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About the game

The game is a sequel of Akumajou Dracula Chi no Rondo on PC-Engine. In 1797, the vampire hunter Richter Belmont was controled by evil force, Dracula's son Alucard must save him and defeat his father again. Japanese version named 悪魔城ドラキュラＸ 月下の夜想曲.

About the run

Goals
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Abuses programme errors
  • Manipulates luck
  • Uses a password
  • Emulator used PCSX v006
  • Colors Dracula
Tricks & glitch
At prologue battle, if holy water and item crash hurt Dracula simultaneously, he loss HP heavily. And you can get a heart refresh if spend all of your hearts.
Big toss, if a enemy hurt half or more of your HP, you would be tossed very long distance. I think everyone knows this.
Edge travel, stand next to screen side, move to make the screen roll and game-pause simultaneously (use heart refresh, level up, etc), you can move over the screen.
Wlof glitch, dash to a slope as a wolf, jump at a proper moment when you close it, you would sink into the slope.
Infinite wing smash, enter the smash command repeatedly during wing smash.
Shield skill, equip Mablung Sword (or Shield Rod) and any shield, press square and circle. I used Alucard Shield skill that kill last bosses in couple seconds. So, Dracula was colored!
Description
I used a password to unlock luck mode. In the mode, the hero has less HP, so big toss is easier to do. The mode is better for glitch run. There is a little waiting times in clock room in castle center, I played with a flea man to make it not too boring. Some bosses were killed quite fast, in fact I manipulated lot critical on them, thanks pirate_sephiroth gave me memory adress. Before go to invert castle, I did normal dash there because I didn't have shield, equiping shield would spend more menu time.
note 1: The encode. Thanks arukAdo for making it.
note 2: possible improvement, I manipuleted 6 Manna prisms, but they seem not very enough, so I think that using the waiting time to get more would save several seconds more, perhaps.

Suggested screen shots

Thanks to

  • mobile_suit for his awesome speed run.
  • pirate_sephiroth for his help and memory adress.
  • arukAdo for his help and encode.
  • mz for his great work on emulator development.
hope you enjoy
adelikat: I think accepting this run is a no brainer. Congratulations on having such a ground breaking TAS :)

