Recorded with vba rerecording version 17.1
Goals of this movie:
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes no damage
- Manipulates luck
- Abuses programming errors
- Uses SRAM to unlock Julius mode
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, played using Julius mode (unlocked via SRAM generated by the currently published TAS).
One of the first things you may notice about this TAS is that I choose the normal mode over hard mode. In this game, hard mode doesn't add anything to the viewer entertainment side of things, and simply serves to make enemies/bosses take more hits to kill, which I dont think would be overly enjoyable to watch (a hard mode run killing an extra boss would still have a graham fight as long as the one present in this TAS).
The overall goal of Julius mode is pretty much to kill Graham, and you can actually achieve this without even killing a single boss. However, doing so means you do a grand total of 1 damage per hit against him, which means it would take one hell of a long time to kill him.
Each boss you kill (and orb you grab) as Julius adds to your overall power, and the more you kill the stronger you get. In this TAS I kill 2 bosses, Creaking Skull and Manticore, for a grand total of 2 powerups.
I use a grand total of one glitch in this run, but I estimate it saves at least 35 seconds doing it. I use a Catoblepas to activate a zipping glitch which places me outside the Chapel walls, from where I can either head to a black screen, the Underground Reservoir (where i zip some more to a black screen), the previous room in the Chapel but inside the walls, or by the warp room. Going to the warp room is by far the best choice, as it links directly to the boss room.
After that, its pretty much direct to Graham, as deviating for a third boss, while decreasing the Graham fight time itself, adds up to be considerably longer (this is roughly 1:30 faster than a test I did where I also fought Death).
Hope you enjoy :)
Thanks go out to Zurreco for pointing out that glitch a while back, those on IRC who commented on it, and Bisqwit for allowing me to use SRAM in this case.