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Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (Any %) (Single Segment) [Character: Trevor, Boss Rush]
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (Any %) (Single Segment) [Character: Trevor]

Decision: Accept

Congratulations to Damien 'Dragondarch' Moody!
Thread title:  
Run Information

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (Any %) (Single Segment) [Character: Trevor]
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (Any %) (Single Segment) [Character: Trevor, Boss Rush]

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/cvcod/

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by May 6, 2014.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). This is not a contest where the majority wins - I will judge each verification on its content. Please keep your verification brief unless you have a good reason otherwise.

After 2 weeks I will read all of the verifications and move this thread to the main verification board and post my verdict.
Never give up!
I'll get to the main single-segment run a bit later, because that deserves a much fuller description of what's going on and comparisons between this and the run in 2008, but I'm going to tackle the verification of Boss Rush immediately since one of the more bizarre run commentaries on the site is being directly threatened.

Since this winds up so long, I'll put a summary at the start - this run should be ACCEPTED.


Comparisons to me are because I was the last person to get a run published in this category.  Also, all time changes ignore the parts of seconds, so I could be a second or two off in places.

There's really no denying that the runner gets a better pattern on Crazy Armor's first phase, but he also doesn't whiff a shot on the second form like I stupidly did.  He's already almost three seconds ahead here.

He's overall less hesitant on Wyvern and didn't mess around with a Knife Crush like I did.  Seven seconds gained.

Trevor Doppleganger is a slippery boss and the runner's main solution was Knife Crush, rather than perfect guarding.  15(!) seconds gained.

Skeleton Diver.  Good lord, I STILL hate that prick after 6 years.  Runner uses Knife Crush more than I did but this one really comes down to drilling the RNG.  Looks like 17(!) seconds gained from this fight alone.

That RNG got its revenge by biting the runner during Minotauros.  Or rather, stepping on him.  He actually LOSES 3 seconds compared to me over this.

Isaac boils down to him getting away far less.  I'll let other verifiers decide whether this is RNG or whether I played the fight wrong when I did it, but what matters is that 15(!) seconds get saved.

I dunno if the runner actually found a way to get Saint Germain to NOT do Time Advance by using the Stopwatch somewhat randomly or if this was an RNG thing, but that seems to be the main timesaver in that fight compared to my attempt.  Though Saint Germain did also get away from me long enough to pull the pistol in phase 2.  7 seconds saved.

Comparing this to my attempt, I want to argue that I got RNGed on Doppleganger the 2nd.  He pulls a lot more stupid stuff in mine than he did with this runner's.  7 seconds saved.  He doesn't grab any health after this fight like I did, but that seems to be less than half a second of influence.

RNG screwed us BOTH over against Dullahan, as neither of us got that inverted stab attack at any time.  Runner manages to get less screwed with Dullahan running away and then standing still rather than playing aggressive.  6 seconds saved.

Isaac the 2nd is going to either go right or completely kill the run, so I didn't expect much difference here.  The runner still manages to save another 7 seconds by what I can only assume is a more precisely-tuned attack pattern.  Both of us stop for a heal after this, but the runner saves 3-4 seconds by getting the positioning right.

Death... well, the RNG came THIS close to screwing the runner over by having the fireball attack, as far as I can tell, occur at an earlier health percentage.  Still, Death did less earlier in the fight, so the runner gets a 10 second improvement when you factor in getting the health position right earlier.

Nuculais goes about the same for the runner as he does for me, so I'm only going to discuss the Legion section of this next fight.  As far as I've been able to tell to this point, using Axes instead of jumping out to strike the pieces off of Legion is the ONE really blatant change to the strategy for the entire boss rush.  What it mainly fixes is the one gaffe I had where I had to attack again from ground level.  Overall, the runner saves 10 seconds in this fight - all of it, I'd argue, entirely from Legion's section.  Another 2-3 seconds are saved by not going for a heal at all afterward.

Dracula screwed me with the RNG AGAIN compared to this runner.  14 seconds difference.

Demon Dracula... really, this is the same story as the first, where the RNG screwed me over by having him get away from the platform at all.  Him not leaving the platform and doing a more direct attack pattern instead results in 13 seconds of improvement.

Overall, the time saved is roughly 130 seconds compared to my run.  I'd argue that this comes 20% from execution and 80% from THAT STUPID BLASTED RNG AAAGGGHHHH

*ahem* But yeah, the improvement is huge in comparison and the RNG is clearly not the sole reason for the improvement, so this one should be rushed through.  If the runner thinks I'm whining too much, they can tell me up front because they've honestly earned the right, grappling with this game long enough.

Overall Verdict: ACCEPT




Oh, by the way...

Quote from SDAVerification:
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Would this be the page you're looking for?
Pudding%
I have no reason to hide who the runner is here, since it's...well...in the StatID anyway Tongue

I recorded audio commentary for both runs, and (especially) for those not familiar with the game, I'd highly recommend listening to them while watching the runs, as I'm more in depth about what's going on compared to the written commentary.

As for AquaTiger:
Quote from AquaTiger:
Skeleton Diver.  Good lord, I STILL hate that prick after 6 years.  Runner uses Knife Crush more than I did but this one really comes down to drilling the RNG.  Looks like 17(!) seconds gained from this fight alone.

