Submission #7278: Fortranm's PCECD Castlevania: Rondo of Blood in 00:16.10

Fun fact: there is one last classical Castlevania 2D platforming game that has never gotten a submission on the site yet... until now!

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, known as Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo in Japan, is a game that needs little introduction. What is less known is its downward compatibility mode known as Akumajyo Dracula Peke with PC Engine CD-ROM² System Card of versions lower than 3.0, aka Super CD-ROM². This run aims to beat this iteration of the game as soon as possible.

One might ask: Is this a legitimate game? The answer is that all signs point to yes. This mode of the game is clearly intentionally designed, and it's even feathered in all of the subsequent iterations of Rondo of Blood (https://castlevania.fandom.com/wiki/Akumajyo_Dracula_Peke#Unlocking_methods). This is clearly not some glitched state caused by unintended hardware setup.

As with most classical platforming games, this game is about running to the right for great justice. At a certain point, the screen scrolling will be locked and it becomes no longer possible to scroll to either direction. Maria will also appear on the screen after this. Such point can be considered the formal end of this game.

As you would expect from a pre-SotN Castlevania game, there is a button for jumping and another for whipping. What is unique to this game is that Richter cannot whip while jumping, but not that it matters. The optimal strategy is to take damage boosts by jumping onto the enemies instead of engaging them and thus achieving pacifism in the process. I also managed to end input early by jumping in the end as each jump is a set parabola that doesn't require further inputs once initiated.

As usual, the rule of timing in the RTA scene is different, but of course a technically sound TAS like this wouldn't be less optimized than any currently existing RTA record.

https://www.speedrun.com/peke/full_game

Merry Christmas and happy early New Year!

feos: Claiming for judging.

feos: Rejecting as explained in this post.