Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

Edit history:

Sopha: 2014-10-25 10:45:25 pm

2014-10-25 09:10:58 pm

That's a nice route, though it's on the safe side. I don't think you need to go out of your way to get the summoning tome since you'd be high enough level from killing all the bosses to damage-glitch everyone quickly anyway. And I was thinking the routes for the longer runs of all bosses or all furniture would involve getting the super jump and moon physics as quickly as possible to open up all those nice zips that they give. I haven't tried it out extensively, but whipping at the end of a super jump with moon physics on lets you zip through the ceiling. That might end up being even more useful than the horizontal zips into walls since it seems to be more consistent.

Other than that, some of your room strats are better than mine, especially the block-puzzle zip, I've been doing that wrong this whole time. And I didn't know about triggering the pazuzu warp early, that's pretty cool.

Anyway, I've started streaming here recently and I got the following bad ending run:

This is using a more safe route than I talked about earlier, getting the super jump to make the skip to maxim easier. I'm still not entirely sure about the damage formula but the stuff I get seems pretty efficient to survive a hit of maxim.

That's a nice route, though it's on the safe side. I don't think you need to go out of your way to get the summoning tome since you'd be high enough level from killing all the bosses to damage-glitch everyone quickly anyway. And I was thinking the routes for the longer runs of all bosses or all furniture would involve getting the super jump and moon physics as quickly as possible to open up all those nice zips that they give. I haven't tried it out extensively, but whipping at the end of a super jump with moon physics on lets you zip through the ceiling. That might end up being even more useful than the horizontal zips into walls since it seems to be more consistent.

Other than that, some of your room strats are better than mine, especially the block-puzzle zip, I've been doing that wrong this whole time. And I didn't know about triggering the pazuzu warp early, that's pretty cool.

Anyway, I've started streaming [url=http://www.twitch.tv/soplol]here[/url] recently and I got the following bad ending run:

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSNnEQOA4dE[/url]

This is using a more safe route than I talked about earlier, getting the super jump to make the skip to maxim easier. I'm still not entirely sure about the damage formula but the stuff I get seems pretty efficient to survive a hit of maxim.

ZX497

2014-10-26 07:06:15 am

Video title is sort of self-explanatory. But yeah, this is a thing now.

Sopha

2014-10-26 08:22:03 am

Oh that is just great. So now I can actually finish runs instead of doing the crazy inconsistent strats I had planned. Thanks man gg

As a side note, in bad ending runs I timed up to the flash after defeating Maxim. But that's exactly the same flash that happens at 2:52. Does that mean I can just call it a day there? :^V

ZX497

Edit history:

ZX497: 2014-10-26 08:35:54 am

2014-10-26 08:35:41 am

Haha. Yeah, pretty sure that flash is actually the trigger for Maxim's defeat... you could go with TAS timing and end the run when you start the divekick Wink

Anyway, yeah, I know you're joking. Also, wasn't able to locate the flag for Drac's final form, even though that one should be somewhere in there as well. Maybe it's just near one of the hardlocks, or behind one.

ZX497

Edit history:

ZX497: 2014-10-26 10:04:26 am

2014-10-26 09:37:22 am

Oh yeah, you can also do just the Relic Skip (Maxim boss fight unskipped) by modifying this trick slightly.

At the 50 second mark, I move left to trigger a transition. If you divekick into that transition, you'll be taken to another area. There, you'll have hole in the floor, and you wanna make a ~40 second long divekick into that hole. This will open the Drac Chamber door, but you'll still get to fight Maxim... this might make this useful for All Bosses as well. Of course, you'd have to make sure no bad flags of some kind are set, for example, it might despawn or respawn some boss.

ZX497

2014-11-06 09:47:42 am

Maybe a slightly faster Maxim any% route. The run is obviously not on par with Charleon / PK / Kainblox / Whoever.

charleon

2014-11-06 02:21:19 pm

What is a man?

comparison with the old route

charleon

2014-11-07 04:38:50 am

What is a man?

Theoretical batshit crazy RTA improvement which saves 5 seconds. Hardest part is the roll after the batzip which seems pixelperfect

KentaKurodani

2014-11-17 02:49:37 pm

Metroid 2 Ho!

