Recorded with vba rerecording versions 10/15
Goals of this movie:
  • Aims for fastest time
  • takes no damage
  • manipulates luck
  • abuses programming errors
For my first TAS, I thought I'd give this game a shot, I had played it a few times prior and had enjoyed it a ton, and saw that there wasn't a TAS for it, so after a bit of checking and discussing, I decided to do one.
I decided to not take any damage in it since there are only about 3 main places where taking damage actually saves times:
  1. In the Study where the 4 Bone Pillars are stacked on each other
  2. On the way back through the Study after beating the Great Armor and getting the Malphas soul
  3. In the Underground Passageway, in the room with the Needles, getting hit speeds up your fall vs just floating down.
The programming error abused was an edge-of-ledge thing, where if you're jumping and dont quite have enough height (just shy of getting there normally) if you're on the edge of the ledge you can get bumped up. Not using this would have you trecking around the castle to get the Undine soul so you can walk on water to get to the Clock Tower. by using this I was able to skip getting the Flying Armor soul, not to mention a decently sized portion of the castle.
The Great Armor soul was used a couple of times to help me manipulate a beneficial soul drop (or enemy movement), such as Killer Mantle and Red Minotaur. The Black Panther soul was similarly used to help me manipulate Julius into an attack pattern that left him open to assualt.
I think that's it :)
Thanks go out to Zurreco, TNSe, Nrg, and anyone else who helped that I'm forgetting :)

Bisqwit: Allocating into the encoding queue.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #922: Atma's GBA Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow in 27:45.57
JXQ
Experienced player (761)
Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
High quality run of a great game. Nice sequence break at the beginning, excellent use of weapon planning, using souls, items, and most importantly, GREAT luck manipulation throughout. Emphatic yes vote.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Player (25)
Joined: 4/23/2005
Posts: 435
Location: Germany
Yes, looks great. First I have wonder me, why you collect the Super Potion. But then I have see, that you sell it for MP restore items. Nice trick. And a great take no damage run, I like such runs. Yes vote too from me.
Last TAS finished: Final Fantasy Adventure (4.0 Warp Glitch Run) WIP in the moment: Tail Gator (GB) Matty
Player (224)
Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 399
Nice run, I liked it. I wonder why this hadn't been TASed before. *yes*
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Former player
Joined: 3/31/2005
Posts: 192
Location: Argentina
Wow, this TAS is great!! Voted Yes, of course.
Former player
Joined: 2/2/2005
Posts: 198
Grood stuff, I likes. Way to one-up the RNG.
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Looks pretty good. I see you revised your Chaos fight a bit. Good work. You're somehow getting a yes vote from me, although I can see at least 5 seconds of improvement all over :p What was the point of that super potion? Money? Also, where is my optional cool ending?
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Former player
Joined: 7/29/2005
Posts: 459
Location: Brazil
exempt a comment. very yes vote^^
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Joined: 8/13/2005
Posts: 356
Location: Canada
I dig that you went for a full ending! The boss battles are all quite amazing. Although I wasn't keeping track of Atma's finances, I did figure that the Super Potion was probably for more MP restores... what a great way to battle Chaos. This is a very, very fine TAS in my opinion.
Joined: 1/9/2005
Posts: 219
Location: The Netherlands
Voted yes because it's a great run. (Although i'm curious about Zurreco's 5 second improvement) The only question i have is if you tested out whether using the medusa soul on Balore is faster or not than just jumping and dodging his flames, while attacking. Besides that, man o man do my ears bleed from the backdashing sound. Personally i like the way it looks, but the extreme repetetive sound of it is awful. Either way, great run. (Plus two thumbs up for getting the good ending, and not doing a glitch run)  
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Joined: 8/4/2005
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Very, very professionally done! You're saying this is your first TAS? Man, I'm impressed. o_0 Although there are some tiny spots of wasted frames spotted by Zurreco, but anyway, this is a great run (and I think only Zurreco himself can do it faster). I'd vote yes if I could. :D Edit: Well, now I can. Another yes for you.
