About the game

The game is a sequel of Akumajou Dracula Chi no Rondo on PC-Engine. In 1797, the vampire hunter Richter Belmont was controled by evil force, Dracula's son Alucard must save him and defeat his father again. Japanese version named 悪魔城ドラキュラX 月下の夜想曲.

About the run

Goals
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Abuses programme errors
  • Manipulates luck
  • Uses a password
  • Emulator used PCSX v006
  • Colors Dracula
Tricks & glitch
At prologue battle, if holy water and item crash hurt Dracula simultaneously, he loss HP heavily. And you can get a heart refresh if spend all of your hearts.
Big toss, if a enemy hurt half or more of your HP, you would be tossed very long distance. I think everyone knows this.
Edge travel, stand next to screen side, move to make the screen roll and game-pause simultaneously (use heart refresh, level up, etc), you can move over the screen.
Wlof glitch, dash to a slope as a wolf, jump at a proper moment when you close it, you would sink into the slope.
Infinite wing smash, enter the smash command repeatedly during wing smash.
Shield skill, equip Mablung Sword (or Shield Rod) and any shield, press square and circle. I used Alucard Shield skill that kill last bosses in couple seconds. So, Dracula was colored!
Description
I used a password to unlock luck mode. In the mode, the hero has less HP, so big toss is easier to do. The mode is better for glitch run. There is a little waiting times in clock room in castle center, I played with a flea man to make it not too boring. Some bosses were killed quite fast, in fact I manipulated lot critical on them, thanks pirate_sephiroth gave me memory adress. Before go to invert castle, I did normal dash there because I didn't have shield, equiping shield would spend more menu time.
note 1: The encode. Thanks arukAdo for making it.
note 2: possible improvement, I manipuleted 6 Manna prisms, but they seem not very enough, so I think that using the waiting time to get more would save several seconds more, perhaps.

Suggested screen shots

Thanks to

  • mobile_suit for his awesome speed run.
  • pirate_sephiroth for his help and memory adress.
  • arukAdo for his help and encode.
  • mz for his great work on emulator development.
hope you enjoy

adelikat: I think accepting this run is a no brainer. Congratulations on having such a ground breaking TAS :)

