My feelings on The Demon Rush
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/CastlevaniaSotN.html
Andrew 'romscout' Schroeder's XBLA version single-segment run
Verifier Responses
About the two resets, I think romscout simply didn't tell Nate where the run started.
Decision: Accept
Reason: It might not be a direct improvement to the current run, but it's a fine run nonetheless.
Andrew 'romscout' Schroeder's XBLA version single-segment run
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Castlevania SotN
It’s your friendly Lawyer/Casual gamer/Verifier again! Writing way much more than I need to yet again. I guess my verifications are more journals than anything…but it helps me keep my focus as I watch a run.
Okay, first, I did not play this game when it first came out on the PS1. I didn’t realize just how awesome this game was until they released it on the XBLA. Having played through the XBLA version multiple times, I only wish I had picked this up back when it was a new game on the PS1.
Secondly, I did watch a good portion of Rom’s stream when he did this run, and I have watched him practice lots before and since, so, unlike every other game I’ve verified, I am not going to be completely shocked by glitches and bypasses this time.
That being said, let’s get into the verification. He shows us his best time before this run, a time of 33:04. I believe he does this because as much as the Xbox Live Leaderboards keep track of your game time, you can only see it in this menu, and therefore showing the time before the run makes verifying that the newly posted time is 1) an improvement and 2) from the run we just watched.
Couple restarts right off the bad. It’s really quick into the run, so I don’t think that’s a problem. No editing allowed after all
The Dracula battle seems so amazingly scripted, which is to say it’s well done, Even if the first time he doesn’t quite get the timing down right, and honestly I’m not sure how happy he was with the second attempt, but he decided to keep going anyway.
Shield dashing…I have yet to grasp the concept as to how to do it like these guys do.
Alucard loses all his equipment and now we’re into the real game. As an aside, is the Cube of Zoe just the most useless idea for an item ever thought of? You need that just to get items out of the candles? And it’s right in your path…
Skillful platforming; nothing seems out of place early on. First boss fight seems to go well, although he gets hit which obviously slows him up.
He picks up a potion around 5:25. I’m sure that comes into play at some point, but watching this now I honestly forget where…
Skipping dialogue FTW! I love the idea that Alucard is basically moonwalking through Dracula’s castle. Quick changing of equipment is done nicely too without much in the way of hesitation. He knows the menu system well enough to do that.
Mirror Match: Stop time and pummel until dead…easy enough.
I love how it’s quicker to leave the room with the elevator and come back just to default the elevator up to his level rather than waiting for it to come up to him. The wolf jump is nicely done to reach a Garnet he otherwise wouldn’t be able to get right then. First try too.
Nice use of morphing into the wolf then air bouncing to get up above the clock too. Another neat little trick to skip past stuff and to get a life max powerup.
Into the “Colosseum” and straight for the shield rod. Potion is used quickly after getting it to give the ole HP a little boost. Though, I don’t think he needed it seeing as he makes it to the save point to heal up. I believe the first time you reach a save point the game forces you to save it. This wastes some time, but the trade off of getting full HP and MP is worth it.
Next boss fight goes smoothly too, maybe not perfect, but I don’t know how else it could have been quicker. Library cards are awesome for warping BTW…
In the library we get to see another neat trick: using the wolf jump then morph into mist and getting to another area he shouldn’t be able to yet. And he gets it on the first try.
Around 15:00 there are some missed platforming jumps…nothing overly bad or anything…I’m just noticing because the rest of the game play has been visually nice so far. Though, I’m sure I’m missing the little mistakes people who speedrun games understand. Runner’s quick to correct and move on.
I love the bat dashing, (or wing smashing or whatever the hell it’s called). Mostly because I can’t pull it off consistently.
The boss fight at 16:20 which lasts all of a second or so is nicely done. I mean…damn…
At around 19:00, the runner needs to stop and use a potion to restore his magic. It doesn’t help that he keeps taking damage which likely slows him down. However, the speed of wing smashing through all of the zombies and then out of the front doors seems to be faster than anything else I can think of. It does look a little rough, but I’m sure the area is a bit random with the zombie spawns.
I just love the transformation from wolf dashing to the bat. Amazingly smooth.
And we come to the Richter skip. One shot and he nails it. I remember watching the SDA marathon and seeing how hard that can be to hit live.
Reverse castle time! I’ve never decided if this was creative or lazy by the designers…
The shield rod makes bosses so much easier…it’s kind of sad really. Even if the Frankenstein monster thing needed three of those to die, it’s just a few seconds and it’s dead.
