Submission #3660: Cpadolf's DS Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow "Julius Mode" in 19:20.63

Details

• Emulator used: desmume-0.9.7
• Starts from SRAM
• Aims for fastest time
• Takes damage to save time
• Manipulates Luck

About the run

• After taking a hit from a weapon there is a cooldown for enemies before they can be damaged by that weapon again. This is something like 30 frames for Julius whip, 21 for Yoko's stick and 13 for Alucard's sword. So if it looks like I'm not hitting as fast as I can, it's because it won't actually do any good.

• Yoko moves slightly faster than Alucard on ground, but it's preferable to keep using Alucard as the time to switch characters is too long, and Alucard is usually preferable for bosses, sometimes needed to pass through certain terrain, and is usually faster when going up or down. Julius is a general chump.

• The route should be fairly set. The only things I can see that's debatable is going for Rahab and Bat Company before Dimitri and Malphas. The two main reasons that I went for this is that being a higher level is of greater benefit for Dimitri and Malphas than it is for Rahab and Bat Company due to the lack of mana recharging between the former (the way it ends up now I have just enough mana to constantly spam hellfire with Alucard on both Dimitri and Malphas), and it's possible to skip one save room by going Rahab first while still not sacrificing any damage boosts.

• Killing some extra enemies with Yoko's ice attack during the start of the run to gain a level before Dario is beneficial even though it takes 100 frames or so for the level up screen to flash by, because significantly more time is saved on Dario from the extra level.

• The boss in Condemned Tower is a bit weird. He has 3800 HP. After bringing him down to 1900 he will crush the floor and drop to the bottom (though he'll finish his current movement pattern before breaking the floor). He then can't go below about 900 HP before his shackles break of, which is why I slow down after a while in the fight (as I'm not in a hurry to deal damage to him). However, having him go of screen, it's possible to inflict one more hit to make him go below 900HP. As it's only one extra hit I did a super long dropkick to do a lot of damage to him instantly, while still getting down to start hitting him again as soon as he could take more damage.

• The last hit on death's first form is delayed slightly to make him go down a bit, which is needed to hit him with full frequency during his second form. The reason I could not sync this up to not delay any time is that he can only get that far down if he's dropping down to hit you with his scythe, and this can not be done earlier as it keeps me from hitting him twice with the ice attack at all times. Furthermore, if he's too far down in his second form he won't do any of the attacks I want him to make (ones that leave him constantly vulnerable). As his attack patterns are pretty fixed length, I did not find it possible to sync it up better than this (it's only about a 20-30 frame delay).

Special thanks