Hello all, I have just made my first timeattack. The game in question, as you can tell from the topic, is Castle of Dragon (or Dragon Unit, as it's known in Japan). The arcade version of this is one of my favorite obscure titles (swords, anime, and a kickass heavy-metal soundtrack, some 9 or 10 years before Guilty Gear no less!), and I have a soft spot for the NES version as well even though it's much worse.
So, anyway, I made this my choice for my first timeattack. It was done with the patched version of FCE Ultra, which works perfectly fine as far as I can tell (movie plays back perfectly and everything). It would be greatly appreciated if someone could host the movie file for me, so I could receive feedback from you guys. Here are some various notes to help you all make more sense out of this game:
- The total time for this run was 8:36, and I used 303 rerecords. Quite a few of these were on stupid stuff, mainly determining that my multiple savestate slots were all at the right places. Also, if anyone cares, the whole thing was played at 25% speed. Not sure what most people do, but this worked fine for me.
- There are 8 levels. The first three are your route to the castle, and the last 5 all take place in said castle. Levels 4-7 can be done in any order, it doesn't make any difference in time. You actually can go to the last level once you reach the castle, but if you haven't beaten the other four, you will not be able to hurt the last boss.
- The whole game is basically boss fights, with a few inconsequential normal enemies and some annoying jumps thrown in there.
- The control is just HORRIBLE, which is the main reason those jumps are so annoying. Everything is so slow and clumsy...
- I don't ENTIRELY go for fastest time in this one...I show off by making some difficult jumps over sets of enemies. This is slower because there is a slight pause before you jump.
- You start out with a sword. The second-level boss gives you throwing knives, and the third-level boss gives you a spiked mace. The knives are your only long-range weapon, but they do the least damage (with a couple exceptions, which I'll mention later). I mainly use the mace after getting it, as it has longer range than the sword and usually is by FAR your most powerful weapon. There are also two powerups which some enemies drop: The Flame Sword and the Lightning Sword. The former shoots a multi-hitting wave at the enemy, while the latter shoots a homing lightning bolt that is EXTREMELY powerful. Both of these are always worth picking up, with one possible exception (again, will get to this later).
- If you want a fast time in this game, you have to fight ugly and take many, MANY hits. It's possible to make a run where you dodge just about everything (there are a few hits here and there that you HAVE to take), but that makes battles take forever (mainly because of your high and floaty jump).
- Armor, in this game, basically gives you two lives. When your lifebar while in armor runs out, you revert to your normal look and have another full lifebar. If you pick up a suit of armor while without it, you put it on but your lifebar doesn't change any. On the other hand, if you pick up armor while already in it, your lifebar is filled up completely. Hence, I almost always pick up the armor icons.
- Fairies fill up your lifebar but push you back a tiny bit, costing you some time.
- You gain levels by killing minibosses and bosses. The meter to the right of your lifebar is the experience meter. It only affects the amount of life you have, not damage or any other attributes. Also, if you die, you go back to the beginning of the game but your experience level remains the same.
- Against the giant blue dragon and the weird chicken thing, the knives hit multiple times. This is why I use it against them in my run.
- If the enemies are pushed back into the corner, they sometimes take damage but usually don't. This is why I tend to hesitate when attacking with my mace...I want them to get closer to me so they don't get pushed back that far.
- You randomly take a couple points of damage from swinging the mace sometimes.
- I absolutely DESPISE the boss of the fire level. You'll know why if you've seen the run. Sometimes, in a real game, I can beat him without losing my armor, but such was not the case in this run. Hm...
- To beat your mirror image in the last level, you have to lose your armor, and then lose half of the second lifebar. The fastest way to do this is to walk into him constantly.
- I use the sword against the last boss because it's the only thing that hurts him. Also, his hitbox seems to be quite random, as sometimes I hit him right in his head (his weak spot) and nothing happens. There are a couple wasted slashes that looked like they should have hit him.
- Various possible points of improvement in the run:
1. Do a better job against the purple guy in the first castle level I did. He got stuck in the corner often, which resulted in the mace doing little damage.
2. Don't use the fire sword in the 7th level I did. The mace seems to kill harpies much faster.
3. Use the mace against the blue dragon and Chicken Thing. It may still do more damage than the knives, I am not sure about this.
4. Don't waste any slashes vs. the last boss.
5. Just control enemies' randomness in general, to make them constantly come to me.
6. Let Chicken Thing destroy my armor. This greatly reduces the amount of time spent on the evil mirror image in the last level, as your lifebar gets refilled after each level. In the run I had some "armor" life left, and it got completely refilled resulting in a longer battle against him.
7. Determine which fairies are worth using and which ones aren't. Remember, they slow you down a tiny bit.
That's it, hopefully you'll all get to see what the hell I'm talking about soon.
-Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