Little errors in bat morphing around 24:40. However, around 27:10 is the first major problem I’ve noticed with the run; the fact that the runner gets air juggled by four flying monsters, (which I’m sure have names and I don’t care what they are ). The fight against the Grim Reaper looking boss doesn’t go completely perfect either, but it does go rather quickly anyway. …I swear I know this game…just not the names of any creature in it…cause I never paid attention to that…
…wish I’d known the mummy was that easy. I mean…holy water against the undead? Who knew THAT would work so well? …wait…
Final boss time! “Behold my true form!” “Watch as I can’t do anything against your strategy of standing in a corner and spamming the shield rod’s special ability against me! Holy crap I suck as a final boss. Hell, I didn’t even hit you once!”
Oh God, bad voice acting. Make it go away!
Ending time of 32:57. That’s quicker than Rom had at the beginning of the video and over a minute of improvement over the current SS time on the site. Whether or not this run should be its own category because it’s on the 360 which has better loading times, I’ll leave that up to those with more experience at this Speed Running thing than me.
Video and Audio quality is good. No problems there.
Cheating: None I could see. I didn’t notice any problems with like HP or heart counts that would indicate signs out outside cheating or video editing.
Timing: In game timer reads 32:57. I see no reason not to go with that. I do not know if the timer includes loading times or any cutscene.
Gameplay: Mostly awesome, sometimes amazing. A few rough patches here and there that I think Rom is already trying to clean up. (At least he was after submitting this one. No idea if he still is or not). Anyway, the few mistakes I did see do not take away from the quality of the run. Beating this thing sub 33 minutes is incredible.
Decision: Accept. It’s a great run for the site, and a great game in its own right.
It’s your friendly Lawyer/Casual gamer/Verifier again! Writing way much more than I need to yet again. I guess my verifications are more journals than anything…but it helps me keep my focus as I watch a run.
Okay, first, I did not play this game when it first came out on the PS1. I didn’t realize just how awesome this game was until they released it on the XBLA. Having played through the XBLA version multiple times, I only wish I had picked this up back when it was a new game on the PS1.
Secondly, I did watch a good portion of Rom’s stream when he did this run, and I have watched him practice lots before and since, so, unlike every other game I’ve verified, I am not going to be completely shocked by glitches and bypasses this time.
That being said, let’s get into the verification. He shows us his best time before this run, a time of 33:04. I believe he does this because as much as the Xbox Live Leaderboards keep track of your game time, you can only see it in this menu, and therefore showing the time before the run makes verifying that the newly posted time is 1) an improvement and 2) from the run we just watched.
Couple restarts right off the bad. It’s really quick into the run, so I don’t think that’s a problem. No editing allowed after all
The Dracula battle seems so amazingly scripted, which is to say it’s well done, Even if the first time he doesn’t quite get the timing down right, and honestly I’m not sure how happy he was with the second attempt, but he decided to keep going anyway.
Shield dashing…I have yet to grasp the concept as to how to do it like these guys do.
Alucard loses all his equipment and now we’re into the real game. As an aside, is the Cube of Zoe just the most useless idea for an item ever thought of? You need that just to get items out of the candles? And it’s right in your path…
Skillful platforming; nothing seems out of place early on. First boss fight seems to go well, although he gets hit which obviously slows him up.
He picks up a potion around 5:25. I’m sure that comes into play at some point, but watching this now I honestly forget where…
Skipping dialogue FTW! I love the idea that Alucard is basically moonwalking through Dracula’s castle. Quick changing of equipment is done nicely too without much in the way of hesitation. He knows the menu system well enough to do that.
Mirror Match: Stop time and pummel until dead…easy enough.
I love how it’s quicker to leave the room with the elevator and come back just to default the elevator up to his level rather than waiting for it to come up to him. The wolf jump is nicely done to reach a Garnet he otherwise wouldn’t be able to get right then. First try too.
Nice use of morphing into the wolf then air bouncing to get up above the clock too. Another neat little trick to skip past stuff and to get a life max powerup.
Into the “Colosseum” and straight for the shield rod. Potion is used quickly after getting it to give the ole HP a little boost. Though, I don’t think he needed it seeing as he makes it to the save point to heal up. I believe the first time you reach a save point the game forces you to save it. This wastes some time, but the trade off of getting full HP and MP is worth it.
Next boss fight goes smoothly too, maybe not perfect, but I don’t know how else it could have been quicker. Library cards are awesome for warping BTW…
In the library we get to see another neat trick: using the wolf jump then morph into mist and getting to another area he shouldn’t be able to yet. And he gets it on the first try.
Around 15:00 there are some missed platforming jumps…nothing overly bad or anything…I’m just noticing because the rest of the game play has been visually nice so far. Though, I’m sure I’m missing the little mistakes people who speedrun games understand. Runner’s quick to correct and move on.
