Submission #2326: arukAdo's PCECD Castlevania: Rondo of Blood in 23:17.78

Lets get back to the root of evil, this game is the prequel to Symphony Of The Night, its the first castlevania using cdrom, and was never release in usa / europe
There is a SNES port of this game called Dracula X (or Vampire Kiss in pal version), but its nowhere near his big brother

After a few troubles (here) i completed richter speedrun using the optimal route
Noone realy excepted that outcome, but well, here it is! Richter beating maria :p
The main reason is obviously the unskipable dialogue you get when you rescue maria, and also the reset needed to select her
It was originaly tought maria would beat richter regardless, this is why the first submission was more oriented on entertainement than pure speed (stage3/4 been more interresting than stage3'/4')

This run use a few cool tactics to save time, the main time savers are (abuse off) the key subweapon and the flipback

The key subweapon is obtainable in stage2, this is why i dont go by stage2', the key damage output is twice of the whip, it cost zero heart to use, the item crush (select button) is also "free of charge" (altought its completly useless)
Also, on most bosses of the games, the key is not "nerfed", a regular axe does same output than key (16 damage), but most bosses have some kind of "protection" that reduce damage, the key was probably overlooked in most cases and do full potential (6 hit and boss is dead in most cases)
Unless proven wrong, stage2' route is slower due to using regular subweapon and needing to collect hearts all over the way
Obviously the key was just meant to be used to open doors (maria & the other girl in stage7), not to be a weapon, i use item crush a few time for entertainement coz on first submission i was told its bad not to use it, in stage6 it does roll the boss rng pattern i dont use it just for style (note that the youtube encode will show more key crush than the real movie does

The flipback save time over walking, i dont know exactly how many pixels, i think it doesnt realy matter, but just in the first stage - first room i remember i saved several seconds over walking, so its common agreement that walking is wrong for speed purposes
The idea is generaly to cancel your current flipback as fast as possible, so you try to make the shortest flipback possible, to cancel the "landing" kneeling effect you need to use an attack
The key was a great help over the flipback, first of all it doesnt make sound, so basicly i didnt ruined the audio experience of game by having a constant flipback+whip in the whole movie, only stage1/2/7 use whip, stage3'/4'/5/6 use key for flipback
The real reasont the key was technicaly superior for flipback is the pattern been much more simple and not realy impacted by hitting something on your way since its realy short range
I will try to define more precisly how the "loops" for flipback are working later on

For latter ! plz be patient...

Just a little comparate between the 2 movies, measured with time spent on given stage from first image to first black screen after end stage score
Of course this run use the alternate stages (' or prime) and the old one use regulars stages, so its just for reference i put theses, maria is somewhat mixed in between, her table is just to show shes faster, she loose because of the dialogue but in most stages she do fine (i didnt compared stage3 since they are completly different)

I made some improvements obviously in stage5/7/8, for stage6 ill guess frame rules, its basicly done the same way

Copy/Paste this in notepad and save as watch.wch, then load in mednafen

11
00000 00000094 b s 0 hearts
00001 00000098 b s 0 health
00002 00000093 b s 0 weapon
00003 00001E10 b u 0 X Cam 2nd byte
00004 00001E0C b u 0 X Cam
00005 00001E30 b u 0 X Subpixel
00006 00000720 b u 0 y pos
00007 00000CD0 b u 0 y pos
00008 00000D28 b u 0 Y Subpixel
00009 00000742 b s 0 Boss HP
0000A 000012B8 b s 0 Boss HP
000B 00001E10 b u 0 X Cam 2nd byte

Thanks to paul_t and adelikat, whe worked all together on rondo, and it was realy fun, even tought i made this one on my own side and im submiting alone, whe mutualy helped eatch others well, and it end up very efficient to have 2 extra pairs of experienced eyes :D
A svn was setup to collaborate in making rondo movie(s), you can have a check on it here : http://code.google.com/p/rondoofblood/
A release zip of both movies and frames date should be available today or tomorow

enjoy it :D

adelikat: Replacing the submission file with a fixed .mc2. The movie content is not changed. The file format is fixed to represent the new mednafen/pcejin .mc2 file format.

Also, accepting for publication.

adelikat: Processing.

Someone else will have to take this one.

ShinyDoofy: Processing.