Submission #9228: McBobX's SNES Castlevania: Dracula X in 12:01.28

Castlevania: Dracula X in 12:02.68

Run details:

• Emulator used: BizHawk 2.9.1
• Takes damage to save time
• Fastest completion route
• Luck manipulation

Heart management for Axe subweapon

• I decided to give this a dedicated section as it is very important and key to this run. At the end of each stage in this game, after getting any orb, there is a results screen that counts how much life and hearts you had so you can more score, however, this is time wasting, and the more you have left, the more time needed to count, the more frames you lose.
• The current best ending run does manage that part beautifully by minimizing the life bar as much as possible and having no hearts on results screen.
• This is very effective when having Cross or just a key (in case of best ending run), but it is not optimal when having Axe, and specifically Axe subweapon (not sure about others but Axe is the relevant one).
• Axe has a key characteristic depending on the number of hearts you have:
  • if you have a heart count strictly below 20, you can only throw 1 Axe at a time
  • If you have a heart count between 20 and 30 (strictly under 30), you can only throw 2 Axes at a time.
  • If you have 30 or higher, you can throw 3 Axes at a time (not sure if more but 3 is enough for optimal fights).
• Knowing this, it is worth it to spend some frames on results screen in favor of having optimal heart count whenever we need to use Axe.
• This was very useful against Necromancer, Carmilla and Dracula. It should be useful as well for best ending run.

Comments

• The movement in this game is pretty simple. Walking is slower a lot than jumping, and jumping is also slower than backflipping. In some cases, jumping is optimal in case we want to get hearts or exit a screen faster
• The run is pretty similar to the current best ending run from the start until stage 3 shortcut (also known as Catacombs shortcut). This results in forcibly avoiding saving Annet, thus bad ending is the only path there. I also improved the current run by couple frames here and there early on.
• That shortcut is the fastest way to beat the game. It also showcases two stages not present in the current best ending run.
• The first one is Stage 4', Catacombs. It is pretty similar to Stage 4 (design and music), but the second last screen before the boss is a bit annoying due to the ground being slimy and prevents Richter from moving freely. The boss is Necromancer, and it is a pretty fun fight, however, second phase was a bit harder due to low i-frames of bosses in this game. I managed to get a great fight though thanks to heart management explained above.
• The second one is Stage 5', Inner Sanctum. This is a very funny stage, and so hard. Having smooth and damageless Fleaman room is incredibly hard, and I somehow managed to get most out of it. Next up in the Armor Knights room, I tried to do a skip which saves big travel (probably a minute), but damage taken there was necessary, and I barely survived the stage later, and I also grabbed as many hearts needed for next stage because we will use Axe later effectively. The boss is Werewolf, and using Axe is suboptimal due to it being so mobile, so I switched Time Stopped, as its special attack is as powerful as Axe, but faster for Werewolf.
• Stage 6, Clock Tower is similar to current run, but thanks to having Time Stopper, I was able to save some decent time in the first clock screen against Armor Knights. Heart management for Axe paid off so big here because Carmilla boss is so annoying to deal with, having two Axe throws available at a time was very powerful in defeating her faster.
• Final Stage, Castle Keep. Stage wise, it is pretty similar to current run, however, thanks to having extra hearts before hand, I was able to save around four seconds in Dracula fight.

Special thanks to:

• Dooty: for his best ending run as it helped me a ton making this TAS.
• RTA community for their efforts in optimizing the record for this category. The current^[1] world record run by SBDWolf also helped me understand how the run will look like.
• You: For watching this constant backflipping :)

Suggested screenshot