In the previous mission, we cared about no one, just time! This mission, we need to save our girls (they don't appear here tho :P)
Castlevania: Dracula X "best ending" in 13:48.34
Run details
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
- Takes damage to save time
- Achieves best ending possible
- Fastest possible time
- Manipulates luck
Quick overview
- This is an improvement over the current best ending run by 640 frames (or 10.67 seconds), thanks to optimizations throughout the run, and two major points:
- Early elevator in Stage 4, Abandoned Mine, was probably assumed to be impossible. TASers would delay spawning the second elevator after saving Maria because if you spawn the elevator, and you fail to jump onto the highest platform, you lose a lot of time waiting for the first cycle to finish. It fails mostly because there is a ghost there, I do believe that they did search for best possible frame for it to work, but it is actually kind of obscure and not easy to find. I spent a lot of time trying to find that frame and thankfully I found it through a really precise way that avoids getting hit by the ghost. It saves 3 seconds
- Heart management which approximately saves 4 seconds. Axe throwing is tricky in this game, and requires a specific number of hearts for multiple throws. Refer to the bad ending submission for more information about heart management.
Improvements table
- Since current run is done on Snes9x 1.43, lag frames aren't produced accurately there, thus all calculations have lag frames differences isolated.
| Stage | Frames saved | Total frames saved | Notes on time save |
|---|
| Burning Town | 0 | 0 | I actually saved 2 frames from better climbing but lost them. I tried my best to too see why and fix that but couldn't sadly. |
| Castle Entrance | 13 | 13 | Better stairs climbing and optimal Knight Toss. |
| Castle Center | 13 | 26 | Better climbing on first screen, and optimized heart management. |
| Abandoned Mine | 190 | 216 | Early elevator spawn and better Fleamen patterns. |
| Underground Lake | 102 | 318 | Optimal second screen, fast exit in autoscoller screen and fast Annet cutscene. |
| Clock Tower | 81 | 399 | Optimal heart management and better climbing in first clock screen with Armor Knights. Better Death phase 1 fight thanks to having multiple Axe throws. |
| Castle Keep | 241 | 640 | Heart management throughout the entire run paid off in Dracula phase 2 fight. |
Special thanks
- Dooty: Once again for his best ending TAS that really helped a ton making both this run and the bad ending one.
- You: For watching all the backflips!
I did promise to save Annet, and there it is! My job here is done! Enjoy!
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: Everything checks out here. Congratulations on the cuts!
