Oh hey look it's Devil's Castle Dracula 3. It was the last Vaniacastle game on the NES, and it's subjectively the best one. It's also a broken mess.
This run is an improvement of 47669 frames over scrimpeh's old run completely due to a glitch in level 4 that lets you skip directly to the final level.
  • Takes damage to save time, sometimes.
  • Uses stairs to walk to Dracula
This run is done on the US version, as this glitch causes the game to crash on the japanese version. Also Noxxa did the inputs for the last phase of Dracula because I got annoyed so he gets credit too.

Glitches


Subweapon Cancelling


Like the japanese version, you can cancel animations for subweapons. The only way this is done in the run is by activating a subweapon the frame before a character lands from a jump.

Crouch Cancelling


By attacking a certain frame before you land from a long fall, you can completely skip the crouching animation associated with it, which saves some time.

Stair Displacement


The big one. By swapping from Trevor to Grant right before you enter the next screen on some stairs, you'll displace Grant from the stairs and allow him to climb in the air. This glitch is used in level 4 to skip directly to the final level.

Q/A


Q: Why do you do such weird stuff out of bounds.
A: Positioning stuff to get to the right room. If I didn't do what I did I would have missed it.
Q: Where are Grant's throwing knives?
A: The English version nerfed Grant so his knives are now just a dagger that he can stab with. Yes, it sucks.
Q: What difficulty is this on.
A: English.
Q: I hate the english version do this again on the japanese version with higher quality music?!
A: Glitch don't work on the japanese version so no.
Q: What's next?
A: An old project needs fixing.

Samsara Buttin' In


Hi there. It's me, your buddy Samsara. After arandomgameTASer redid earlier parts of the run, I stepped in and redid the 2nd and 3rd phases of Dracula. So don't feel weird that my name is now there. Okay bye.

Thanks


Thanks to scrimpeh for his fantastic Grant run, it was used as a guideline for the first few levels. Also thanks to the RTA runners of this game for discovering a large scale application of the stair glitch.

Suggested Screenshot



GoddessMaria: Judging!
Samsara: Setting to "delayed", pending an improved file.
Samsara: File replaced with a 971 frame improvement. Resetting to New as well.
GoddessMaria: Re-judging...
GoddessMaria: Alright. Since this is using a glitch to reach the Final Stage early on, it shall now be treated as a separate category from the published movie featuring Grant instead of an improvement. This movie overall was very entertaining to the audience and this also does really exceptionally well in the technical department. Very nice work from the three authors!
Accepting as a new category for Moons.
feos: Pub.


Samsara
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How do we all feel about the categorization of this run? The RTA community separates this route/glitch as "any%" while still having a Grant path category for runs like the published run. Should we do the same, or should this obsolete the published run? From what I've seen, the consensus seems to be leaning toward new category (and I'm starting to agree, though that would make 5 distinct runs of this game which is pushing it a bit IMO), but some more feedback would be appreciated.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
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I vote for new category, "warps". It is possible in the future that this could evolve into "game end glitch" by using a different path in the glitch realm, or perhaps a way to activate this from the clock tower will be found, which would skip more game play. This is already different enough from "Grant", and adding one more category is fine because this is a game that is made with branching paths in mind.
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It's clearly a "warp glitch" branch, a major skip glitch movie class. We use to separate such runs, unless it beats the old one by entertainment too.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Editor, Skilled player (1824)
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RTA runners classify this as a separate branch from Grant, so I don't see why we shouldn't do the same here. It's not like there's any more branches left for this game, anyway.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
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BTW, I think we only should have one game-breaking branch.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Editor, Skilled player (1824)
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feos wrote:
BTW, I think we only should have one game-breaking branch.
For this game? There's only one game-breaking glitch, and that's stairs.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
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I mean, no additional separation by character. If it's possible for all of them, only one should win.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Editor, Skilled player (1824)
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feos wrote:
I mean, no additional separation by character. If it's possible for all of them, only one should win.
This stair glitch is only possible on Grant's path. No other character can do it to this extent.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
Noxxa
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Looks like there's a fair agreement that this would be a separate category (warped/glitched) from the currently published runs. It's different enough from the normal Grant run in quite a few ways, so each category remains distinct while viewer response looks good still for all of them.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
GoddessMaria
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Understood.
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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. ---- [3224] NES Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse "Grant path, warp glitch" by arandomgameTASer, Samsara & Noxxa in 15:22.01