Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow beaten in less than 7 minutes from Power-on! This movie improves the published movie by 1903 frames, or 31.72 seconds.
Table of contents
Movie criteria
Objectives
- Aims for fastest input time
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses deaths as shortcuts
- Abuses programming errors
- Uses glitched warps
- Manipulates luck
Emulator used
VBA Rerecording 1.72 series: v19.3, v19.4, v19.5, v21, v22, v23, v23.1, v23.2, v23.3-WIP, SVN r86-301, etc.
Comments
Due to my lazyness, most of the comments were copied from my previous submission of this game with a few corrections.
Soma the Weapon/Item/EXP/Soul Hunter
Sometimes you may feel that Soma is acting like a fool when you are watching this movie, which is because either he has too many HP or he is eager for something from an enemy.
- Baselard (dropped by Zombie)
A must-get in every main quest TAS. I got it for better damage output.
- Tunic (dropped by Zombie)
Getting this didn't cost any time, and instead, it actually saved time by reducing lags mysteriously in the Mermen room.
- Lubicant Soul (dropped by Lubicant)
Boosts all of Soma's stats by 1+(MaxHP-HP)/MaxHP times, except for LCK. Very useful in almost all runs.
- Muramasa (dropped by Lubicant)
Pros:
It has Curse Attribute, which means that it can inflict additional damage to an enemy susceptible to it, amount of which is based on the left HP of the enemy. It is also a multi-hitting weapon.
Cons:
It's a short ranged weapon, and its ATK bonus is a little too small. It would be inefficient to fight Final Guard with, which had very high defense.
- Ronginus's Spear (dropped by Erinys)
A Holy-Attributed weapon with high attack power. I got Ronginus's Spear from Erinys right before fighting Final Guard.
- Final Sword (dropped by Final Guard)
Easily the best weapon in this game, thanks to its third-highest attack power, long range and multi-hitting.
- Stolas Soul (dropped by Stolas)
Boosts Soma's INT by 16. Easily surpassed by Lubicant Soul and not even useful. Accquired to trigger the death glitch.
- Red Minotaur Soul (dropped by Red Minotaur)
Inflicts massive damage in a very large range but requires at least Level 15 for the enormous 150 MP consumption. Useless in this run and not accqiured.
- Other stuff
Anything out of the route wouldn't be worth the extra time to get.
- HP-ups
Required to perform the death-warp glitch. I used the glitch four times, so I got 4 HP-ups: Tasty Meat x2 (dropped by Killer Fish), Super Potion x1 (picked up behind Final Guard), High Potion x1 (dropped by Stolas).
- MP-ups
Useless since the only I could use hearts drops from candles to recover MP. So I didn't bother getting these.
- EXP
After some calculations, I decided that Level 12 should be the optimal final level.
The Death-Warp Glitch
The death-warp glitch was not discovered by me. I am not not sure who discovered it first. However, I learnt it from @JOACHIM.
It is possible because:
- After a soul-getting or level-up pause, you are granted access to the menu screen within a few frames.
- A level-up pause will be cancelled if a room transition, soul-getting or death occurrs at the same time as level-up occurrs.
- You can save your game (use SLEEP) at the menu screen as long as you are not flagged "in boss fight", provided that you have saved the game once in a save room.
- When you load a game that was saved at the menu screen, you are set standing where you enter the room.
- The game won't try to kill you by examing if your HP is 0. The kill test is only done when you get hit (The "harmless" Blacked-out Door can kill you if you touch it with 0 HP).
- When your HP is 0, you can go off screen without room transitions. As soon as your HP exceeds 0, you get room transitions immediately. Unfortunately, you'll usually end up with black screen and have to reset the game.
Now I think you can figure out how to use death warps. ;)
Every enemy killed was not only for its goodies, but also for its EXP. Using level-ups is usually faster than getting souls to perform the death warp, but there were times when I had to get a soul to force a pause.
The Route
The route-planning itself cost me much more time than TASing. This route's the fastest by now on I know. It was just discovered with lots of nearly blind tests. Who could have known that you could get to Chaotic Realm from such an off-screen spot? :D
Stage by stage comments
Castle Corridor & Underground Reservoir - No Death Yet
I went into the first Save Room to save the game as soon as possible so that I would be able to use SLEEP at the menu screen later. I decreased more HP with Tiny Devil for manipulating Tasty Meat in the Killer Fish room.
Castle Corridor - The 1st Death
I took enough damage in the Skeletons room while reducing lags using the only soul I had. I suicided with Axe Armor's thrown axe as it was able to deal damage during the invulnerability time from contacting Axe Armor. The off-screen scene after zipping was a bit long, but it was the only long one in the entire movie. After that, I warped to Chaotic Realm skipping all of the bosses in the castle!
Chaotic Realm - The 2nd Death
Welcome to the realm of Chaos! Here you meet the toughest monsters in the whole game!
However, if neither in STONE status nor in a Hard Mode game, 290 HP were enough for Soma to survive 2 hits by any enemy in the long corridor room. All the enemy are too tough to kill, so I skipped all of them. It might be worth noticing that heavy luck manipulations were done to prevent the Gladiators from launching fire-arrow arrays.
Lubicant in the shaft room was a rich source of good stuf such as EXP, weapons and souls. The Beam Skeleton used to block my way to the exit in my previous movie was manipulated to launch a beam attack before I went down for Muramasa that was used to murder Lubicant once more for his soul.
The death glitch was done with level-up, soul-getting and death all at the same time. This death warp allowed me to skip a lot of rooms in Chaotic Realm, some of which would recquire Malphas Soul (double-jump ability) and some others would require Skula Soul (diving underwater).
Chaotic Realm - The 3rd Death
Soma magnificently wasted Erinys, got her Ronginus's Spear (logical?) and skipped the level-up animation. He stole the Super Potion, had Final Guard danced to death and got his legendary Final Sword. Soma then got overly proud, lured by Succubus who prevented to be Mina, and finally experienced a painful death.
This warp allowed me to skip the vertical Clock Tower room which was impassable without double-jump or high-jump ability.
Chaotic Realm: The 4th Death
Again, Level-up + Stolas Soul + death. Unlike the previous application that was to skip the level-up pause, this time it was to force a soul-getting pause to have access to the menu screen, as the death skipped the usual level-up pause. Soma had to kill Stolas right under it to do this.
Stolas was easier meat than Shadow Knight (drops Super Potion). Red Minotaur Soul was skipped since to use it I would need 150+ MP, meaning I would have to build up my level to at least 15.
The very last death warp sent me directly to the gate of Chaos.
Chaos Fight
The final boss's guardians and itself. Very fast fight, although Soma was only at Level 12.
Special Thanks
Kriole, and all of the other Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow players.
FractalFusion: Judging.
Flygon: I _finally_ got the damn video to upload! Added YouTube module.
FractalFusion: Accepting as an improvement to the published run.
Flygon: Sure, why not, let's publish this.