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14776
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2165: zggzdydp's PSX Castlevania - Symphony of the Night in 20:18.63
Experienced player (953)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
Its finaly here ! a SOTN TAS ! just nice :D
Skilled player (1430)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
Awesome, first PSX TAS. And what a deserving game for it :) I haven't watched it yet, but I can already say that I think there needs to be a non glitched run in addition to this. As in no traveling through walls or warping or whatever (I think this run does this), not skipping death to keep all your over powered starting equipement and killing all 5 main bosses in the inverted castle to grant you entrance to dracula.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Experienced player (953)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
This run is mega glitched, indeed, its the result of many crazy techniques combined to eatch others I guess it need a glitch less run too, your right
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 1118
Location: Kansai, JAPAN
Guess I'm shocked by two things: WOW, we have PlayStation runs now? Huh, you used a password. I'll have more to say once I figure out how to watch these files. This is the only PS1 game I have on me right now - in both English and Japanese!
Do Not Talk About Feitclub http://www.feitclub.com
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757
Well it was impressive... but then again.. it felt lacking... I mean a glitched run rocks and all... but this game had such awesome music and other events that... well yeah. For whomever encodes, I hope there's a way to AMP the music while leaving the sound effects low, at the very least. And of course... we all know what's going to happen next... "Can someone do a 200.6% run?" "Can someone do a Richter run?" "Is anyone going to try the Axelord?" "More Hot succubus action damnit!" ... er.. nm.. that's probably just me ^^;; Otherwise, a nice start to a hopefully long line of titles. :) Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Skilled player (1766)
Joined: 5/7/2008
Posts: 187
Location: Japan
According to the information of this site, you can skip Shaft and may fight against Dracula suddenly. At first you transform a bat and go to the left slope in the upper part of his room. You enter into the room with wing smash from there. If talking begins, please cancel you immediately. You warp in the room of Dracula when you go to the left edge of the room. Please forgive it if wrong. XD
Experienced player (953)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
You are correct, and this work only a rare version of SOTN, the first jap release This also work with richter, that how you can fight dracula with him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XMTsyxDPak That bug was reintroduced (no change log konami? huh) on psp version tough Edit: the problem about this, i thinked to it again, youll not be able to skip the dialog with shaft but just the battle (witch only stand for like 5 seconds)
Skilled player (1430)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
This was a very nice run, I watched it on youtube though, because I could not get the game to run on the emulator (I have the ROM mounted to deamontools, but when I try to run it the emulator crash, I can run the game in the same way on PSX though...). Oh, and I find it hilarious that Alucard loudly yells "WHAT?" when passing through some walls (happens on two occasions), as if he is fully aware that this isn't how things are supposed to go :)
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Skilled player (1147)
Joined: 9/15/2006
Posts: 165
Location: China
pirohiko wrote:
...
Yes I know, it's not wrong. But it only works in J version. See this. There are more glitches in J version, actually I considered which version I should use, finally I choose U because of forum rule.
Active player (440)
Joined: 3/21/2006
Posts: 940
Location: Toronto, Canada
I just watched this again for the first time in a while, and it is absolutely ridiculous! Congrats ziggy on the first-ever PSX submission. 9.5/9.8 here.
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!) My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
Experienced player (953)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
zggzdydp wrote:
See this.
Nice dark shield pwnage :D
Skilled player (1766)
Joined: 5/7/2008
Posts: 187
Location: Japan
I understood. Thank you for a commentary.
Skilled player (1085)
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
Heh, I enjoyed that. 8/8 Also, here here to a new dawn of TASing! *raises glass*
nesrocks
He/Him
Player (240)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
Great movie!!! I have a question: Is the bat necessary to skip the Richter fight at the end of the first castle, or is it needed for something else? It looked like it took a long time to get that form, and I know it's possible to reach Richter without it. edit: and oh yeah, we need a glitchless run too plz :)
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 1118
Location: Kansai, JAPAN
I'm a dummy, because it took me hours to realize you included a YouTube link. Very nice. I commented there, but I might as well ask again here. Why include all of the dialogue? Can't you skip nearly all of that talking?
Do Not Talk About Feitclub http://www.feitclub.com
Skilled player (1430)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
IIRC it only works if you have completed the game once and start a new one (with the completed game saved on the memcard).
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Experienced player (953)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
FODA wrote:
Is the bat necessary to skip the Richter fight at the end of the first castle, or is it needed for something else?
You can finish the whole game just with the wolf relic, its the only one you realy need regardless the objectives, but, the problem is that your gonna be very slow, overall it take less time to get the bat (like in this tas i mean) than to go ahead with wolf, because in the inverted castle, without bat, its realy a lot of troubles The bat not necessary to skip richter, just the wolf is needed Picking up the double jump in keep would help, but doesnt solve the real problem, with multi wingsmash you go so fast i highly doubt you can compet in the end
Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 15
I like this game and this good run. I'm waiting this game could be tased and accepted for a long time Now here it is XD well done :) 9/10
Joined: 1/23/2006
Posts: 352
Location: Germany
I think this run needs a bit more play-by-play explanation.
Experienced player (953)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
What part do you need to be explained, i can try to explain if you point out where its obscur for ya
Skilled player (1669)
Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden
This run steals men's souls and make them its slaves :(
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
Editor, Experienced player (729)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
very good first PlayStation submission.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
definitely an awesome run. it looks pretty damn close to perfect. and it's nice to see a TASed SotN run that actually finishes the game instead of just getting to the final save point. 9.5/9.5 however, this run isn't as glitched as some people make it out to be. Alucard isn't warping to wherever the hell he wants. he's only going to an adjacent room. he's only ignoring semi-important goals. the severity of the edge travels is comparable to zips in a Mega Man game, not to the warping tricks in the GBA Castlevanias. if a larger-length Alucard run were to be made, most tricks should still be fair game, like skipping Richter. the main, and really only, thing that would change would be defeating the 5 inverted castle bosses for the Vlad relics. i'd prefer that this be the only Alucard run, though. a full map run won't show up here on the grounds of being boring. look at the full map CotM submission Ziggy submitted. a best time Richter run should be coming up very soon, and an All Boss Richter run could be interesting, at the risk of Hydro Storm spam.
Joined: 1/23/2006
Posts: 352
Location: Germany
arukAdo wrote:
What part do you need to be explained, i can try to explain if you point out where its obscur for ya
Pretty much everything starting with the rapid entering and leaving of rooms to glitch into the floor or something.