Submission #9535: arukAdo's PSX Castlevania: Symphony of the Night "Pacifist, Luck Mode" in 18:27.81

Summary

• Pacifist - Luck Mode
• Real Kills: 3 - Beat: 1 - Exp : 1768 - Level: 8 - Rooms: 353 - Time Attack Entries: 5
• Major skip glitch
• Heavy glitch abuse
• Heavy luck manipulation
• Takes intentional damage
• Starts from a saved state or SRAM

• Emulator used: BizHawk (2.10)
• RealTime:18:27.80 GameTime:17:28(last input) Frames:66277 Re-records:335984
• Verif Movie For SRAM

Quick Recap

• Kill list: Doppleganger, Blade Master, Dracula.
• Old Publication Kill list: Gaibon, Slogra, Doppleganger, Venus Weed, Dracula
• Luck mode is faster than Normal mode, originally used in the old pub.
• This run forgo using the "revenge" glitch to trick the game into thinking a monster didnt die when it did die, the reasoning been that while the technique is neat (im the one who found it...) and allow to finish the game at lvl1, the viewer is not tricked and killing stuff is technically not really pacifist.
• Since its Luck mode, you start with 1mp, the 6 levelup granted by the Doppleganger boss are necessary (to expand mana), the level up from colosseum is also necessary to grab the mist relic.
• JP10 version of the game is used because of the unique glitch that let you skip shaft, its patched in any other version (and ironically back in xbox/psp ports as they used this original release to build upon then forgot to patch it again).
• I did use only one tas project; the rerecord cound is shared with normal mode, so this explain the high count.

About the run

• Because of the mentioned jp-only glitch, its not necessary to get heart refresh to skip shaft, which in turn let me use the starter one to skip the first boss(es) Gaibon/Slogra, it is the main premise of the run and the route is build around that.
• It is probably arguable wether the bloody skeletons should be counted as kills; I do consider them obstacles, they do have hp but never count as kills by the game nor give experience or drop items and they come back on their feet indefinitly.
• It is possible to go by with downing only one but 3 are taken down here for speed consideration, if you were to consider them as kills, this run could be 4 kills (provided you remove the two others and loose some speed).
• A considerable ammount of tests went into the making of the run (reflects on rerecords count), to make sure nothing was wasted or overlook, including (but not limited to); neutron bomb, skill of wolf relic, shop list, reverse castle alternate route (death wing lair), big toss, shield rod, and a dozen others things I already forgot.
• Several monsters are damaged for speed reasons, the owl in entrance, archer in reverse chapel, some zombies, werewolf, minotaur and guardian, alltho none of them are killed in the process.
• The elevator (and many subsequent jumps later) is partially used for luck manipulation, thats what the shield presses are doing, staying put after been push by the walls also save one frame 2 rooms after with a jump (probably thanks to subpixel alignement) so this is why im not trying to dance or anything after the first "stop", the endgame is getting 29mp with dopple levelup.
• Candles destroyed are purely for manipulating the "nice" RNG and they happen to give me enough hearts as well, "evil" RNG is manipulated mostly with the shield like usual.
• It is necessary to grab the potion in lab, I use it also to cheat on the ouija table because that was the slowest thing to take damage on, the real damage the potion is necessary for is the levelup in colosseum far later.
• Jumping over skeletons is usually faster; if theres room for that or their AI is not trigger too soon, thats why I often pick that solution.
• Outerwall archer is manipulated so that the arrow dont end in alucard bun, this is why I stop for a dozen frames for no apparent reasons, using hellfire like in the pub is slower.
• The clock rush ends at 6:53, normal mode sub shows what would happen if you were to go library before colosseum; and anyway you would not have the time to sell the gems since normal mode get 8:59 (the statue closes every other minutes, so at 9:00 until 10:00).
• Since I have no bombs or means to perform the level up at colosseum, I do get the cube of zoe for the purpose of getting a subweapon (bounce stone), it is probably possible to use summon spirit but theres always a chance that it would kill the skeleton, for safety I did prefer this but maybe an improvement would skip it instead.
• Power of wolf (entrance relic) is necessary to perform the library boss skip and getting the bat relic (pub uses heart refresh).
• In the jp version you cannot "link" wingsmash into a single motion, this is why the mist is constantly used to stop it and return to bat to do it again, note that you need 10mp at least to do that.
• Zero MP is abused a lot; depletion happens on a timer so by morphing in the right frames theres none.
• Unlike saturn, since I have low hp and decent gear, it is possible to use medusa lasers to do half blood technique, so I do that, getting her in the corner (old pub) take forever compared to shake off the stone effect.
• Again unlike saturn, it is not possible to do Edge Travel technique with a single heart refresh, this is why I dont do the usual skip for Dracula elevator but rather what the rta runner are doing; Reverse Shift Line (then flying in the ceiling).
• Shaft skip is done by flying very close to the edges of the hole, simple as that.
• I could have use more the bounce stone on Dracula but for the record, it only do 1 damage, the purpose would be more about manipulating critical hits (which I do at the end).
• It is in theory possible to do the "sucker punch" on Dracula for 9999dmg (like on saturn) but this would work only in normal mode; you need negative luck and here we have 99 so thats not possible.
• 3D letters "now loading" does animate in jp too of course, I just stop them before they have a chance to move.
• Sram usage is mandatory as usual, without it you cant buy the duplicator, it takes a hundred'ish ninja stars to kill Dracula and the cost of that is superior than the duplicator itself.

Further Improvements