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Posted: 1/20/2009 7:22 PM
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Ferret_Warlord
Skilled player (1404)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1976
Location: Making an escape
Oh sweet! Precedent! I like how Alucard occasionally voices what the viewer is thinking with his confused, "What?!"
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Posted: 1/20/2009 7:26 PM
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Captain_Forehead
Player (57)
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 872
Location: Utah
9/8
Posted: 1/20/2009 7:27 PM
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arukAdo
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
PSX TAS of 2011 PSX TAS of 2010 Rookie of 2009 New systems TASer of 2009 New systems TAS of 2009
Satoryu : theres what, 1 glitch per minute average, how it can be more glitchy?? I dont realy see your point And what you mean by warping anywhere? actually the zip like you say work on any door, so its just a matter of having objectives, now if you meant about 0HP glitch on aos that let you walk anywhere on the map, this is also possible in sotn... but still i dont get the point... since in aos it doesnt help speedruns As for the run been last save room instead of final blow on dracula, blame konami, they forgot to update the timer at last save... how could you even show a final time since its not stated anywhere... now with PCSX since you have frame count... its possible (and make sence) KDR: I think the move you speak about is call Edge Travel, long story for short you can move behind the walls http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jDPkewo1W0 The way its made on the speedrun is a bit more hard to perform (using level up) but its the same concept
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Posted: 1/20/2009 8:08 PM
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Cpadolf
Skilled player (1431)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
SNES TASer of 2009 Rookie of 2008 SNES TASer of 2008
Satoryu wrote:
however, this run is as glitched as some people make it out to be. Alucard isn't warping to wherever the hell he wants. he's only going to an adjacent room. he's only ignoring semi-important goals. the severity of the edge travels is comparable to zips in a Mega Man game, not to the warping tricks in the GBA Castlevanias. if a larger-length Alucard run were to be made, most tricks should still be fair game, like skipping Richter. the main, and really only, thing that would change would be defeating the 5 inverted castle bosses for the Vlad relics.
For me personally it's not really about how severe the glitches are, but how much of the game they let you skip. I think that there is a lot of potential for a longer run of this game. And if a longer run of the game was made then I think using stuff like edge travel and the wolf squeeze should be disallowed, since it's those glitches that makes all the skips possible (similar to how BLJ's would be banned in a 70 star Mario 64 run, if such a run was ever made).[/url]
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Posted: 1/20/2009 8:10 PM
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Kirkq
Player (208)
Joined: 7/7/2006
Posts: 798
Location: US
Having never played any game of the Castlevania series before, I found this run to be highly entertaining. That dialogue is ridiculous, the movement is ridiculous, and the glitches are ridiculous. This is definitely a worthy first PSX submission. 9/9
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Posted: 1/20/2009 8:21 PM
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Satoryu
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
cpa: i guess what you're talking about would look a lot like my run? i dunno. i'm just thinking it wouldn't be different enough from this run. using Luck Mode to keep the Alucard equipment should still be used in any other run, though. there's nothing wrong with that.
Cpadolf wrote:
similar to how BLJ's would be banned in a 70 star Mario 64 run, if such a run was ever made)
the 120 star run uses BLJs.
arukAdo wrote:
now if you meant about 0HP glitch on aos that let you walk anywhere on the map, this is also possible in sotn... but still i dont get the point... since in aos it doesnt help speedruns
yeah it does.
Posted: 1/20/2009 8:30 PM
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arukAdo
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
PSX TAS of 2011 PSX TAS of 2010 Rookie of 2009 New systems TASer of 2009 New systems TAS of 2009
Ok, so because Edge travel doesnt allow to move anywhere on the map its a minor glitch ... if that make you feel better lol, why not It enable to hit the library without going by outerwall, if that not enough a warp for ya, nothing will yeah indeed
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Posted: 1/20/2009 8:38 PM
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Satoryu
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
well, the Library Card is doing the actual warping there.
Posted: 1/20/2009 8:55 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