I love the bat dashing, (or wing smashing or whatever the hell it’s called). Mostly because I can’t pull it off consistently.
The boss fight at 16:20 which lasts all of a second or so is nicely done. I mean…damn…
At around 19:00, the runner needs to stop and use a potion to restore his magic. It doesn’t help that he keeps taking damage which likely slows him down. However, the speed of wing smashing through all of the zombies and then out of the front doors seems to be faster than anything else I can think of. It does look a little rough, but I’m sure the area is a bit random with the zombie spawns.
I just love the transformation from wolf dashing to the bat. Amazingly smooth.
And we come to the Richter skip. One shot and he nails it. I remember watching the SDA marathon and seeing how hard that can be to hit live.
Reverse castle time! I’ve never decided if this was creative or lazy by the designers…
The shield rod makes bosses so much easier…it’s kind of sad really. Even if the Frankenstein monster thing needed three of those to die, it’s just a few seconds and it’s dead.
Little errors in bat morphing around 24:40. However, around 27:10 is the first major problem I’ve noticed with the run; the fact that the runner gets air juggled by four flying monsters, (which I’m sure have names and I don’t care what they are
…wish I’d known the mummy was that easy. I mean…holy water against the undead? Who knew THAT would work so well? …wait…
Final boss time! “Behold my true form!” “Watch as I can’t do anything against your strategy of standing in a corner and spamming the shield rod’s special ability against me! Holy crap I suck as a final boss. Hell, I didn’t even hit you once!”
Oh God, bad voice acting. Make it go away!
Ending time of 32:57. That’s quicker than Rom had at the beginning of the video and over a minute of improvement over the current SS time on the site. Whether or not this run should be its own category because it’s on the 360 which has better loading times, I’ll leave that up to those with more experience at this Speed Running thing than me.
Video and Audio quality is good. No problems there.
Cheating: None I could see. I didn’t notice any problems with like HP or heart counts that would indicate signs out outside cheating or video editing.
Timing: In game timer reads 32:57. I see no reason not to go with that. I do not know if the timer includes loading times or any cutscene.
Gameplay: Mostly awesome, sometimes amazing. A few rough patches here and there that I think Rom is already trying to clean up. (At least he was after submitting this one. No idea if he still is or not). Anyway, the few mistakes I did see do not take away from the quality of the run. Beating this thing sub 33 minutes is incredible.
Decision: Accept. It’s a great run for the site, and a great game in its own right.
About the two resets, I think romscout simply didn't tell Nate where the run started.
Quote:
A very well executed SOTN run - I vote to accept. Route was planned well, with minimal menu time and few unnecessary item pickups. Control/technique was excellent - I was particularly impressed by a few seamless transitions from wolf dashing to wing smashing without breaking momentum. The struggle with the Gaibons in the Inverted Castle was a minor eyesore, but is certainly forgivable given the rest of the run (and pulling off the Richter skip on the first try).
I didn't understand the 2 resets at the beginning of the recording, before the run began in earnest - if they're somehow part of the runner's route plan or a part of a glitch unique to the XBLA version of the game, they could use some explanation in the runner comments. If they're just previous attempts that aren't being counted toward this run's time, I think they should be cut out from the final video, assuming it's released on SDA.
I didn't understand the 2 resets at the beginning of the recording, before the run began in earnest - if they're somehow part of the runner's route plan or a part of a glitch unique to the XBLA version of the game, they could use some explanation in the runner comments. If they're just previous attempts that aren't being counted toward this run's time, I think they should be cut out from the final video, assuming it's released on SDA.
Quote:
Aw shoot. When I say SotN on the verification page, I thought someone had beaten the PS1 time. Way to get my hopes up.
Anyway, it looks and sounds good. The first 1:20 are failed attempts.
Final Stage: Bloodlines is great. There was a bit of bad luck in the first hallway, he got hit by 2 zombies. Everything else leading up to the alchemy lab looks good. The lab looks alright too, though Slogra/Gaibon could've went better.
Wasted a bit of time early on in the Marble Gallery. He accidently threw a knife where he meant to punch a candle. After missing, he probably should've just moved on. There are plenty other opportunities to get more hearts. Good job with the Fleamen. About midway through, why kill the skeleton before getting the stopwatch? It looked awkward to me.
The Outer Wall looks good save for dashing the wrong way before Soul of Wolf. Minor stuff.
After the third Skeleton Blaze in the Colosseum, why'd he jump back onto the platform after it jumped over him? Even with the Potion, he had a bit of difficulty getting out of the Shield Rod room. Got hit by the werewolf once, causing a miss after that. It could've been far worse.
