Submission #1587: Comicalflop's GBA Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance "Maxim Version" in 00:26.37

This is a 35 frame improvement to the glitched Maxim run. I noticed there was a slight oversight for getting Maxim into the castle the fastest way possible, found 10 frames of improvement, and decided to take it all the way and really see how quickly Maxim can beat the game.

The run can be broken into 6 segments, and only 3 of the segments had frame improvements. I'll explain where all time was gained.

Menus were previously optimal. I tried and there is no faster way to select the menus nor to enter the name.

No frames gained

10 frames gained by sliding instead of dashing. Maxim's dashing speed is an average of 4 to 5 pixels per frame, and his sliding speed is 6 pixels per frame with a slight pause in between slides. On long flat surfaces, sliding is faster, and the distance to the castle is almost entirely one long stretch of horizontal ground. Sliding's speed is decreased slightly on slopes, making dashing better for slanted ground, but there was only one very small slope just before the castle gate, making a change of sliding to dashing not worth it.

Frames saved: 10

Started off the room with a 10 frame gain, and ended with a 7 frame gain. Due to how the previous run used dashing, Maxim jumped to the candle having preserved his speed from dashing. I had to switch from sliding to dashing, and jump one frame later in order to preserve as much speed as possible; this caused a 3 frame loss which was unavoidable because of the delay after each slide. 3 frames lost is a good trade off to have made a net gain of 7 frames.

Frames lost: 3

The warping was very optimal in the previous run. No frames were gained or lost, and I explored around and couldn't find any faster ways to go from room to room without screwing up the fastest warp path. Too bad, I really wanted to do some diving kicks...

Frames saved: None

Dive kicking onto the first available ground was no good, because Maxim had to fall a great deal of height before getting a good angle to just barely clip the ledge and because of this, he would lose a lot of momentum from having to go around the corner, and regain acceleration from gravity.

However, the biggest improvement in the entire run came from doing the aerial jump closer to the ceiling underneath the ground, and then doing a diagonal diving kick which teleported Maxim directly onto the raising platform, and there was no frames of delay either.

Frames saved: 26 frames saved

Same strategy, except activating Maxim's special attack sooner and ending input 2 frames earlier. (gotta love luck!) The move almost seems to fail, but juuuust at the last minute the very last two shadow Maxims come in and give Dracula the coup de grâce.

Frames saved: 2

Pirate_Sephiroth, who dared to complete Harmony of Dissonance with Maxim under 30 seconds in the first place. He explored the whip launch glitch, got into some walls, and the rest is history. He spent a great deal of work in finding optimal warp paths, and bringing this run from 45 seconds to 27 seconds in 3 submissions.

Kaz, for discovering the whip launch glitch that makes the movie possible.

Bisqwit: Game name is Castlevania, not USA Castlevania. There is already a field for game version. Changing the headers.

adelikat: Accepting for publication as an improvment to the currently published glitched Maxim movie.

Flygon: Added YouTube module.