Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Visual Boy Advance Re-recording v23.5 svn438
  • SRAM used
  • Take damage for saving time
  • Aim for fastest
  • Playing Bossrush as Simon
  • Glitch Abusing
  • Luck manipulation

About this run

This Bossrush mode is an addition which is playable after clear this game "Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance" . Player defeats many many bosses (in "Hard" mode, number of bosses is 18)
You can play this as Simon Belmont if you input "Konami Code" (↑↑↓↓←→←→BA) while showing Konami's logo. If you clear "Hard" mode as Simon, you can see the special picture with ending music.

SRAM Using

This run used the SRAM which has Hardmode Bossrush. To play Hardmode, you must clear "Easy" and "Normal" mode. The movie that generates SRAM of this run is here.
It is started from SRAM of this run.

Used Tricks

Multiple Hitting Glitch (called Shuriken Glitch)

In this run, Simon performs this glitch in the following way.
1.Attack by "Subweapon:Cross(ID:0x09)" and "Midair whipping(ID:0x02)".
2.Attack by "Land whipping(ID:0x03)" while two invulnerabilities are remained.
Total damage is here. 138 (by midair whipping) + 103*M (by the cross) + 138*n(by a glitch) M is the number of times of hit by cross. n is times of multiple hits.
1 is substituted for M normally, but in case of using "Powerful" method as stated below and enemy's hitbox is already enabled when Simon entered the room (like Living Armor), 2 is substituted for M.
In 2nd step, Simon uses 2 different hitbox.
The first case is that if the enemy has a little of HP like Dracula Wraith (1st).
In this case, Simon uses a behind hitbox to perform the glitch quickly.
However, since the hitbox moves from behind to front in 12th frames from starting whip attack, the multiple hitting time length in this case is only 11 frames.
So, enemy's damage that is caused by this "quickly" method is 138*11+138+103=1759 (no critical hits).
The second case is that if the enemy has a lot of HP like Living Armor. In this case, Simon uses a front hitbox to perform the glitch maximally. Max length of Simon's multiple hit is 20 frames (invulnerability of cross). If Simon doesn't draw any critical hit, max damage is 138*20+138+103=3001 or 138*20+138+103*2=3104. Although this "Powerful" method can inflict great damage upon the enemy, "Quickly" method can defeat the enemy 11 frames faster than it if enemy doesn't have a lot of HP.
But when you fight with Living Armor or Talos, you must be careful to avoid excessive multiple damage. Because death effect of them are started when them hitbox stopped reacting to attacks. And Legion Saint's shells doesn't take damage by this glitch because of them special invulnerability.

High speed running steps

In Simon mode, going up/down the stair is different from Juste/Maxim. If you released left/right button while moving on the stair, the coordinates of Simon will be modified to next/behind the step. To go up/down the stair quickly, release the button on where Simon's position will be modified to next step. The speed of running method is 1.6 pixels/frames

Luck Manipulation

Simon can't perform the multiple hitting glitch quickly continuously because he has no way to cancel his any
motions. So, in either case of using "quickly" or "powerful" method, drawing critical hit is very important.
In Simon's Bossrush, you have to do these action to consume the Random Number.
1.Jumping
2.Breaking candles
3.Appearing Magic Crystal after defeating enemies
3 consumes Random Number very fast. But it consume some frames too. Since of this, 1 and 2 is used for luck manipulation basically.
Critical hit detection depends on lower 2 bytes of Random Number (0x02000008:4 bytes). While performing multiple hit glitch after luck manipulation, Simon can draw 2~3 critical hits normally.
In this run, I used high-density critical hits area to the enemy whose HP is over 3001 or 1759 preferentially.

Special Thanks

gochaism:for her(?) RNG Simulator.
gstick:for his precognition method for critical hits.

Used Lua

To make this movie, I used this lua script that shows status of enemies and player, hitbox and precognition for
critical hits(method by gocha and gstick). [dead link removed].

Other comments

Watch Simon Belmont the great old vampire hunter !!
Simon Belmont Forever!!

Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: Accepting for Moons.
feos: Publishing...

