Through glitches and things, I always win, 'Cause I am the wind

Summary

  • Collect All Relics (28)
  • Best Ending (1847 Rooms)
  • Abuses Programming Errors
  • Corrupt Map Save Data
  • Uses Game Reset Sequence
  • Takes Damage To Save Time
  • Manipulates Luck
  • Colors Dracula and Animate Load Screens
  • UnOfficial Encodes [1]
  • Download Package [2]
  • Emulator used: PCSX-RR (1.2)
  • RealTime:57:20 GameTime:54:43(last input) Frames:206436 Re-records:84859


Movie Goal's


The 2 main objectives of this movie are to obtain the best ending, and collect all relics (items).
It took me a while to decide myself on the goals of the movie, the main reason i sticked to those is i wanted to use as many glitches as possible.

There is no souls, dds or glyphs in sotn, instead there is 28 relics granting various abilities to alucard (note there is 30 on jap version, but those 2 extra are recycled familliar cards)
Collecting all relics is pretty much the same than collecting all items in super metroid, i think its a classic goal among tases now and should not be a problem.
There is also HP/Heart max up, those function alike the missile tank, im not sure of the exact number of those "upgrade" in the game.
The reason i did not try to acquire all max up is because of a glitch that would let respawn them as many time as you want (can go up to 9999HP), i didnt saw the interrest to farm those just to get the same ammount you could acquire in the castles.
Like for metroid half the items are not used in the run, alltho the others are essential for either glitching or simply move swiftly.

The best ending requires you to explore 1847 rooms (196%) at least, this is determined by the room counter directly.
Like for others castlevania and unlike metroid, the game reffer to % for the map completion and not items, the official maximum is 1890 rooms (200.6%), to calculate % divide rooms by 9,52.
The map screen show the official rooms (squares) in blue, grey mean unexplored (after you buy the extra map at librarian), and white rooms are the glitched/oob rooms.
The only exception are the 2 blue rooms and save point in entrance, those are not official but still can be explored by glitching, and show up as regular rooms on the map, this increase the max map to 201.2% (without white rooms).
Many places in the game have "outside" boundarys way larger than inside walls, the most noticable exemple is the staircase in chapel, layer design are square or rectangle, but not shaped like a staircase, as such it mean the real size of the room is twice or three time more than what it look like on map, exiting the wall boundary and fully exploring this place is rewarding many extra rooms.
The game doesnt care what kind of rooms you explored when you enter the final boss, whether they was only blue or mixed with some white ones, you just need to have 1847+ on the counter for the best ending to occur.

I think those 2 goals have a good synergy, if i want just to get the best ending, ill end up crossing all rooms where there are relics, and if i just want all relics, i will still explore a good chunk of the castle.
Having all relics doesnt influct on the ending, but i felt only the best ending would not fit well as a primary goal, for a "100%" kind of movie.
Arguably i could have just go for all relics, even if the ending differences are very small, i did choosed to go also for the best ending.
My main intention was to make the exploration entertaining by using various glitches to exit boundarys, and quickly gain rooms.
By corrupting the map, i was also able to make any backtrack rewarding more rooms, as just the map does reset and not the room counter.
The direct result is that going twice in the same place register twice the rooms, in a "normal" exploration, many place on the map are redundant, you need to use often the teleporter to go back and forth, and end up crossing several times the same room without the counter increasing.

A last word for dirty sram, i took it from Richter TAS who made it from zggzdydp's any%, im doing that for having a savegame with "clear" status on it.
If i dont have that memory card, the librarian will not sell mana prisms, making the run considerably slower/sloppier overall (this was tested).
The reason im not using the current any% to build the memcard is that its too tedious to get to dracula in that movie (you need to interrupt, save, then kill boss).


Improvements


On the route matter, the obvious improvement would be to be able to corrupt the room count, i was able to get all stats, the kill counter ect... to their max, but the room counter did resist me.
Once we find how to corrupt the room count, then we can simply go for relics, and use the last save room near dracula to "boost" the counter and activate the good ending.
This would shorten the run by half or more, most probably, some lua guru around could maybe help the matter, to test all corruption possibilities (its determistic behavior).

For the technical level of the movie, well, its not exactly perfect, here are some flaw i can list:
  • In the early begin at alchemy laboratory, i farm some extra rooms, they may be not so revelant after all, given the higher speed rate you get later on.
  • It may be possible to obtain mana refill from the stop screen while i use shield rod in the chapel to get accross the statue (then get sword card without waiting for mana).
  • Obtaining 6 fire boomrangs on the way to chapel, and using high jump for reaching sword card wasnt faster, due to the candle you can bounce on (giving good height), but jumping before using boomrangs may be faster.(see next)
  • While using fire boomrangs to make a high jump at central clock room, im not jumping first, klmz founded its possible to do so, this would chope some frames with the bat flying upward since i would end up in higher position.
  • After olrox, to get inside shiftline (todo:link to tricks page) after ET, i use the wolf then revert back to alucard, later on in the run (keep) i found out you can move forward and push backward+jump to enter the shiftline, approx 100-150 frames to save here by not turning into wolf.
  • still more to explain, give it some time :p
Recap Map



Download Package[2]

A Download Package for this movie is available, it contain:
  • This submission input file, and ram watch in pcsx format.
  • A lua script, featuring various ram values overlay (mp, speeds ect...) .