There's an obvious intended order to Symphony of the Night; this isn't Metroid Zero Mission here. You can't reasonably claim that the game designers intended for you to be able to get to the library before the Outer Wall, given the locations of all of the library cards. Yes, sequence breaks are possible, and sequence-breaking TASes are a classic staple of the artform, but that doesn't mean there's no room or demand for TASes that look basically like how a normal person would play the game if they didn't make mistakes. That's the basic argument for the "BLJ-less 70-star SM64 TAS". And personally, I do think that using Luck Mode to retain the Alucard equipment is, while fine if your only goal is speed, disappointing. There's tons of neat equipment in SotN and just sticking with the same stuff throughout is boring. One-hit KOing enemies isn't entertaining. If you're going to make the decision to not use one glitch (say, edge walking) because it's not entertaining, even though it makes a faster run, then you should be able to say the same about any other available glitch. For my part the same goes for anything that isn't a glitch, too. I don't think the Shield Rod + Alucard Shield combination is entertaining, for example, even though it's a legitimate spell that real players use all the time. Same goes for Soul Steal. Make the most entertaining movie you can, and have speed as a secondary goal, I say.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/20/2009 9:04 PM
(Edited: 1/20/2009 9:06 PM)
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arukAdo
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
PSX TAS of 2011 PSX TAS of 2010 Rookie of 2009 New systems TASer of 2009 New systems TAS of 2009
Well i was arguing on this one, obviously because its me who finded that you can get that lib card this way, but satoryu seem to prefer to stick to his version of "this is not that glitchy" or to play with words (im sorry i dont want to start a rethoric on what is warping or not, in that case, for the lib card, its like a warping, since your not suppose to have it... period) For the sake of clarity, and for those who didnt realy played the game, your nowhere near suppose to finish the game with just bat and wolf and less than 35% (total is 200 not 100) Derakon got a good point tough, shield rod is clearly breaking the game into something ridiculous, 255 dmg several time per seconds.... whatever the hp of the boss he wont stand long, that not very entertaining at first approach I can agree as well on alucard sword, its overpowered The aim here for clairly for speed, imo, not realy for entertainement
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Posted: 1/20/2009 9:06 PM
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negjay
Joined: 9/26/2007
Posts: 55
Location: Michigan
Personally I'd be interested in TAS movies that don't abuse movement glitches so severely that all cohesion in game travel is completely lost. Harmony of Dissonance in particular really loses some entertainment value from all of the warping, I hope no one ever finds something like that for this game. Now if there was just a way to mute the backdash sound so it doesn't sound like someone's furiously sandpapering antique furniture right next to a microphone during the run. Now a full map run of this game would be pretty time consuming, and a full on 100% of everything run would be absurdly lengthy. How about instead a 100% relic run? This would still allow quite a bit of the game to be bypassed. As for the suboptimal character runs I would personally find it highly amusing if someone did a run that never equipped any weapons. I was surprised how easy the game was while never allowing myself to equip anything actually, the only guy that put up a fight was Galamoth. It probably wouldn't add up to much more than a minute or two's total difference, and that's only if every boss is fought, so while an interesting idea I doubt it's validity. BTW 8/9.
Posted: 1/20/2009 9:18 PM
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Satoryu
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
the sequence breaking argument is a slippery slope. you're not supposed to get to Olrox's Quarters without the double jump. are you going to say that a runner wouldn't be allowed to skip that?
negjay wrote:
How about instead a 100% relic run?
that could work.
Posted: 1/20/2009 9:23 PM
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arukAdo
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
PSX TAS of 2011 PSX TAS of 2010 Rookie of 2009 New systems TASer of 2009 New systems TAS of 2009
You took the wrong exemple, since they fixed maria meeting in alchemy laboratory, this was intended actually (else maria would still freeze the game while coming from her back, so they was aware of wolf dive kick and this shortcut) Now whe can argue on if a bug fix would make it canon regarding the rest, i think its not realy important What matter i guess is you cant realy glitch it more than it is already
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Posted: 1/20/2009 9:32 PM
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Satoryu
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
arukAdo wrote:
You took the wrong exemple, since they fixed maria meeting in alchemy laboratory, this was intended actually (else maria would still freeze the game while coming from her back, so they was aware of wolf dive kick and this shortcut)
proof?
Posted: 1/20/2009 10:27 PM
(Edited: 1/20/2009 10:28 PM)
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Yes, I'd say that in a glitchless run you wouldn't be allowed to use the wolf kick to get to Olrox's Quarters. In general, as I said, there is a clearly intended order to the way the game is meant to be played. You enter the castle, go to the Outer Wall, meet the Librarian for the opening stone, go back to the blue door, climb the cathedral and make it to the upper level for the leap stone, and then you can go into Olrox's Quarters. In short, any route that deviates from the intended route would not be allowed in such a run. And I feel safe in saying this for SotN when it's not safe for e.g. Metroid Zero Mission because all of the available sequence breaks in SotN are clearly glitches and/or programming oversights. Not "this jump looks too far to make, but if you're pixel-perfect it's doable", but "this jump requires you to do a bunch of fiddlng to reset your state so you have access to an ability you shouldn't have."
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/20/2009 10:27 PM
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arukAdo