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Atma and I have already talked about some improvements. I don't think he has the balls to make them himself, though. :) Actually, I wouldn't know. He is more interested in helping along my glitch run as of late.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Joined: 4/16/2005
Posts: 251
Voted yes, if just because of the awesome fights versus Julius and Chaos first form. Questions: - Is there no way to get around these last two succubi without taking damage? - How was your Mana items balance at the end? You didn't need all the items you collected right?
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Gorash wrote:
Questions: - Is there no way to get around these last two succubi without taking damage? - How was your Mana items balance at the end? You didn't need all the items you collected right?
-Not unless he had wasted MP to become a bat and go over them, no. -He had a few Mind Ups left over in the end.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Joined: 4/16/2005
Posts: 251
That's what I meant. Leftover MP + wasting MP to pass 2 enemies = Easy second to save at the very end of the game. (Unless of course the menu navigation takes more time than saved...)
Former player
Joined: 5/24/2005
Posts: 405
Location: France
Voted yes, it has been nicely planned and performed especially for a first run... good job ;)
Not dead yet... still very busy... damn...
Former player
Joined: 9/1/2005
Posts: 803
Gorash wrote:
That's what I meant. Leftover MP + wasting MP to pass 2 enemies = Easy second to save at the very end of the game. (Unless of course the menu navigation takes more time than saved...)
I think the menu navigation would've effectively cancelled out the time saved, since it takes about 60 or so frames for the menu, and takes about 90 frames for the kill anyways (soma can swing once every 15 frames), this isn't including the startup time of the single red minotaur soul swing, nor the menu time to head into items and refill when adjusting the last bit before chaos. I think it woudl've turned out about even or a tad slower. And thanks everyone for the positive feedback, I honestly didn't expect to get this much :)
Tub
Joined: 6/25/2005
Posts: 1377
that'd be an obvious yes vote, if I could vote.
m00
Joined: 12/11/2005
Posts: 7
Location: Buckeye, AZ, USA
What Tub said. I thought that initially, you were going for just the basic ending. You brutally proved me wrong, and I thank you for that. ^_^ My Vote: Yes!(...if I could vote. O_o;)
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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. ---- [456] GBA Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow by Atma in 27:45.57
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 17
Nice job so far-- not quite ten minutes in-- but I've already noticed one thing that could speed up your run quite a bit. IIRC, if you press start you can skip dialogue. If I'm right you could probably shave off a minute or so.... Let me dig up my AoS cart and try it. I'll edit this post when I find out. ^^;
Former player
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
dawnshadow wrote:
Nice job so far-- not quite ten minutes in-- but I've already noticed one thing that could speed up your run quite a bit. IIRC, if you press start you can skip dialogue. If I'm right you could probably shave off a minute or so.... Let me dig up my AoS cart and try it. I'll edit this post when I find out. ^^;
Only works from a cart that has game completion. Since we start emulated movies with a clear SRAM, no dialogs can be skipped.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 17
Zurreco wrote:
dawnshadow wrote:
Nice job so far-- not quite ten minutes in-- but I've already noticed one thing that could speed up your run quite a bit. IIRC, if you press start you can skip dialogue. If I'm right you could probably shave off a minute or so.... Let me dig up my AoS cart and try it. I'll edit this post when I find out. ^^;
Only works from a cart that has game completion. Since we start emulated movies with a clear SRAM, no dialogs can be skipped.
Aw. Sorry, it's been a long time since I didn't have a completed file, and when I didn't I was reading the dialogues. Still impressed with your run. ^^
Joined: 6/4/2005
Posts: 130
Location: Ontario, Canada
Very cool run. Not as good as the other GBA Castlevania run in terms of star quality, but still very enjoyable.
Joined: 10/6/2005
Posts: 70
Location: France
I have a codec problem, I only have the sound when I ply the video. I installed SLD Codec Pack a few days ago, so I'd like if someone could help me by posting a link for the good codec, thanks ;).