That Flea Armor before Lesser Demon is always a problem, isn't it? The rest of the library is cool. Clock Tower looked really good. Unfortunate screwup before Skill of Wolf. There were one or two rough spots before Power of Wolf, too. Afterwards, before entering the warp point, why'd he avoid the Heart Max Up? It shouldn't have cost him time in this version, right?
Good job with the Richter skip. Though it would be better to morph just when entering the cutscene. He'd lose no time for unmorphing.
Good job in the inverted clock tower. He nearly avoided a catastrophe in the cloaked knight room. Same goes for the reverse Outer Wall. Nice job.
It would've been nice if he infinite Wing Smashed through the long hallway in the Black Marble Gallery. I guess MP was tight there, so it wouldn't have worked out. The dive kick off the skeleton is lovely.
He fell a bit after the save point in the reverse waterway. It's not too bad, especially considering the Gaibon Fiasco later. Had some difficulty before the horizontal stretch, too. Looks weird, but I think past runs have had the same problem. The Gaibon Fiasco is a damn shame. Does the stopwatch stop or slow Gaibons? If so, maybe using the Heart Refresh there could've saved him. Death is also very unfortunate. But understandable. After what happened two rooms prior, he was probably nervous as hell. Who wouldn't be? There was a weird freeze at the end of the fight, too. I guess the game lagged up for a second?
He gets cursed before entering the chapel, which is a side effect of that extra Iron Shield combo in the Gaibon room. He would've had enough MP to make it through the corridor. Good job with the chapel and Medusa.
He got stuck in the hole before Akmodan. Awesome.
Is it possible to kill Shaft with one Iron Shield combo? Would it be a matter of placement, or does Alucard have to have the proper stats? I was never sure. Awesome job on Dracula. He can be killed quicker than I thought.
All in all, it's an impressive run. Accept it as a seperate category.
Anyway, it looks and sounds good. The first 1:20 are failed attempts.
Final Stage: Bloodlines is great. There was a bit of bad luck in the first hallway, he got hit by 2 zombies. Everything else leading up to the alchemy lab looks good. The lab looks alright too, though Slogra/Gaibon could've went better.
Wasted a bit of time early on in the Marble Gallery. He accidently threw a knife where he meant to punch a candle. After missing, he probably should've just moved on. There are plenty other opportunities to get more hearts. Good job with the Fleamen. About midway through, why kill the skeleton before getting the stopwatch? It looked awkward to me.
The Outer Wall looks good save for dashing the wrong way before Soul of Wolf. Minor stuff.
After the third Skeleton Blaze in the Colosseum, why'd he jump back onto the platform after it jumped over him? Even with the Potion, he had a bit of difficulty getting out of the Shield Rod room. Got hit by the werewolf once, causing a miss after that. It could've been far worse.
That Flea Armor before Lesser Demon is always a problem, isn't it? The rest of the library is cool. Clock Tower looked really good. Unfortunate screwup before Skill of Wolf. There were one or two rough spots before Power of Wolf, too. Afterwards, before entering the warp point, why'd he avoid the Heart Max Up? It shouldn't have cost him time in this version, right?
Good job with the Richter skip. Though it would be better to morph just when entering the cutscene. He'd lose no time for unmorphing.
Good job in the inverted clock tower. He nearly avoided a catastrophe in the cloaked knight room. Same goes for the reverse Outer Wall. Nice job.
It would've been nice if he infinite Wing Smashed through the long hallway in the Black Marble Gallery. I guess MP was tight there, so it wouldn't have worked out. The dive kick off the skeleton is lovely.
He fell a bit after the save point in the reverse waterway. It's not too bad, especially considering the Gaibon Fiasco later. Had some difficulty before the horizontal stretch, too. Looks weird, but I think past runs have had the same problem. The Gaibon Fiasco is a damn shame. Does the stopwatch stop or slow Gaibons? If so, maybe using the Heart Refresh there could've saved him. Death is also very unfortunate. But understandable. After what happened two rooms prior, he was probably nervous as hell. Who wouldn't be? There was a weird freeze at the end of the fight, too. I guess the game lagged up for a second?
He gets cursed before entering the chapel, which is a side effect of that extra Iron Shield combo in the Gaibon room. He would've had enough MP to make it through the corridor. Good job with the chapel and Medusa.
He got stuck in the hole before Akmodan. Awesome.
Is it possible to kill Shaft with one Iron Shield combo? Would it be a matter of placement, or does Alucard have to have the proper stats? I was never sure. Awesome job on Dracula. He can be killed quicker than I thought.
All in all, it's an impressive run. Accept it as a seperate category.
Decision: Accept
Reason: It might not be a direct improvement to the current run, but it's a fine run nonetheless.
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