pit lined with spike walls in the Catacomb Entrance, and the second is in a hidden room near the bottom of the Blood Pits, reached by climbing the granite walls to an upper ledge and sliding under a wall.

Take them on your way down rather than on a return trip, since the Catacombs are a long descent and both are close to the main path. The Catacombs of Paris map of the Blood Pits shows the pit and the hidden room, and the Catacomb Entrance and Blood Pits sub-areas explain how the zone is divided.

Brave Heart Fragment Locations in Dracula’s Castle

The Library has three, more than any other area on our maps. One is in a hidden room above a Luminous Anchor in the Poetry Shelves, another is in a hidden room on the upper level of the Library Foyer, and the third is at the top of the Planetarium, which opens once you spawn the Large Star Jump point below it.

The Main Hall adds one more, in a hidden room on the lower level of the Armoury, which the Main Hall map of the Armoury places. With the three in the Library, that’s four from the castle, exactly one full health upgrade from a single stretch of the game.

How Many Brave Heart Fragments You Need for the Scales of Justice

The Scales of Justice need four health upgrades and four mana upgrades, which means 16 Brave Heart Fragments and 16 Wise ones. That leaves eight of each to spare out of 24, so you don’t need the full set, just most of it, before you take on Saint Louis and win The Judge.

The Judge matters beyond its spell, since it’s one of the four Arcana the true ending asks for. The Saint Louis and the other boss encounters explain the scales fight, and the Arcana cards, including The Judge show what its spell, Chains of Justice, does.

Brave Heart Fragments for the Collector Trophy, and the Ones People Miss

Collector needs every Brave Heart Fragment, and the full set is spread fairly evenly, at about three in each of the game’s eight main areas, from Paris to the Hall of Mirrors. Our eight break down as three in the Library, two each in Paris Streets and the Catacombs, and one in the Main Hall, so the Library is the only area where our maps show all three.

Hidden rooms are where most fragments go missing, along with a few that need an ability you’ll only get later, such as Smash, Holy Light, or Aerial Rush. If your count is short, sweep each area again once you have all three, starting with the rooms you couldn’t reach the first time.