Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

2010-10-10 10:41:18 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/Castlevania3.html

Josh 'funkdoc' Ballard's run of every single path

Verifier Responses

Quote:

The runs for all 4 characters are significantly faster, in part due to improved strategies but also because the gameplay was better. So basically...

acceptacceptacceptacceptacceptacceptacceptacceptacceptaccept

Quote:

Trevor:
1-02: nice medusa head kill with holy water
3-01: minor rough spot with owls
3-04: shouldn't have needed to grab meat before boss
4-0E: nice damage boost in stairs room before boss
5-0A: nice damage boost in knight/stairs room
5-0C: took a little too much time killing bird before boss room
5 overall: good mix of damage boosting and holy water use to quickly get past large numbers of bone pillers and axe knights
7-0A: nice elevator skip
7-0B: bad luck with stopwatch drop in unavoidable position
8-02: should have used more holy water to kill knight faster
9-04: rough spot in the waterfall room with the birds
A-02: bat hit in pendulum room cost several seconds
A-03: Dracula 3rd form was rough - got snagged up on the floating blocks a few times

Grant:
2: excellent use of Grant's wall climbing and clipping glitches in return trip down the tower
3-01: good use of stopwatch to get through the owls faster
5-0A: creative strategy for bypassing the first bone pillar
6-0D: bad luck with dagger drop in unavoidable position
8-03: one more heart would have meant a faster boss kill
9-04: wasted a couple of seconds backtracking for a large heart that wasn't needed against boss
A-02: probably could have jumped over dagger
A-03: good Dracula fight

Sypha:
Actual run begins at 5:39 mark
3-01: excellent job on the owls
4-0B: nice damage boost off ghost to bypass long stairs
4-0E: probably could have finished off cyclops boss slightly faster by staying on the right platform
6-0D: excellent work on boss
7-0B: good use of Sypha to quickly get through large numbers of bone pillars and knights
9-04: pretty good job against birds in waterfall room
A-03: killed first 2 Dracula forms very quickly using Sypha's lightning, had some trouble landing final hit on 3rd form

Alucard:
3-01: excellent job on the owls
4-02: nice job avoiding the dagger drop despite the quicksand
5-07: creative exploit of clipping glitch to allow jumping down stairs without hitting spikes
7-05: nice double bird kill using bat damage glitch
8-03: creative clipping glitch use to go through floors
A-03: nice timing of floating blocks during Dracula 3rd form to minimize time waiting for orb to appear

Overall, the runner had excellent route plans that displayed superb knowledge of item and enemy placements, and made creative use of spirit helper abilities and clipping glitches to tear through the stages. The Grant and Alucard runs were the most entertaining to watch due to those characters abilities lending themselves very well to speedrunning, and were easy accepts. The Sypha run was basically a Trevor run with Sypha being used for time savings in parts of 2 stages; and I vote to accept that one too. I struggled with making a decision on the Trevor-only run, due to some rough spots in stages 9 and A; but as this is single-segment and none of the mistakes cost more than a few seconds each, I vote to accept that one too.

Quote:

CV3 Times

Big Gay Al(ucard) - 27:54, improvement of 1:53
Grant - 33:02, improvement of 1:19
Sypha Filter - 31:06, improvement of 1:49
PS - Trevor Sux - 31:04, improvement of 1:53

Sorry, couldn't come up with a pun on Grant.

Accepts across the board.

Decision: Accept

Reason: If we see a run half as good as these during the marathon, we'll be golden.

Thread title:

Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/Castlevania3.html

Josh 'funkdoc' Ballard's run of every single path

[b]Verifier Responses[/b]

[quote]The runs for all 4 characters are significantly faster, in part due to improved strategies but also because the gameplay was better. So basically...

acceptacceptacceptacceptacceptacceptacceptacceptacceptaccept[/quote]

[quote][b]Trevor:[/b]
1-02: nice medusa head kill with holy water
3-01: minor rough spot with owls
3-04: shouldn't have needed to grab meat before boss
4-0E: nice damage boost in stairs room before boss
5-0A: nice damage boost in knight/stairs room
5-0C: took a little too much time killing bird before boss room
5 overall: good mix of damage boosting and holy water use to quickly get past large numbers of bone pillers and axe knights
7-0A: nice elevator skip
7-0B: bad luck with stopwatch drop in unavoidable position
8-02: should have used more holy water to kill knight faster
9-04: rough spot in the waterfall room with the birds
A-02: bat hit in pendulum room cost several seconds
A-03: Dracula 3rd form was rough - got snagged up on the floating blocks a few times

[b]Grant:[/b]
2: excellent use of Grant's wall climbing and clipping glitches in return trip down the tower
3-01: good use of stopwatch to get through the owls faster
5-0A: creative strategy for bypassing the first bone pillar
6-0D: bad luck with dagger drop in unavoidable position
8-03: one more heart would have meant a faster boss kill
9-04: wasted a couple of seconds backtracking for a large heart that wasn't needed against boss
A-02: probably could have jumped over dagger
A-03: good Dracula fight