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

charleon

Edit history:

charleon: 2014-12-01 05:45:20 am

charleon: 2014-11-26 12:57:18 am

2014-11-26 12:55:45 am

What is a man?

Sub 40 is up for grabs for Maxim Any%! figured out the TAS candlewhiplaunch zip. This is the most viable Maxim Any% RTA route to date. This can be applied to all different routes using the previously discovered "batzip"

EDIT: Ok got a pretty good run in:

Execution is pretty much flawless. I guess you could go for a better ballsy strat and/or go for the batshit insane strat but new WR is 40.24!

charleon

Edit history:

charleon: 2014-12-08 05:29:23 am

2014-12-04 04:48:03 am

What is a man?

Small ground broken in Maxim Any%; PKSL found a consistent way of getting the double shuriken kill on dracula which previously would only trigger if you had amazing crit luck. instead of jumpthrowing the shuriken, doing a divekick and slash once: just keep spamming the slash until you reach the floor and then jump again, this prolongs the shuriken glitch for a couple of hits. next run WILL be a sub 40!

Edit 1:
Here's the video showcasing the technique. I've been experimenting a lot with it, and I don't think it's the mashing that enables the quickkill, it's the position of the shuriken inside of dracula when you actually start the glitch. For the second shuriken you actually have to walk a bit away and throw it as shown in the video. I've done a small optimization for it in practice:
1. First thing you do: plink jump, slash and hold forward/up so the first thing you do is to jump forward and throw the shuriken. divekick and slash, then walk slightly backward and do as in the video; this is pretty consistent. Note however that drac must stand still for this to work, have yet to try it when he moves forward, but i think you take damage then.

Small ground broken in Maxim Any%; PKSL found a consistent way of getting the double shuriken kill on dracula which previously would only trigger if you had amazing crit luck. instead of jumpthrowing the shuriken, doing a divekick and slash once: just keep spamming the slash until you reach the floor and then jump again, this prolongs the shuriken glitch for a couple of hits. next run WILL be a sub 40!

Edit 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLk-oC0ION0
Here's the video showcasing the technique. I've been experimenting a lot with it, and I don't think it's the mashing that enables the quickkill, it's the position of the shuriken inside of dracula when you actually start the glitch. For the second shuriken you actually have to walk a bit away and throw it as shown in the video. I've done a small optimization for it in practice:
1. First thing you do: plink jump, slash and hold forward/up so the first thing you do is to jump forward and throw the shuriken. divekick and slash, then walk slightly backward and do as in the video; this is pretty consistent. Note however that drac must stand still for this to work, have yet to try it when he moves forward, but i think you take damage then.

AxonZin

Edit history:

AxonZin: 2014-12-08 12:08:32 pm

2014-12-08 12:07:08 pm

I am encyclopedia

oh my god, i come back and people are actually playing and discussing HoD! it's like a dream come true! you guys found so much stuff in the past few years. i'd love to help with routing and trick hunting in any way possible.

has anyone worked on a 100% route yet? i was talking about it with shiden86 and we both thought it would be an interesting category to route and run. i was curious though what would be defined as 100%. this is what i was thinking:

-All bosses
-Best ending
-200% map
-All relics and spellbooks
-All furniture
-No zips or OoB warping (due to how easy it is to manipulate HoD's map counter)
-All other glitches/sequence breaks allowed (damage glitch, early platinum tip etc)

i did a very casual impromptu speedrun using those rules and it took me about 3 hours. with a proper route i'd say you could clock in at well under 2. i'd love to start working on one but i just want to make sure all the other juste runners are okay with that definition first. if you guys think anything else should be required, or anything on that list shouldn't be required, let me know.

oh my god, i come back and people are actually playing and discussing HoD! it's like a dream come true! you guys found so much stuff in the past few years. i'd love to help with routing and trick hunting in any way possible.

has anyone worked on a 100% route yet? i was talking about it with shiden86 and we both thought it would be an interesting category to route and run. i was curious though what would be defined as 100%. this is what i was thinking:

-All bosses
-Best ending
-200% map
-All relics and spellbooks
-All furniture
-No zips or OoB warping (due to how easy it is to manipulate HoD's map counter)
-All other glitches/sequence breaks allowed (damage glitch, early platinum tip etc)

i did a very casual impromptu speedrun using those rules and it took me about 3 hours. with a proper route i'd say you could clock in at well under 2. i'd love to start working on one but i just want to make sure all the other juste runners are okay with that definition first. if you guys think anything else should be required, or anything on that list shouldn't be required, let me know.

