An evil Darkness had befallen the land, giving rise to sinister vampire legends. Let's see how quick Richter Belmont can save his loved ones and send Dracula to eternal damnation once and for all!

Game Objectives

  • Emulator used: Snes9x 1.43 v17 svn146
  • Takes Damage to Save Time
  • Manipulates Luck
  • Best Ending

Dooty's Comments

Some games seems to be the pinnacle of any TASer's career, and at least to me, Castlevania is one of those games. Symphony of the Night is my favourite, but since my platform of choice to TAS is the SNES, I decided to try an improvement on its prequel; Dracula X.

Old Tricks

Yep, there's no new tricks on the new run, sorry. I spent, I don't know how many days trying to find the "godmodeknockback" that supposedly would save time, but it was fruitless, so I'll explain some of the old tricks, that when used on new places, saved time.

Delayed Backflip

Press the jump button twice and Richter will do a backflip, the second press can be delayed to gain more height to reach a higher platform or to go a little further, it was abused throughout the run.

Slide Cancel

Richter will slide backwards for a few frames after a backflip, it can be cancelled using his whip. Useful when you don't need to go that far or the slide will end with Richter falling off of a ledge.

Damage Taken

There's a bonus tally screen at the end of each stage and it take one frame to count one HP, so the health management was improved a little, specially during the boss fights.

Stage by Stage

Burning Town

The backflip is still the fastest way to travel in this game. by the by, using the backflip on the first ladder of the tall tower saved quite some time on this stage, changing the spots to use the whip also did.

Boss: Cerberus

Same strategy on this boss fight; two item crashes is all I need to take care of that puppy, but it took some retries to collect the crystal orb on the first possible frame.

Castle Gates

At the end of the first section a drawbridge will open and Richter will automatically walk into the next section, a delayed backflip cut down a little of his walking animation.

Boss: Phantom Bat

This boss fight is really hard to improve; you can only defeat its big form, kill the small bats too fast and you have to wait for it to reunite. Take damage was the only way to save time here.

Castle Center

I only took the necessary damage on this stage to change the strategy on the boss fight, also, the first skeleton causes a lot of lag when killed so it was just avoided.

Boss: Dyruahan

The item crash of the key is kinda useless against this boss, so I must keep whipping him as long as I can. It may be possible to save time if you manage to make the boss use his rock attack instead of the icicle, I couldn't.

Mine

It will be difficult to see any difference between the two runs on this stage, but be assured that there are. This quote seems to fit; "Thank you Richter, but your sister is in another castle..."

Underground Lake

Another stage with small differences, but I got better luck with the mermen, I also took more damage and it saved quite some time on this stage.

Boss: Water Dragon

Something weird happened when I was trying to manipulate the boss to have better luck; even if you enter on the same frame, the luck changes if you enter the stage facing backwards.

Clocktower

The new strategy for the boss of this stage forced me to collect two extra big hearts, but only the first one slowed me down, collecting the other one is even faster than slide on the cog.

Boss: Grim Reaper

The most complex boss of the game to manipulate, it is so hard that good part of the fight was recreated the way it is on the published run to avoid worse luck, but those ten extra hearts made the difference.

Castle Keep

Better manipulation on the moving platforms and a different way to collect the hearts needed to defeat Dracula and this stage is a little faster now, the rest was already perfect, so it is still the same.

Boss: Dracula

The final fight is where I managed to save more time on the entire run; Dracula can be hit four times each time he appears on the first phase of the fight, and since the axe do more damage than the whip, well you got it.
StageFrames Saved
Burning Town26
Castle Gates44
Castle Center106
Mine25
Underground Lake86
Clocktower70
Castle Keep332
Total689

