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

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (Any %) (Individual Level) [New Game+, Character: Charlotte]

Verifier Responses

Quote:
Game- Castlevania: Harmony of Despair - Charlotte, Any%, New Game+, ILs
Run time- Total: 11:01.30
Chapter 1: 1:51.34
Chapter 2: 1:31.90
Chapter 3: 1:33.43
Chapter 4: 2:32.50
Chapter 5: 1:04.21
Chapter 6: 2:27.92

Video quality- Good.
Sound quality- Good. No music in Chapter 6, sadly. Runner addresses this in his notes.

Evaluation of the run-
Gonna be honest here: I was originally planning on writing up a breakdown of each chapter and note improvements could be made. But after watching each of the chapters, there wouldn't really be enough material to warrant indiviual chapter comments from me. Each of the chapters is well planned and executed very well. Only minor improvements that I could find were primarily based on luck, and these runs have more luck than anything else. Charlotte isn't a very execution heavy character compared to the others, but she still requires just as much, if not more, luck when running as her.

Final Decision- Accept. Easy.


Quote:
Video Quality: All are Good
Audio Quality: All are Good (save for chp 6 rip music)
Cheating: None is detected (unless you count being PJ a cheat)

TRT Time: 11:01.30
Ch1 Time: 1:51.34
Ch2 Time: 1:31.90
Ch3 Time: 1:33.43
Ch4 Time: 2:32.50
Ch5 Time: 1:04.21
Ch6 Time: 2:27.92

Overall thoughts and notes
I also had planned to give each level an individual critique, but I am hard pressed to find much to say about any of the stages in the way of improvements, execution errors, poor spell choice, etc. Chp4 was the only real error a newbie could catch that PJ threw in an extra jump for no extra charge. Also no chp6 music is sad and funny at the same time it seems perfect for a PJ run to have that kind of issue, to be perfectly honest I have played that stage enough I only noticed it was missing because of the notes :P.
All of the strats used on the stages are solid and I can’t think of a better way to execute each stage, other then better luck which is an even more dubious proposition given then spitefulness of this game, and the insanity of using a fools tablet in the first place, which is only slightly better then using berserker mail. The spell choice are well tested and well thought out the, only thing I am wondering about is the actual equipment (other then the fools tablet), I would have to guess given the draw pool and PJ’s spell choice I get the feeling even if he had bothered to list it I would have been the standard layout.


Final Verdict:
Normally I would do this for each level, but this is pointless in this case I give them all an

ACCEPT IT


Quote:
A/V and timing: what they said above me.

Thoughts: What they said above me. This was really well done. The only thing that I would gripe about is better platforming, but I dont think I could do better. So ya. Easy accept.


Quote from RedArremer:
Red Arremer here. Hi PJ. Screw you for making me verify this game.
Anyway, AV good, let's see what I can say about every chapter.

Chapter 1: Might be faster to slide under the bells than jump over them? Might be worth trying. Is jumping over the axe armors and Gurkha Master on top of the tower not an option? I usually just hop over them myself, which seems to be faster to me. Great damage boosts. Overall good.
Chapter 2: Tossing some Caesar Salad I see. Hesitated a bit in front of the bone pillars, which cost a second at most. Docking some points for not playing Bloody Tears on the piano. Great as well.
Chapter 3: Seen this one on YT before. Summon Gunmen. <3 This one is as optimized as it gets. Too bad the Demon Seed strat isn't feasible in RTA.
Chapter 4: I think the platforming sequence in the Ectoplasm room can be a bit faster, but at best for a second or two. Great Brauner fight, I too love using the Gunmen on him.
Chapter 5: Impressive display. This is my least favorite stage to run overall, so seeing you take it apart makes me one happy camper.
Chapter 6: Looks pretty good, I got nothing to say here. For Dracula, have you tried using Dark Infernos or Deathscythes while the third form spawns? Otherwise, I got no input for him. First and second form are clean, third form is pretty much perfect.
Chapter 7: Wait, you're not doing DLC levels you lazy butt.

Reject based off of that. These runs are just about perfect. There might be very few things to look into that could make this a little faster, but it's a second at most per stage, except maybe 6 where the boss fight could be improved depending on how other spells would work out. Accept.


Decision: Accept

Congratulations to Patrick 'PJ' DiCesare
Thread title:  
Is PJ
Thanks for verifying, everybody!  Sorry you had to watch 11 minutes of Charlotte, though.  Sad

[quote="Verifier 2] The spell choice are well tested and well thought out the, only thing I am wondering about is the actual equipment (other then the fools tablet), I would have to guess given the draw pool and PJ’s spell choice I get the feeling even if he had bothered to list it I would have been the standard layout.[/quote]

I have no idea what equipment I used.  Whatever gives highest INT, I think.  I have no idea what Charlotte can use.  I just asked Aftermath and then rolled with it.  I think Robe Decolette, Holy Veil, Sonic Boots?  And 2x Fool's Tablets of course.

Now to address RedArremer:

Quote:
Chapter 1: Might be faster to slide under the bells than jump over them? Might be worth trying. Is jumping over the axe armors and Gurkha Master on top of the tower not an option?


From my brief testing, it was slower to slide under the bells.  I do recall testing jumping over the axe armors/gurkha, but I don't remember what was wrong with it honestly.  :/  I know I made a conscious decision to kill them but I don't know why.

Quote:
Chapter 3: Seen this one on YT before. Summon Gunmen. <3 This one is as optimized as it gets. Too bad the Demon Seed strat isn't feasible in RTA.


I did use Demon Seed strat.  Cry  At least, that's the one I know of.  Use Demon Seed to kill his face/chest and Skeleton Gunmen to kill his knee.  Would be curious to hear the other Demon Seed use.

Quote:
Chapter 5: Impressive display. This is my least favorite stage to run overall, so seeing you take it apart makes me one happy camper.


I LOVE this stage.  I don't know why.  I really really shouldn't but it's really fun.  And it desynchs the replay like 95% of the time.

Quote:
Chapter 6: Looks pretty good, I got nothing to say here. For Dracula, have you tried using Dark Infernos or Deathscythes while the third form spawns? Otherwise, I got no input for him. First and second form are clean, third form is pretty much perfect.


This stage was a huge pain in the ass.  Even testing the Drac fight took ages because of how long it takes Charlotte to get there.  I had to kill the final guards and then sit in place and recover MP because I need all the MP healing items to kill the other forms.  This is a truly terrible boss for Charlotte.  I tried everything that made sense to kill final drac and everything except R.Fireball was eliminated because of one or more of the following reasons: 1. Useless trajectory; 2. Poor DPS; 3. Prohibitively MP-expensive.  Even the skeleton spell I use here is an awful pick, but it at least adds ~250 more damage, which is way more than most of the other options.  It's really unfortunate, but the best thing I found is just jumping R.Fireball.

These are definitely not perfect, but they're not far off.  There are very minor improvements here and there, but overall it's really strong.  The biggest flaw in this IL table is one extra jump in level 4.  Haha.  I will not do the DLC stages for her, though.  It's just not fun to do and less fun to watch.
Edit history:
RedArremer: 2013-09-13 05:09:21 pm
Regarding Demon Seed, I actually derped and put "RTA" instead of "single segment", but Flip had already put the quote there, so I didn't bother correcting it. Tongue