Shiden

2014-12-08 12:13:32 pm

-full bestiary

AxonZin

2014-12-08 12:14:26 pm

I am encyclopedia

Quote from Shiden:

-full bestiary

inb4 rare ghost becomes HoD's dampe

charleon

2014-12-08 10:59:07 pm

What is a man?

Maxim Any% is OVER. new WR is 39.2 and beating it at this point would be beating it with frames... .. if you're not going for the batshit crazy route after the zip

Sopha

2014-12-09 02:14:55 am

Quote from AxonZin:

-All bosses
-Best ending
-200% map
-All relics and spellbooks
-All furniture
-No zips or OoB warping (due to how easy it is to manipulate HoD's map counter)
-All other glitches/sequence breaks allowed (damage glitch, early platinum tip etc).

I don't personally see the point in 200% map and no zips. Most of Juste's speed capability depends on zips, and if you're getting 200% map that means you're not using most door-warps to skip through places everywhere you can and most of what's left is the damage glitch and getting the platinum tip and lure key as early as possible. That definition becomes about restricting glitches rather than 100% to me. I don't know how often maxing out a map in specifically a way that doesn't glitch it appears in 100% definitions, but if that's something that happens then sure. Even if it does though, why would it be defined as no zips/OoB rather than no extra map spaces?

I guess it could be a refreshing alternative to the regular categories since those are getting nearly the same route for several minutes at the start, and you wouldn't have to worry about getting the inconsistent zips, but I probably wouldn't run this very seriously. It won't end up free of those kinds of inconsistent tricks though. The single-jump ice-fist platinum-tip sequence-break would almost certainly be in the optimal path and after testing it I'm pretty sure that's double frame perfect and only works if the subpixels are right. And if floating boots is in the path then that is seriously 100x worse than rare ghost. That would probably get mostly ignored just like it is in every other category.

I was wondering about how the longer route with zips would be though. If All bosses, All furniture, and All everything were separate categories, I think they'd end up following nearly the same fairly brutal first ~15 minutes in a ~45 minute run, and possibly good ending would too. (I'm getting these times from a thing I'll totally post after I edit a whole bunch of zips together; it involves getting moon physics+super jump as early as possible.) So we would probably want to have only one of those longer categories, and I'm not sure what it should be.

Personally, I was leaning toward just getting the best ending with all furniture, since the other things don't effect the ending. But then I was thinking I really, reeeeeeeeeally wanted to see the furniture room at the end and look around even though that isn't necessary for the best ending. Now I'm thinking it would really be a shame if it ended with all that furniture crumbling down with the castle when it's destroyed, so I don't even want to get the best ending I just want to see all the furniture and end the run there. I love furniture and I'm thinking I wouldn't want to run any long category with the whole bunch of frame-perfect moon-physics super-jump zips other than that. So that's why I think there shouldn't be 100% or All Bosses or even Best Ending, but instead Furniture%. Any thoughts?

[quote="AxonZin"]
-All bosses
-Best ending
-200% map
-All relics and spellbooks
-All furniture
-No zips or OoB warping (due to how easy it is to manipulate HoD's map counter)
-All other glitches/sequence breaks allowed (damage glitch, early platinum tip etc).
[/quote]

I don't personally see the point in 200% map and no zips. Most of Juste's speed capability depends on zips, and if you're getting 200% map that means you're not using most door-warps to skip through places everywhere you can and most of what's left is the damage glitch and getting the platinum tip and lure key as early as possible. That definition becomes about restricting glitches rather than 100% to me. I don't know how often maxing out a map in specifically a way that doesn't glitch it appears in 100% definitions, but if that's something that happens then sure. Even if it does though, why would it be defined as no zips/OoB rather than no extra map spaces?