Suggested Screenshot

Frame 43389

Mukki: Judging...
Mukki: Wonderful. Accepting as an improvement to the currently published run.
Nahoc: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3389: Dooty's SNES Castlevania: Dracula X in 13:56.12
Editor, Skilled player (1438)
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Allow me to quote my initial reaction when I saw this submission come up in IRC. "<scrimpy> awesomeawesomeawesomeawesomeawesomeawesomeawesomeawesomeawesomeawesomeawesome" Yeah. While it is a bit of a shame you didn't find any new tricks (and the massive boost thing didn't go anywhere), this improvement still is a very nice one. Yes vote for one of my favorite movies on the site improved.
Dark_Noob
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Excellent Dooty you overcame with the knockback impressed me with his time and i found it very cool his way of acting and use the knockback very well.yes vote
Someone who still enjoy playing fighting games ;)
Dark_Noob
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This is the screenchot you suggested.
Someone who still enjoy playing fighting games ;)
Expert player (2466)
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The screenshot is added to the submission text, thank you Dark Noob.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
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Another run from the SNES TASer of the Year! I'll look into this later.
Joined: 8/21/2011
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Nice improvement man! An obvious yes vote from me (if i have enough posts yet that is) as I always been a fan of your work. Also for those that need it i provided a tmp sd encode for those that need it before voting. http://www.mediafire.com/?7cmn9ct1oqpnu4m
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No seriously, if this guy is not the TASer of the Year, I'll eat my hat.
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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SnUfFiLmZ wrote:
Nice improvement man! An obvious yes vote from me (if i have enough posts yet that is) as I always been a fan of your work. Also for those that need it i provided a tmp sd encode for those that need it before voting. http://www.mediafire.com/?7cmn9ct1oqpnu4m
Thanks for the encode! As for Dooty... you never cease to amaze me, always delivering the finest. Cheers and keep up the good work. Yes vote of course.
Sir_VG
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Thanks for the encode. I tried watching the run on emulator and my computer crashed. TWICE. Totally locked up on Stage 1. Totally weird...never had that happen before.
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Awesome! Thank you!
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Gee, thank you guys.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
XYZ
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Yes vote for another nice acrobatics. Btw, any route for "not so good" ending in this game can be done faster?
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moozooh wrote:
No seriously, if this guy is not the TASer of the Year, I'll eat my hat.
x2poet?
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
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@ XYZ Um... There's another boss to fight on the Mine stage if you choose not to save the girls, so I think it will be slower.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
XYZ
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Dooty wrote:
@ XYZ Um... There's another boss to fight on the Mine stage if you choose not to save the girls, so I think it will be slower.
Thanks for quick answer. If there are only 1-2 another locations it can be played in same method without new story and faster ending is better.
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DarkKobold wrote:
x2poet?
Good point; I guess I'll eat only a half of my hat if it goes to x2poet.
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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You also get a different boss for the Clock Tower level if you don't save the girls. I don't know that the bosses and the marginally different level (when you fail the pillar jumping section) are enough to be worth a second branch though.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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oh, yes, I forgot about that! (it will also skip one boss fight, I guess...) I'll try to do a test run using whatever I can from my run just for the heck of it. My test run failed... lots of desyncs :( but here's something from the test; * the lower path is a lot slower than the good ending route * there's too many Axe, Spear and Sword Lords to take care of * one of the bosses, Cloaked Sorcerer, have two energy bars... so, the fastest way to reach the bad ending is the good ending route minus the rescues.
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
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I'd actually find it interesting to make an alternate submission for the bad ending route, I'd like to see it TAS'ed in any case.
Expert player (2466)
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Me too, from all the runs that I did, I think it's the only game where the bad ending is harder than the good ending to TAS...
I am old enough to know better, but not enough to do it.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1932] SNES Castlevania: Dracula X "best ending" by Dooty in 13:56.12
Joined: 2/26/2011
Posts: 98
This is a magnificent TAS! The publication looks great. Dracula X looks really really good when it is presented this way. The entertainment value is out of sight! Congratulations and thank you!
Joined: 12/15/2011
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Great run with some nice tricks. I really love the bgm of DraculaX. :)
The need for speed! *highfive*