(Link to video)
Submission Text Full Submission Page
The original Castlevania is set in the year 1691. Simon Belmont must make his way through the eponymous castle to destroy Count Dracula. To make his quest a little bit harder, Simon is not allowed to use subweapons or take damage.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.1.4a
  • Aims for Fastest Time
  • Manipulates Luck
  • Does not use Subweapons
  • Does not take Damage
  • Genre: Platform

Comments

I got the idea for this some time ago and wondered how such a movie would work, and decided to make a |Testrun at 14:03.33. This movie improves the Testrun by roughly 45 seconds due to general optimization, much better boss fights and generally becoming more familiar with the game. I also tried to showcase some more interesting things than in the testrun, such as odd enemy behaviour and narrow avoiding of projectiles.
The run was done on the (PRG1) version, though it syncs with the (KC) version as well.

Stage by stage comments

Stages 1 - 3

Things start out relatively simple here. At one point I jump to affect the spawning of the Zombies. The bat acted much more favorably here, saving a rough 5 seconds.

Stages 4 - 6

I was unsure wether I should get a long whip to have an easier time hitting Medusa. Ultimately, she went down without a problem though.

Stages 7 - 9

Most of the work here consisted of getting a rosary or potion to spawn. The Mummies could perhaps be improved by getting the long whip and hitting them from afar, but I find it more interesting to stay between them the whole time.

Stages 10 - 12

I got an invincibility potion and could thus ignore the fleamen. Once you get to the Skeledragon, everything else on the screen disappears, including the fleamen.

Stages 13 - 15

Certain enemies such as Fleamen act differently, depending on wether you are facing them or not. If you face them, they'll do a slower high jump, allowing me to reach a door before one could hit me. I got a potion to spawn early on, allowing me to ignore a fleaman that would otherwise have slowed me down.

Stages 16 - 18

I figured a way to hit Dracula's head three times instead of two, cutting down a considerable amount of time. On his second phase, a few frames were lost to make him do a high jump.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoy this movie as much as I enjoyed making it. The game is pretty straightforward to TAS and progress was steady.
Suggested Screenshots: 20353, 21132, 26754, 38966

Flygon: Added YouTube module, and fixed header.

Nach: Poor audience response. Seems the goals didn't go over so well, and some minor improvements were noticed. Rejecting.