I guess it could be a refreshing alternative to the regular categories since those are getting nearly the same route for several minutes at the start, and you wouldn't have to worry about getting the inconsistent zips, but I probably wouldn't run this very seriously. It won't end up free of those kinds of inconsistent tricks though. The single-jump ice-fist platinum-tip sequence-break would almost certainly be in the optimal path and after testing it I'm pretty sure that's double frame perfect and only works if the subpixels are right. And if floating boots is in the path then that is seriously 100x worse than rare ghost. That would probably get mostly ignored just like it is in every other category.

I was wondering about how the longer route with zips would be though. If All bosses, All furniture, and All everything were separate categories, I think they'd end up following nearly the same fairly brutal first ~15 minutes in a ~45 minute run, and possibly good ending would too. (I'm getting these times from a thing I'll totally post after I edit a whole bunch of zips together; it involves getting moon physics+super jump as early as possible.) So we would probably want to have only one of those longer categories, and I'm not sure what it should be.

Personally, I was leaning toward just getting the best ending with all furniture, since the other things don't effect the ending. But then I was thinking I really, reeeeeeeeeally wanted to see the furniture room at the end and look around even though that isn't necessary for the best ending. Now I'm thinking it would really be a shame if it ended with all that furniture crumbling down with the castle when it's destroyed, so I don't even want to get the best ending I just want to see all the furniture and end the run there. I love furniture and I'm thinking I wouldn't want to run any long category with the whole bunch of frame-perfect moon-physics super-jump zips other than that. So that's why I think there shouldn't be 100% or All Bosses or even Best Ending, but instead Furniture%. Any thoughts?

Worn_Traveler

2014-12-09 06:42:53 am

Formerly known as Skullboy

In terms of SDA, 100% would probably be All furniture, spell books/relics, bosses defeated, and best ending (beat Dracula Wraith). Map completion wouldn't matter (unless it affects the ending, which I don't recall it doing in HoD) You guys can do what you want of course, but that's a basic guideline. I like 100% runs of the Metroidvanias so I'll be watching whatever you guys decide on.

AxonZin

Edit history:

AxonZin: 2014-12-09 10:15:07 am

2014-12-09 10:11:19 am

I am encyclopedia

yeah, i wasn't entirely sure on the 200% map thing. that's another point i was curious about, and i think you guys convinced me. the only CV 100% run i'm aware of that requires it is SotN but even then it's only because the best ending requires it, and you only have to get 196%, not the full 200+% or however much there is. not including map% also means we don't have to have weird zip restrictions, which opens the route a lot.

Worn_Traveler's definition makes sense to me, since it seems consistent with SotN's definition (all relics, all bosses, best ending), and including spellbooks and furniture makes sense since they get their own menus similar to relics.

Worn_Traveler

2014-12-09 11:18:18 am

Formerly known as Skullboy

The big difference between this and SOTN is that ALucard 100% is all relics and best ending (map percentage matters there) and Maria/Richter is all bosses so Juste 100% might be all relics/spellbooks, furniture, and best ending while Maxim 100% would be all bosses. I haven't played HoD in two years so I might be off on what is needed for what in the game. Good luck everyone.

Sopha

2014-12-09 06:04:37 pm

HoD has a little-known, esoteric best ending that you get if you have all furniture collected when you beat Dracula. So furniture is the only collectible that contributes to getting the best ending.

So SotN Alucard 100% doesn't require all bosses? I'm shaky on all bosses in the Juste 100% definition. ZX knows more about this than me, but if the cutscene glitch can set boss flags to be defeated and so not spawn, then if all bosses being defeated is a requirement the cutscene glitch to set those flags should be fair game. In a run, it would look like some weird offscreen map exploration followed by a save-warp. It wouldn't give any indication of any boss being defeated and it would give you nothing in the menu, not even bestiary data.

In an All Bosses category, beating bosses specifically without the cutscene glitch makes sense, but in 100% it seems more arbitrary. I don't actually know if the cutscene glitch can flag most bosses like that though, I've only seen it on Maxim.

AxonZin

2014-12-10 01:46:28 pm

I am encyclopedia

huh, wow. i just looked up the best ending. i've beaten harmony of dissonance with all furniture many times and i never even noticed the ending cutscene changes slightly. i understand where you're coming from with the best ending run, then. that might serve as a better "100%" category, since there's a clear in-game goal as opposed to coming up with weird player-defined goals. i still think All Bosses should be a thing, though, since every other category skips most of the bosses, so it'd be nice to have one where you actually fight them all.