Your hatred is still completely justified. This asshole was my biggest reset point. I will note that something I learned from doing this run is that SD can't be damaged below 25% HP until he jumps back on the fish.

Quote from AquaTiger:
I dunno if the runner actually found a way to get Saint Germain to NOT do Time Advance by using the Stopwatch somewhat randomly or if this was an RNG thing, but that seems to be the main timesaver in that fight compared to my attempt.  Though Saint Germain did also get away from me long enough to pull the pistol in phase 2.  7 seconds saved.

It's not random. Saint Germain's AI will always attempt to do Time Advance when he drops below 50%. However, he'll always prioritize cancelling a Time Stop over everything else, so that Stopwatch use was completely intentional. I will say, that I found this out by complete accident Tongue

Quote from AquaTiger:
Overall, the time saved is roughly 130 seconds compared to my run.  I'd argue that this comes 20% from execution and 80% from THAT STUPID BLASTED RNG AAAGGGHHHH

*ahem* But yeah, the improvement is huge in comparison and the RNG is clearly not the sole reason for the improvement, so this one should be rushed through.  If the runner thinks I'm whining too much, they can tell me up front because they've honestly earned the right, grappling with this game long enough.

You're absolutely right, most of this improvement came from drilling the RNG. Or more accurately, altering the strats slightly to nullify how bad it could screw me over.
Fucking Weeaboo
Instant reject because this isn't a Pumpkin run. Further rejecting because Steven Blum can't be playing a bad guy (saying he's bad in a role is sad, but Patrick Seitz is much better).


...on a serious note, boss rushes are hard, so having a good run is tough. The middle of the run is a bit weak (at least on his boss splits), but Curse has some tough bosses. There is some room for improvement in the middle section (Doppleganger 1, Skeleton Diver, Minotaur [only due to him getting one attack off], Isaac 1 [which is one of the weakest and probably the toughest fight in the bunch], St. Germaine [the other weak fight in the bunch], and Dullahan). But the beginning and the end were quite strong. Isaac 2 was flipping AMAZING.

Also, Wyvern and Crazy Armor take WAY too long to fucking die. Especially for being early and weak bosses.

Accepting the boss rush. Haven't watched the full game run though.
Edit history:
AquaTiger: 2014-05-05 04:14:08 pm
Never give up!
Alright, just going to go on record saying that I'm working on verifying the full game run in the any% category.  Foreword on this, though: he beats the established segmented run by around 20% of the time.  With a single-segment run.  Mainly, as far as I can tell, through better performance, more patience with the RNG (we've already established this in the boss rush review - Dullahan screws him over more than he did with me here), and a few different decisions on what to pick up.

Also, pulling off the right way to do the Isaac 2 fight after over a consecutive hour of playing.  Mandatory for doing an acceptable run, maybe, but still not exactly something to sneeze at - you mess up once and there goes that hour or more.

Really, if my review turns up no signs of cheating, this is going to be an easy accept.  Final verdict should come by tomorrow night.

Edit: Okay, analysis complete.  Yeah, this is most definitely a legit run.  Time-savers come from a much finer understanding of the rooms than I had when I did my run back in 2008.  This leads to more aggressive use of sub-weapons (Stopwatch especially) and better choices for attacks, as well as a few shortcuts that never occurred to me.

While it doesn't affect the raw time as much as it may sound, I do want to leave one last comment for Dragondarch regarding the Death fight, which very nearly screwed this run.  I have to wonder if doing a guard early at the start of the fireball would have given you not only less of a panic scenario, but also a chance to stay right up in his face the entire time.  As evidenced in the run I did in 2008, you CAN get away with one standard guard on that attack as long as your very next guard is perfect.  (You'll stagger if you try to block the attack normally, which makes a second standard guard in a row impossible - but a perfect guard right after a stagger gets you back in business.  I had three such staggers in my run's Death fight, the third being the last hit of the fireball.)  Then again, I know little of how much earlier attempts on the full-game run screwed you regarding RNG, so use those to tell me off if I am missing the big picture here.

Very easy ACCEPT for the full-game run.
Pudding%
Quote from AquaTiger:
While it doesn't affect the raw time as much as it may sound, I do want to leave one last comment for Dragondarch regarding the Death fight, which very nearly screwed this run.  I have to wonder if doing a guard early at the start of the fireball would have given you not only less of a panic scenario, but also a chance to stay right up in his face the entire time.  As evidenced in the run I did in 2008, you CAN get away with one standard guard on that attack as long as your very next guard is perfect.  (You'll stagger if you try to block the attack normally, which makes a second standard guard in a row impossible - but a perfect guard right after a stagger gets you back in business.  I had three such staggers in my run's Death fight, the third being the last hit of the fireball.)  Then again, I know little of how much earlier attempts on the full-game run screwed you regarding RNG, so use those to tell me off if I am missing the big picture here.

My usual strat here was to tank the initial hit, then walk slowly back toward him while perfect guarding the rest. This normally put me right in front of him after the last perfect guard, which resulted in almost no downtime from attacking (since I'd be attacking until the last possible moment before the fireball hit). TBH, I very rarely screw up the perfect guard sequence like that, and I think that was only the 2nd time I messed it up during an actual attempt. The clutch finish was a hit with my stream viewers though Wink
Decision posted.
Waiting hurts my soul...
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/CastlevaniaCoD.html