TASVideoAgent
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It was a nice run, a bit slow paced, but clearly optimized. I don't really have anything much to say... it's basically a good run but not particularly remarkable. A weak Yes vote will suffice, an SD and HD encode is coming up.
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Voting no due to random choice of goals and general yawning accross the run.
No.
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I recall from the published run that there's a way to damage bosses by running into them. If it was possible it would be cool to beat the game without ever swinging the whip or using any other weapons. That might be more interesting to me than this run. As it stands I don't think the game lends itself very well to this kind of minimal weapons run (although you collect whip upgrades) since it's really linear and looks just like a worse version of published run. That being said just because I don't like it doesn't mean other people won't, and as far as I can tell the run is well made. I will refrain from voting.
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The whole point in a clever Castlevania TAS is damage knockback and clever weapon management throughout. Without that, it's just a snoozefest. Voting no.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
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Pointless Boy wrote:
I recall from the published run that there's a way to damage bosses by running into them. If it was possible it would be cool to beat the game without ever swinging the whip or using any other weapons. That might be more interesting to me than this run.
My understanding of that glitch is that it involves hurting the boss while yourself being hurt -- some of the damage you take is shared with the boss. You still need a way to damage the boss.
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mklip2001
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I actually really like this concept for a run, at least in theory. This game is quite hard, and the goals make it even more ridiculous. I definitely liked some of the close shaves you had dodging enemies, and the mummy fight was awesomely impressive. I also liked the fight with Death, and jumping over Dracula's fireballs was surprising. However, in practice, these run goals don't produce the most entertaining movie. The published run is amazing primarily because it showboats the use of the cross and holy water for big point combos. (There are other fun things about that run too, but the showboating particularly stands out.) While this run has its moments of greatness, the whole pace of the run suffers from the goal choices. I feel like this run merits a comparison to the Contra pacifist run which only uses the standard weapon. That run, by avoiding killing enemies, adds palpable extra challenge, much like this run does. However, no one part is made too much longer in the pacifist run. Also, there isn't that much entertainment that is sacrificed in the pacifist run (since the spread gun optmization, although technically impressive, doesn't have as much "wow" factor IMHO as comboing enemies with the cross subweapon in this game). Overall, I like this run enough to vote Yes, but I doubt that enough people will agree with me to publish it. Good job anyway though on the technical side, scrimpeh!
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.
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Challenges like these never did hurt, right?
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Found time to watch the encode (thanks, Flygon!), and I enjoyed it. The White Dragon evasions and the Mummy fight were my favorite bits. Nice work!
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Since you made a run with arbitrary goals like this, I would have liked to see a bit more to it, such as getting all the hidden secrets as well.
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I like this run. I find it entertaining enough to vote yes.
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Arbitrary Much? You get a MEH.
adelikat
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So your restrictions are to take away everything that made the published TAS interesting? Watching you walk under ledge after ledge that could easily be damage boosted on to is rather painful. 13 minutes of walking and climbing stairs ftw Sorry, but that's a big no vote from me.
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I enjoyed the movie and see scrimpeh's point. Given the game's difficulty, performing a minimal weapon run in a short amount of time without taking damage is almost impossible in real time and clearly shows superplay. I feel kinda bad to vote No, as this movie was well done, and I liked it. However, giving what the published run is, I don't think it warrants publication in another category. Your goals made the TAS longer, less entertaining and, like adelikat said, technically less interesting. I think it deserves its place in Gruefood Delight though, and really hope you continue working in this game. I'd love to see a run with more interesting objectives.
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Congratulations... your TAS put me to sleep... I have to vote no for bad goal choice.
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Very clear no here. Had some mistimed parts, and lacked flow (for instance when waiting for bridges ... you had some time earlier to use those frames, or may even have been able to luck manipulate them away, so you aren't spending time in the video just standing on a ledge waiting for a moving bridge). Even if the whole concept of the submission wasn't horribly boring, the time could quite likely be improved.
Onyx3173
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That was a well done run but it was extremely boring. I'd recommend taking a crack at the normal Castlevania run. (Voting Meh)
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mklip2001 wrote:
I actually really like this concept for a run, at least in theory. This game is quite hard, and the goals make it even more ridiculous. I definitely liked some of the close shaves you had dodging enemies, and the mummy fight was awesomely impressive. I also liked the fight with Death, and jumping over Dracula's fireballs was surprising. However, in practice, these run goals don't produce the most entertaining movie. The published run is amazing primarily because it showboats the use of the cross and holy water for big point combos. (There are other fun things about that run too, but the showboating particularly stands out.) While this run has its moments of greatness, the whole pace of the run suffers from the goal choices. Overall, I like this run enough to vote Yes, but I doubt that enough people will agree with me to publish it. Good job anyway though on the technical side, scrimpeh!
I find this run to be entertaining enough to have my Yes, not getting hurt is something I like to see in TAS videos,! Gets a bit boring but I find it fun to watch! Yes vote from me!
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Is there a reason why you don't jump to grab the orb after the boss battles, as in the published run? That aside, I am surprised by some of the overpoweringly negative criticism. When I play Castlevania I use a huge amount of lives and powerups, so I found this concept interesting. I strongly dislike, and always have, that whenever someone submits a run with goals that deviate from the standard any%, 100% etc. there is a deafening cry of "arbitrary!" "random!". I'd like to thank scrimpeh for trying to give Castlevania tasing a new lease of life. While I hope that more authors make creative completion runs of great games I agree with adelikat's sentiment that when you remove damage and subweapons there isn't much left. I found the Grim Reaper battle most entertaining and the bat battle least interesting. Without the damage boosts etc. the linearity of this game is quite outstanding and damage seems too easy to avoid to warrant a separate category. This balances out to a meh vote from me. On the arbitrariness/random goal choice issue... I would consider such a goal to feel 'tacked on', as if the author created the goals to fit the movie rather than the movie in accordance with the goals. Arbitrariness in Castlevania would be "doesn't use holy water", "takes damage only in level 6" etc. Arbitrariness has nothing to do with entertainment. It describes goals that are inconsistent or goals that cannot logically be derived from the game's challenges. The goals here are quite clear. No damage at any point of the game. No subweapons at any point of the game. They are consistent and they notably affect the way the game is played and so can be rationalised by comparison to the game's challenges.
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I found this to be arbitrary and boring. Meh vote.
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Mukki wrote:
That aside, I am surprised by some of the overpoweringly negative criticism. When I play Castlevania I use a huge amount of lives and powerups, so I found this concept interesting. I strongly dislike, and always have, that whenever someone submits a run with goals that deviate from the standard any%, 100% etc. there is a deafening cry of "arbitrary!" "random!".
I agree with you for the most part, but in this case it's not just arbitrary or random. I've watched all the Castlevania TASs made since Bisqwit published his first few completed TASs of this game. Initially knock back was only used in one or two places, and no glitches were used. Then as each new TAS for this game was made, more and more places were found to exploit knockback, exploit special weapons, exploit damage on the boss. It got considerably more exciting with each new TAS. We all looked forward to see what new ideas Bisqwit, Phil, Genisto, and Morrison would come up with next. It was especially refreshing when seemingly counter-intuitive items and paths were chosen which ended up being faster as it allowed more knockback and more boss damage glitching. Without all that, this just seems like a jump back to before Bisqwit's first TAS. Being only 00:04.20 seconds slower than the first published run despite no leeway for damage or special items seems like a technical feet. But to me, this just feels like a 2004 TAS.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
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While I don't find the low% concept particularly applicable to Castlevania, I found this run to have its merits. It does seem boring if you never consider how hard the game is to play with restrictions like this; it suddenly makes a lot more sense afterwards — it's unlikely you'll ever see an unassisted run that attempts the same kind of challenge and comes even close to the final time. And I was actually surprised how lenient the hitbox was towards projectiles. I do feel the movie should undergo another revision in foreseeable future in case it gets published. It's clearly not up to the same standard the any% is, although it's not obviously unoptimized.
Mukki wrote:
That aside, I am surprised by some of the overpoweringly negative criticism.
This.
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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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Going for a NO-vote on this one. It's not too shabby, but it just doesn't do it for me. Sorry
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Too arbitrary of a goal. It took out the interesting damage boosts and made some of the boss fights rather long and tedious.