[b]Sypha:[/b]
[b]Actual run begins at 5:39 mark[/b]
3-01: excellent job on the owls
4-0B: nice damage boost off ghost to bypass long stairs
4-0E: probably could have finished off cyclops boss slightly faster by staying on the right platform
6-0D: excellent work on boss
7-0B: good use of Sypha to quickly get through large numbers of bone pillars and knights
9-04: pretty good job against birds in waterfall room
A-03: killed first 2 Dracula forms very quickly using Sypha's lightning, had some trouble landing final hit on 3rd form

[b]Alucard:[/b]
3-01: excellent job on the owls
4-02: nice job avoiding the dagger drop despite the quicksand
5-07: creative exploit of clipping glitch to allow jumping down stairs without hitting spikes
7-05: nice double bird kill using bat damage glitch
8-03: creative clipping glitch use to go through floors
A-03: nice timing of floating blocks during Dracula 3rd form to minimize  time waiting for orb to appear

Overall, the runner had excellent route plans that displayed superb knowledge of item and enemy placements, and made creative use of spirit helper abilities and clipping glitches to tear through the stages.  The Grant and Alucard runs were the most entertaining to watch due to those characters abilities lending themselves very well to speedrunning, and were easy accepts.  The Sypha run was basically a Trevor run with Sypha being used for time savings in parts of 2 stages; and I vote to accept that one too.  I struggled with making a decision on the Trevor-only run, due to some rough spots in stages 9 and A; but as this is single-segment and none of the mistakes cost more than a few seconds each, I vote to accept that one too.[/quote]

[quote][u]CV3 Times[/u]

[b]Big Gay Al(ucard)[/b] - 27:54, improvement of 1:53
[b]Grant[/b] - 33:02, improvement of 1:19
[b]Sypha Filter[/b] - 31:06, improvement of 1:49
[b]PS - Trevor Sux[/b] - 31:04, improvement of 1:53

Sorry, couldn't come up with a pun on Grant.

Accepts across the board.[/quote]

[b]Decision[/b]: Accept

[b]Reason[/b]: If we see a run half as good as these during the marathon, we'll be golden.

cyghfer

2010-10-10 10:43:04 pm

awesome, congrats josh, can't wait to watch all of these!

Josh the Funkdoc

2010-10-10 11:03:46 pm

spread the dirt to the populace

Thanks, everyone!

Do verifiers get access to my run comments? I think I explain most of my mistakes in there. Picking up the big heart before Doppelganger in Grant's run was a bad habit I kept from when my standards were a bit lower; the idea is that you need some luck to lock the boss into that pattern with Grant, and if it fails I can switch to Trevor and holy water him to death. Good idea for the marathon, not so much for the actual run I admit.

The owls are random to a large degree. You can jump to make them swoop higher and avoid you, but there's nothing you can do about the timing of their appearance. I'm not extremely picky there...I just want enough life left to execute all the remaining damage boosts without needing meat.

There may be a faster Cyclops strategy with Trevor that involves staying on the ground. Basically a slower variation on the Grant strategy...jump and whip him when he gets close, then he should swing his hammer, dodge it and repeat. Need to see how consistent it is and if it actually saves time.

I agree with verifier #2 on the Trevor run and was worried it might be rejected. I also explain this in my run comments, but basically I had an Alucard run that got a decent time but was really sloppy in a few places, and left it while I completed the other runs. Trevor-only was the last one, and I wanted to finish it with enough time left over to go back and improve Alucard. I have no regrets there, but will probably go back and improve Trevor (and Sypha, and Grant) once I get my capture + streaming setup refined.

Thanks, everyone!

Do verifiers get access to my run comments?  I think I explain most of my mistakes in there.  Picking up the big heart before Doppelganger in Grant's run was a bad habit I kept from when my standards were a bit lower; the idea is that you need some luck to lock the boss into that pattern with Grant, and if it fails I can switch to Trevor and holy water him to death.  Good idea for the marathon, not so much for the actual run I admit.

The owls are random to a large degree.  You can jump to make them swoop higher and avoid you, but there's nothing you can do about the timing of their appearance.  I'm not extremely picky there...I just want enough life left to execute all the remaining damage boosts without needing meat.

There may be a faster Cyclops strategy with Trevor that involves staying on the ground.  Basically a slower variation on the Grant strategy...jump and whip him when he gets close, then he should swing his hammer, dodge it and repeat.  Need to see how consistent it is and if it actually saves time.

I agree with verifier #2 on the Trevor run and was worried it might be rejected.  I also explain this in my run comments, but basically I had an Alucard run that got a decent time but was really sloppy in a few places, and left it while I completed the other runs.  Trevor-only was the last one, and I wanted to finish it with enough time left over to go back and improve Alucard.  I have no regrets there, but will probably go back and improve Trevor (and Sypha, and Grant) once I get my capture + streaming setup refined.

Axel Ryman

2010-10-10 11:10:50 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Quote from mikwuyma:

Quote:

CV3 Times

Big Gay Al(ucard) - 27:54, improvement of 1:53
Grant - 33:02, improvement of 1:19
Sypha Filter - 31:06, improvement of 1:49
PS - Trevor Sux - 31:04, improvement of 1:53

Sorry, couldn't come up with a pun on Grant.

Accepts across the board.

Grant Da Nasty