TASVideoAgent
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QuizmasterBos
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I'd vote yes for the vault. It's too much of the same and Simon is too slow for this TAS to be a Moon in my opinion.
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Don't really understand why you keep throwing the crosses through the boss doors. I assume it saves time somehow? But slowing down to collect more hearts seems to cost quite some time aswell. Isn't it possible like in the old games to jump in one direction and face another? That way you could get 3 candles with 1 cross with no delay. I dunno, haven't played this game pretty much at all.
mklip2001
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This was an interesting submission! It's neat to see something from you on the workbench which is unrelated to Bomberman. I think you did a good job with this. The Nicovideo encode also makes this better with how it shows the RNG usage. That being said, I can't vote Yes to this for entertainment. The music gets really old, especially when it doesn't change at the start or end of battles. The boss strategies look all the same. The walking speed is slow, though I liked seeing him zip up the stairs. This gets a high Meh vote, but it's still Meh. Kriole: I imagine that throwing the cross at the boss door changes the character's hitbox in a way that lets him enter the door sooner. He didn't really have a problem with wasting hearts... in fact, it's clear he was deliberately skipping candles earlier to avoid having too many hearts at the end of the game. I don't think it cost him time to collect hearts at all since there doesn't seem to be any speed delay when jumping or landing. In fact, making wasted tosses seems to be useful in changing the RNG. I would've liked to see a few backwards jumps if it could be done with no time loss.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Sir_VG
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Kriole wrote:
Don't really understand why you keep throwing the crosses through the boss doors. I assume it saves time somehow? But slowing down to collect more hearts seems to cost quite some time aswell. Isn't it possible like in the old games to jump in one direction and face another? That way you could get 3 candles with 1 cross with no delay. I dunno, haven't played this game pretty much at all.
If you notice the RNG to Critical bar, every time Simon jumps, it slightly increases the RNG. So slowing down for a few hearts probably saves time for that. Also, I must say, for being probably near 70 during Harmony (since it takes place 50 years after Simon's Quest), Simon is still badass. I enjoyed it. Probably better in the vault though, but not by much.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
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QuizmasterBos wrote:
I'd vote yes for the vault. It's too much of the same and Simon is too slow for this TAS to be a Moon in my opinion.
Sir VG wrote:
I enjoyed it. Probably better in the vault though, but not by much.
The vault is not a dumping ground for TAS's. It's supposed to be an archive of fastest times regarding any% and 100%: http://tasvideos.org/Vault.html
Goal choice is limited to fastest completion time (any%), or full-completion (such as 100% or best ending).
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Posts: 3960
I'm curious about the Minotaur fights. The Minotaur leaps backwards when it's almost dead, which delays the beginning of its death animation considerably. Is that leap just on a timer? Or is it caused by taking damage? In the latter case, if you started attacking when you were closer to the Minotaur then you might be able to kill it before it finishes its leap, which would speed up the fight significantly.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
ars4326
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とてもいいですね! I grew up in the NES era, so watching this brought back memories. Definite 'yes' vote!
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9
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Sorry for lack of my description.
Kriole wrote:
Don't really understand why you keep throwing the crosses through the boss doors. I assume it saves time somehow? But slowing down to collect more hearts seems to cost quite some time aswell. Isn't it possible like in the old games to jump in one direction and face another? That way you could get 3 candles with 1 cross with no delay. I dunno, haven't played this game pretty much at all.
mklip2001 wrote:
This was an interesting submission! It's neat to see something from you on the workbench which is unrelated to Bomberman. I think you did a good job with this. The Nicovideo encode also makes this better with how it shows the RNG usage. That being said, I can't vote Yes to this for entertainment. The music gets really old, especially when it doesn't change at the start or end of battles. The boss strategies look all the same. The walking speed is slow, though I liked seeing him zip up the stairs. This gets a high Meh vote, but it's still Meh. Kriole: I imagine that throwing the cross at the boss door changes the character's hitbox in a way that lets him enter the door sooner. He didn't really have a problem with wasting hearts... in fact, it's clear he was deliberately skipping candles earlier to avoid having too many hearts at the end of the game. I don't think it cost him time to collect hearts at all since there doesn't seem to be any speed delay when jumping or landing. In fact, making wasted tosses seems to be useful in changing the RNG. I would've liked to see a few backwards jumps if it could be done with no time loss.
I did it for the luck manipulation. While exiting the room, Simon gets stiff after he jumped onto the exit for 5 frames. But this stiffening can be solved by throwing a subweapon. It causes to reduce the Random Number consumption of a Magic Crystal. And one supplementing big heart (= 1 cross) with whip attack loses 5 frames normally. And a supplementing from the candle which existing in the closest place from stair loses 4 frames. So, there is no frame lost in the total. And Simon can't turn around while jumping.
Derakon wrote:
I'm curious about the Minotaur fights. The Minotaur leaps backwards when it's almost dead, which delays the beginning of its death animation considerably. Is that leap just on a timer? Or is it caused by taking damage? In the latter case, if you started attacking when you were closer to the Minotaur then you might be able to kill it before it finishes its leap, which would speed up the fight significantly.
The reason why Minotaur leaps is very simple. Its death animation will not begin before its leaping. So, to kill Minotaur, player must lead to its leaping by attacking once at least. And its leaping depends on luck.
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That was fun to watch and short enough not to get boring. I'd love to see the author's notes translated. Yes vote!
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. ---- [2455] GBA Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance "Simon, Boss Rush, Hard" by Robert_Ordis in 07:51.27