Sopha

2014-12-15 04:45:10 am

A whole bunch of great zips:

The most important for speedrunning are:
-Sequence from candle zip to final boss. Would make a yolo bad ending route straight to Maxim more viable.
-Frame perfect zip to center chamber B previously thought only possible with floating boots.
-Much easier zip sequence up the Sky Walkway tower.
-Early moon physics + super jump. Absolutely essential for any of the longer routes.

ZX497

Edit history:

ZX497: 2014-12-15 05:41:22 am

ZX497: 2014-12-15 05:40:24 am

2014-12-15 05:31:45 am

Launch spots at 2:26 and 4:19 are new to me, those are really cool. Naturally there's like, a launch spot basically anywhere in the castle if you count the candle / enemy launches, but these regular edge launch spots are awesome.

For the zip at 3:00 to get the Summoning Tome, there's an easier way. When you get to the top area (where you walk to the right-most pixel and divekick), alternatively you can just hop into the transition, and turn around right before you trigger it... this will put you deep enough inside the wall to slide out of it. If you do the divekick method, there's a couple of spots that work, but as far as I can tell all of them are frame-perfect.

8:20 it's way easier with Moon Physics activated. I was actually considering putting this zip in for All Bosses when I was making the route, but the frame-perfect method was just too unreliable... maybe now with early Moon Physics this might be a thing.

Good to have all this stuff documented, dude, nice work.

Oh yeah, I'm still a little skeptical about Moon Physics for the longer routes. Sure they boost your zipping ability by A LOT, but at the same time, general movement gets a lot slower, and you'd basically lose the ability to Save Room -warp anywhere, since that'd negate the physics. But they're definitely an option now!

Launch spots at 2:26 and 4:19 are new to me, those are really cool. Naturally there's like, a launch spot basically anywhere in the castle if you count the candle / enemy launches, but these regular edge launch spots are awesome.

For the zip at 3:00 to get the Summoning Tome, there's an easier way. When you get to the top area (where you walk to the right-most pixel and divekick), alternatively you can just hop into the transition, and turn around right before you trigger it... this will put you deep enough inside the wall to slide out of it. If you do the divekick method, there's a couple of spots that work, but as far as I can tell all of them are frame-perfect.

8:20 it's way easier with Moon Physics activated. I was actually considering putting this zip in for All Bosses when I was making the route, but the frame-perfect method was just too unreliable... maybe now with early Moon Physics this might be a thing.

Good to have all this stuff documented, dude, nice work.

Oh yeah, I'm still a little skeptical about Moon Physics for the longer routes. Sure they boost your zipping ability by A LOT, but at the same time, general movement gets a lot slower, and you'd basically lose the ability to Save Room -warp anywhere, since that'd negate the physics. But they're definitely an option now!

Sopha

2014-12-25 12:22:01 pm

Can't seem to embed this: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTc0MDQ4MDQ4.html

It's a video of a cool zip in the first box room of Skeleton Cave A. Push a box so it goes up the stairs a little, then jump and fist while in air. When Juste touches the box it bounces off the stairs and zips him downward. The good destinations I could get are Aqueduct B, and then by down zipping in the next room, Chapel A and Peeping Big. Unlike in the video, you don't need to push the other box down. It takes no relics and it's very consistent, so you can do it from a glitched start.

No other boxes have stairs next to them, so unless you can get a box to fall on you somehow, I don't think you can do this glitch anywhere else.

I'm getting this from some Chinese castlevania glitching channels I stumbled across. There are glitches for other castlevania games too.
http://i.youku.com/u/UMjUzMjIwNzg0
http://i.youku.com/u/UMjU3OTYwMTY

ZX497

Edit history:

ZX497: 2014-12-25 10:39:29 pm

ZX497: 2014-12-25 10:24:37 pm

2014-12-25 10:18:01 pm

That is really cool. There is another location using the block puzzle one room left of this one: the intended solution drops a box down on the ground floor there, and there is a staircase... sadly, unless there's some way to cancel the Aurora Fist mid animation, the only thing you'll get out of that one is a hardlock.

The box position seems to be quite picky, since I think it has to be as far on the stairs as possible without falling off.