Official Encodes[1]

Closing

This movie is not perfect, and could be better, yet i hope youll enjoy it, and for a first step for the 100% category i believe it could have been worse.
I also want to thanks everybody that helped to contribute to this movie, directly or not, feedback for wip ect... (too many to be cited directly) and i hope youll enjoy! :p
PS: this page is best viewed on the site rather than forum

adelikat: The goal choice was potentially bad but it was handled in unexpected and surprising ways. Viewer response to the movie was very solid. I'll accept it for publication as a "Best ending movie. (It is my understanding that all relics are necessary for best ending, thus "All & Relects & Best Ending" is redundant. Am I right on this?)
Aktan: Processing...


adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3570)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
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Callmewoof wrote:
Excitedly waiting for an encode. Sounds amazing though!
Uh, there's a youtube link in the submission text. But I can understand how you missed it given all that text. Anyway, I watched it, and I loved it. I thought maybe it would be too boring (1841 rooms!) but you managed to glitch away so many and blow through the rest so quickly. It got especially more interesting towards the end when you got to feature a powered up alucard.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
mklip2001
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Editor
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Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
This starts looking sort of like the published run. All of a sudden, though, the game transitions where Alucard moves in one of three ways: bat, dive kick, or pooping lasers. It was pretty awesome to see for the first few minutes, but as someone who's not really that familiar with SotN, it got repetitive. I would love to eventually see some explanations (when arukAdo has time, of course), because this really made no sense. I'm not sure what to vote. I guess a relevant question is: how does this run compare to the 100% CotM run? The variety of glitches in this movie is bigger, but the movie is also a lot longer, for instance.
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.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
While I still hold out hope that eventually we'll be able to see a run that merely showcases superhuman normal play of this game...this is good. You beat up the game and stole its lunch money. Sometimes the farming for map percentage got a bit tedious, but not enough to seriously detract from the entertainment. Nice work!
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Experienced player (960)
Joined: 12/3/2008
Posts: 936
Location: Castle Keep
Ill try to answer this quickly mklip2001, its a good question The run you point out is about to complete the map, like for sotn, % are not items but map. The thing with that run, obtaining the full map doesnt give you anything back, except to brag for it. In SOTN, to obtain the best ending, you need to have 196%+ map completion (1847 rooms), so im not exploring just for fun, its to get the best ending. The best run of this category would be to 1. get all relics 2. corrupt room count so no more exploration is needed to obtain 196%. While i hope this will be possible, it doesnt work yet, so i had to walk the rooms, hmmm, manually :p If anything, i was aiming at making the redundant parts (that are still rewarding more rooms, thus vital for the movie purpose) the most entertaining possible by using glitchs, either to get outside boundary or take shortcuts, i believe i didnt failed totaly at this, from the feedback i can see already in the thread. If corrupting the room count happen to be possible, most of this will be gone along it, there will still be some exploration to get relics, but the run will be twice shorter, thus will forcably use much less glitchs (or creative ways to explore i should say).
Joined: 5/11/2006
Posts: 71
adelikat wrote:
Callmewoof wrote:
Excitedly waiting for an encode. Sounds amazing though!
Uh, there's a youtube link in the submission text. But I can understand how you missed it given all that text. Anyway, I watched it, and I loved it. I thought maybe it would be too boring (1841 rooms!) but you managed to glitch away so many and blow through the rest so quickly. It got especially more interesting towards the end when you got to feature a powered up alucard.
LOL thanks. Yeah, the GIANT WALL OF TEXT obscured my view, undoubtedly. :-)
Samus taught us that a girl doesn't need brains to be successful. Brains are giant, evil, and vulnerable to missiles.
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I got no idea what happend in this TSA but it still got a yes from me!
Editor
Joined: 3/31/2010
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You broke the graphics and most of the game as well. Yes vote.
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.
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Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1276
Location: Uppsala, Sweden
One of the best TAS'es I've seen. Never knew Alucard could move that quickly. And when he already was on crack and the viewing experience was awesome, he started to fly through walls, outside the castle, through a third glitchy looking castle and oh man. Definate yes vote from me. I thought I knew this game pretty well, but nope, that was not the case at all!
/Walker Boh
Player (117)
Joined: 5/13/2009
Posts: 700
Location: suffern, ny
awesome, i voted yes
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese [19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
One question as I give another Yes vote for gamebreaking goodness: Why didn't you skip the "Journey Back to 1792" screen?
Experienced player (960)
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Location: Castle Keep
