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  • Authors
  • Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
    • 100% Completion & Best ending
  • Official Encodes [1]
  • Download the Release package. It includes the movie file, lua script, ram watch, submission text, as well as savestates for every level.
  • Windows users: Download the latest PCEjin
  • Linux users: Download the latest Mednafen
Note: The latest version of PCEjin includes Drag & Drop for savestates. This and the level savestates provided in the release package allow easy watching of any level in any order.

Introduction

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood was released only in Japan in 1993 on the PC Engine with the CD add-on. It was later ported to the SNES as Dracula X.

Route choice

Deciding on a route for 100% was no easy task! There were many routes and characters to consider. Also, each possibility had its drawbacks. A full explanation can be found here. We decided on getting the Good ending but employing a stage select code.

Various comments

  • Several segments were pasted from the Maria any% movie.
  • Stage 5' had two route possibilities and both were tested. The lower one proved to be faster by about 300 frames (even though I was positive the upper was better!). A WIP showing the upper route is included in the release package in the Fails folder.
  • Stage 4 also had two route choices. The upper one was demonstrated in the Richter - Regular Stages movie. However, due to Maria's fast rolling, the lower choice was better.
  • Maria sliding on her belly causes less lag (in laggy situations) than rolling.
  • Ducking during a boss death animation can (but doesn't always) reduce lag.
  • Stage 4' gets a no damage bonus which causes time. However, I couldn't find a good place to take damage that was faster.
A few tricks and improvements were discovered that make the two any% movies improvable
  • With Maria, Rapid double jumping (Jump, wait a frame, double jump) is a lower jump than a regular jump. This allows her to save time in many places by getting to the ground sooner so she can start rolling sooner. It is also helpful in vertical areas for landing on some platforms sooner.
  • Near doors, it is often better to hold down at the end of a roll to slide a bit towards the door. This can as much as 4 frames on doors where a slide ends some distance away.
  • In stage 6, using the stairs to get to the top turned out to be 96 frames faster
  • The stage 6 bosses are improvable due to more creative lag reduction.
  • The stage 2 (Richter) boss was improved by about 100 frames.

The 2 first stages also have been improved by small optimisations there and here, mainly swaping damage from the rocks with regular ennemys, because killing the rocks was faster, also small changes on heart management was also introduced because of that strategy change, some lag in 2-2 could be improved eventually, richter any% movie does include some of thoses changes, but have different outcomes in stage2

Screenshots

middle middle middle
(Note: all of these are already optimized)

Summary

Classes
  • 100% completion
  • Best ending
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Forgoes time-saving dinosuar coloring
  • Uses a level password
  • Uses a game restart sequence
Emulator

Official Encodes[1]

mmbossman: Accepting in response to good viewer feedback as a 100% category (after taking into account 2 trolling no votes).

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