Before I talk about the actual run itself, let me talk about how broken Yabause and SaturnHawk are, since I had to deal with a lot of crap to get this thing done.
First off, Yabause doesn't have a frame display. Or input display. Luckily, Notepad++ exists so I could at least use that as a way to see how I'm doing. Unfortunately, the built-in AVI dumping causes desyncs in the actual movie, so a video can't be provided at this time. Yeah, it makes no sense. Elsewise it syncs just fine, amazingly enough.
SaturnHawk by comparison isn't quite as bad, but its crippling problem is that savestates completely break loading zones, which means it's completely worthless for TASing unfortunately.
Anyway, on to the actual run.
This run is an improvement of about 9-10 seconds compared to arukAdo's original run, although I started input on the title screen instead of the opening logos, which makes it appear to be much slower then it actually is. The improvement comes from a few new tricks discovered in the years since his run, including a different Shaft fight and minor optimizations throughout.
Opening
A few frames were saved in the opening by canceling kicks on enemies, which allows me to avoid some minor downtime at the end of them. I also saved a few frames doing two diagonal high jumps to the block button instead of two horizontal high jumps, which allows me to land directly on the button with the momentum from it.
Alchemy Laboratory
Minor timesaves climbing thanks to finding a way to get some diagonal high jumps in the long rooms, which allow me to avoid hitting the ceiling/dive kicking to the opening. Another minor timesave is doing a backdash out of the magic door instead of a jump.
Royal Chapel
Minor timesave at the beginning doing a diagonal jump into the staircase instead of a horizontal one, allowing me to get a head start into it. The Griffon fight is slightly slower due to not being able to manipulate a critical high jump. Last minor timesave at the very end of the area by ending an air kick early and instead using the momentum from a dive kick into the door, saving about 7-8 frames or so.
Inverted Chapel
Minor timesave on Medusa thanks to a few axes. Also saved some time on the out of bounds thanks to a new trick that cuts out half a screen of travel, and using momentum from axes to preserve my kick speed slightly longer.
Reverse Colosseum
Using axes right before getting hit increases fall speed slightly, saving a few frames. Using axes also lets me skip getting hit by a werewolf towards the end.
Black Marble Gallery
Minor save avoiding hitting the ceiling getting to the clock.
Shaft
Minor save using the Blue Dragon summon and maneuvering it so I could end input slightly earlier then doing charged jump kicks.
Final Thoughts
Using Yabause and SaturnHawk was hell, but overall I liked TASing a Castlevania game. So, yeah.
Fog: Ok, something has been brought to my attention while going through the publication process.
The author has made the start of input not from boot, but from the main menu. This was overlooked initially by me. However, initial movie editing efforts do get me about half-way through the submission.
I'm sure that with more time handling editing the movie file, the run could be made to sync while cutting out the intro movies. Until then, I'm marking this as delayed.
Fog: Replacing movie file with a 980 frame improvement to skip through the intro videos.