Since i thought you cant skip it (or failed at skiping i should say) , i guess the answer is because i sux ? Seriously this is the kill detail, i didnt even noticed that even tho i watched my own movie a bunch of times. (you didnt saw it in wip?) The TAS is not perfect anyway, i have some explanations to give in the submision text, but here i didnt saw it coming at all, good catch!
N._Harmonik
She/Her
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 502
Location: Canada
From the sounds of it, we're gonna need a glitchless 'All Relics - Best Ending' run too. Any takers?
Why, oh, why do I even <i>try</i> to understand my own species?
Experienced player (960)
Joined: 12/3/2008
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Location: Castle Keep
I wouldnt mind to try that, someday, but like i sayd once to Derakon, what are you going to allow or not? does the big toss is a glitch for exemple, its clearly an intended feature, the wolf giving a dive kick is same thing, its not a glitch, rather an oversight, or using a potion to open the door to maria in chapel. The hardest part in a glitchless run is to define what is a glitch and what is not, and it generaly fall under a subjective point of view.
Joined: 6/20/2008
Posts: 150
This run is ball-slapping insane. I eagerly await explanation in submission text (which, judging from Satoryu's question and the resultant answer, may be a little while in coming?).
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Ill fix text in a day or two, and start filling up the ressource page on wiki (the later been more important and revelant for the questions the audiance have already) I need to get pics and stuffs, and its going to be long to cover everything, so it will come in time :p
Joined: 7/1/2008
Posts: 272
arukAdo wrote:
Since i thought you cant skip it (or failed at skiping i should say) , i guess the answer is because i sux ? Seriously this is the kill detail, i didnt even noticed that even tho i watched my own movie a bunch of times. (you didnt saw it in wip?) The TAS is not perfect anyway, i have some explanations to give in the submision text, but here i didnt saw it coming at all, good catch!
I guess I just failed to take notice until now. My bad.
skychase
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Joined: 3/25/2007
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Location: Quebec, Canada
Mind = Blown Are those glitch possible non tool-assisted ? Ps. arukAdo, can you upload your memory card file with the "clear" game, I wanted to start a replay game but deleted my game by mistake ?
Experienced player (960)
Joined: 12/3/2008
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I got it from http://tasvideos.org/1275M.html But you can also get it from this run movie file. Most everything is doable non assisted, alltho a lot slower, of course.
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
spweasel wrote:
A typical Saturday night in the Tepes household (in no particular order): - Alucard decides his name is really X-X!V''Q. - He eats "poisonous" mushrooms roughly once every five minutes. - He wanders around erratically, including going back through doors he just came through. - He tries to moonwalk everywhere, but only manages to jerk backwards awkwardly. - He falls down several flights of stairs, out a couple windows, and almost drowns in the basement. - He thinks he fell through the floor. Repeatedly. - He gets thrown around like a rag doll by almost everything he touches - He forgets about places he's just been. - He thinks he is being followed by floating talking swords, fairies, and demons. - He sees scantly clad or naked women in the middle of the night. Some have wings. - He keeps seeing the moon change phase at random. - He suddenly starts seeing the whole world as a blocky, oddly-colored mess. - He runs around the house at full speed thinking he is a wolf or a bat. - He suddenly starts seeing everything upside down. - He yells "What!?" a lot. - He beats up his father for no explained reason and then starts whining about his dead mother. Congratulations! You made SOTN into the only entertaining Stoner Comedy in existence. Easy yes vote. (And remember kiddies: Just say no to drugs!)
sound like a job for social services there... yes vote, very entertaining run.
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
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I really like this game, but I didn't like the pace of this run. No vote.
No.
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DrJones wrote:
I really like this game, but I didn't like the pace of this run. No vote.
Please man, don't vote in my movies. hehe
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
Marcokarty wrote:
DrJones wrote:
I really like this game, but I didn't like the pace of this run. No vote.
Please man, don't vote in my movies. hehe
I have not voted here, either.
No.
Joined: 6/24/2009
Posts: 34
And once again, arukAdo shows us that Dracula's Castle is, in fact, made entirely out of Chaos. And more mushrooms than Katamari Damacy. :P My favorite set of antics in the run was undoubtedly the crazy bat-zipping all over the place, though wolf-running straight past Richter was amazing as well. :P There was a lot of repetition, but I feel that the rest of the movie more than makes up for it. Especially how Alucard seemed to realize when he was stuck in a wall. :P
Stuffs. Yarr!
Scepheo wrote:
The chance of choosing the right door is 0, because laser-absorbing goats will brainwash you.
Joined: 8/23/2008
Posts: 417
DrJones wrote:
I really like this game, but I didn't like the pace of this run. No vote.
Was it... uh, was it too fast? I'm confused... I mean, if you know this game at all, and you were expecting it FASTER, I'm... I don't know... I don't know.
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Joined: 4/29/2005
Posts: 1212
Sorry, but I couldn't give this a yes vote. I was well done, so I gave it a Meh. Honestly, all of the glitching through the floors and stuff put me to sleep, literally. It was amusing for about five minutes when you started doing it, then it just got boring. I really had more fun at the beginning of the TAS with that shield glitch. Funny to watch Alucard flying like that.