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
PSX TAS of 2011 PSX TAS of 2010 Rookie of 2009 New systems TASer of 2009 New systems TAS of 2009
Proof on what? what kind of proof? that the bug exist and has been fixed in usa release ? lol fireup your game and try it youll see You could also argue that the double jump is reachable from clock tower directly... that would lead to the same, you need a wolf high jump or a toss (a trick.. in other words) to get up the stairs in first tower
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Posted: 1/20/2009 10:41 PM
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DrJones
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
I think that having a bug that only works in the japanese version is reason enough to do the run in that version (if that bug saves time, that is). The rule of using the USA version stands for those cases in which the rom change has minimal impact on the gameplay (other than a shorter display of text).
No.
Posted: 1/20/2009 10:57 PM
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Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
Let me remind some people that this is a TAS. TASes are expected to take advantage of glitches, shortcuts, and game shortcomings. (I don't see you whining about Sonic 3 and Knuckles now, so I?) If you want to watch a glitchless run, go elsewhere.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Posted: 1/20/2009 11:12 PM
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Cpadolf
Skilled player (1431)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
SNES TASer of 2009 Rookie of 2008 SNES TASer of 2008
Sir VG wrote:
Let me remind some people that this is a TAS. TASes are expected to take advantage of glitches, shortcuts, and game shortcomings. (I don't see you whining about Sonic 3 and Knuckles now, so I?) If you want to watch a glitchless run, go elsewhere.
Contrary to some peoples beliefs TASes aren't always about finishing a game as fast as possible without regard for anything. And there are plenty of cases where glitched and non glitched movies of the same game coexists, so your last statement is very odd.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Posted: 1/20/2009 11:17 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I have actually commented in the past that I'd like to see a version of S3&K without the wall-zip glitch. So nyah. :p As Cpadolf noted, this site is not solely about speed, or even about speed while laboring under restrictions (100%/low%/etc.). Otherwise we wouldn't have things like the River City Ransom playaround run or the SMB3 glitchfest run. The site is about entertainment. Make an entertaining run, and you have decent odds of getting it published. Hell, Smash Bros. didn't get published until we had a non-speed-based submission. Anyway, I have no problem whatsoever with glitched runs. I just like to see both sides of the coin. There's no need to be exclusionary here. What we're after is a) entertainment, and b) quality. If you have both, you're welcome.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 1/20/2009 11:30 PM
(Edited: 1/21/2009 12:00 AM)
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Megaman951
Joined: 6/11/2004
Posts: 35
Location: Quebec, Canada
I can't get the game to run and keep getting crashes what plugins and plugin settings do you use ? Do I need to run the game from a CD or a bin/cue ? EDIT - nevermind, I got it to work. when I start the game I get a black screen but I gotta wait like 10 sec before the game actually starts
Posted: 1/20/2009 11:38 PM
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Cpadolf
Skilled player (1431)
Joined: 7/15/2007
Posts: 1468
Location: Sweden
SNES TASer of 2009 Rookie of 2008 SNES TASer of 2008
There is a link to a youtube video in the submission text. If you need help to get the emulator/game to run there is a forum section for this emulator.
Agare Bagare Kopparslagare
Posted: 1/21/2009 12:09 AM
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Satoryu
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
Derakon wrote:
Yes, I'd say that in a glitchless run you wouldn't be allowed to use the wolf kick to get to Olrox's Quarters.
that's some Twin Galaxies shit right there. i don't think even they would disallow the wolf kick. speaking of which, arukado, where's your proof that the wolf kick was put into the game intentionally? the reason you gave doesn't prove or disprove anything. i facepalm at the thought of "natural route" TAS. that's an oxymoron, as the natural route goes against everything TASes are supposed to be. namely, entertaining. the run would be nothing more than a frame advanced Let's Play. the fact that TASes are supposed to show superhuman control is already playing the game outside the manner the game creators intended. (speaking of which, you're going to have a hell of a time telling me which order of obtaining the Vlad items is intended. or better yet, telling me the intended route for Super Metroid.) and getting the Silver Ring without the Spike Breaker doesn't use a glitch or a programming oversight.
Posted: 1/21/2009 12:11 AM
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arukAdo
Experienced player (954)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
PSX TAS of 2011 PSX TAS of 2010 Rookie of 2009 New systems TASer of 2009 New systems TAS of 2009
I never sayd that, i sayd they knew about it (after release...), hence why fix maria... if its unreachable... fixing maria only imply you can get there... that all Also, i never saw anywhere i own you any proofs...
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Posted: 1/21/2009 12:20 AM
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Satoryu
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
sorry, i couldn't understand.
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