Game objectives

  • Emulator used: VBA-RR v23.6 svn480
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Manipulates luck
  • Defeats all bosses
  • No damage/death

Comments

You can play Boss Rush mode after you complete main game once and there are 3 difficulties.(Easy, Normal, Hard)
If you want to play Hard difficulty mode, you need to complete Easy and Normal mode first. To play Hard difficulty Boss Rush mode, I used SRAM from these 2 movies. ,
And the last key input timing is the same as Robert's run.

Glitches and tricks

Whip-launch

If you want to know Whip-launch in detail, you can understand it in this page.
In addition to conventional Whip-launch, I use Whip-launch using high jump. It helps Juste get closer to bosses when he enters their room.
But this launch takes a little more frames compared to normal entering methods like dive kick or sliding so I use entering methods properly in accordance to boss battle. And shutting door timing depends on Juste's y-position so I needed to adjust it.
Leaving room method is dive kick only.

Slipping trick

I mainly use this trick when Juste slips on stairway. After he fries in the air by using Whip-launch, he slips twice the distance with this trick.

Shuriken Glitch

If you want to know Shuriken Glitch in detail, you can understand it in this page.
I combine 2 kinds of Shuriken Glitch (dive kick + cross and midair whip + cross) because I can defeat boss with less time loss. This combination attack is more effective in ground battle than air.

Luck manipulation

Critical attack, Boss movement depend on RNG so I need to manipulate it.
To manipulate RNG, I use jump, dash, sliding, high jump and throwing cross. And dash doesn't consume RNG within 7 frames.
RNG is consumed constantly when you use Juste. RNG manipulation was hard.

Boss battle strategies

I concisely write strategies for each boss battles as follows:

Giant Bat

I use high jump whip-launch with using cross to skip walking animation.
You can only 2 attacks to Giant Bat first. After few seconds, Giant Bat begins to drop and doesn't separate when its x-position (around x=292.375)corresponds to Juste.

Living Armor

I use high jump Whip-launch with using cross because Living Armor is far from the door. By using cross, Juste can get close more compared to whip.
Living Armor makes lags and delay if you give it too much damage.

Skull Knight

Skull Knight wakes up when Juste's x-position is over 65. By using dive kick, I attain this situation at the minimal frames.
It has 3 forms but each forms has less hit points compared to other bosses. In such cases, the rear-whip attack is effective. And Juste can perform 0 gap rear-whip Shuriken Glitch if you adjust his x-position.

Golem

Golem's jump timing is automatically fixed when Juste enters the room. In such cases, you can use sliding when you enter the room. (Although sliding is the fastest entering method, it takes lots of frames until door close.)
Golem doesn't manage its hit points when it jumps. You can skip second form if you make its hit points 0 during the jump and attack when it transform.
And Golem's burying end timing depends on RNG and speed becomes faster if you consume more RNG. So I perform sliding when it buries.

Minotaur

Minotaur's jump timing is automatically fixed when Juste enter the room. So I use sliding when Juste enter the room.
You can't defeat Minotaur if it doesn't jump. And jump timing depends on RNG.

Devil

Devil is far from the door so you can perform high jump whip-launch with using cross. Juste can leap and perform Shuriken Glitch simultaneously if you adjust his y-position.
And Devil's drop timing depends on RNG.

Giant Merman

Giant Merman's appearance timing is automatically fixed when Juste enters the room. So I use sliding when Juste enter the room.
Giant Merman has lots of hit points and it's on the ground so combination Shuriken Glitch is effective.

Max Slime

You can skip distrucing animation if you defeat this boss so quickly. Fight style is same as Giant Merman's case.

Peeping Big

I use high jump whip-launch with using cross because of acceleration and preparing Shuriken Glitch.
After defeating this boss, it makes LOTS of lags. So Juste doesn't move for some time to fix his camera.

Shadow

Shadow's drop timing depends on RNG. After it begins to drop, you can manipulate RNG for critical attack.

Legion (Saint)

Formidable enemy. You can't perform Shuriken Glitch because the shell accepts only one attack ID. (You can perform Shuriken Glitch to core instead.)
To address this, I manipulate RNG to perform as many critical attacks as possible so as to tear off the shell quickly.

Pazuzu

I use high jump whip-launch with using whip because of acceleration and adjusting Juste's x-position. Dive kick isn't enough to caver distance between Juste and Pazuzu. Fight style is the same as Giant Merman.

Minotaur Lv2

Same as Minotaur's case.

Legion (corpse)

I use high jump whip-launch with using whip because of acceleration and adjusting Juste's x-position.
Legion (corpse) opens its shell after attacking a certain number of times. But Legion (corpse) accepts attack ID even when it closes the core.

Talos

I use high jump whip-launch with using whip because of acceleration and adjusting Juste's x-position.
Talos has powerful toes and arms so I perform midair + cross type Shuriken Glitch. Talos makes lags and delay if you give it too much damage, so I need to adjust total damage amount.

Death

There is already Death's hit box when Juste enters the room so I perform dive kick to enter the room.
First form: To fight on the platform and control Death's movement, I manipulate RNG.
Second form: Fight style is same as Devil's case. When Death's distructing animation begin, it makes lots of lags. So Juste doesn't move for some time to fix his camera.

Cyclops

I use high jump whip-launch with using whip because of acceleration and adjusting Juste's x-position. Fight style is same as Giant Merman.

Dracula Wraith

First form: Dracula Wraith's appearance timing is automatically fixed when Juste enters the room. So I use sliding. Fight style is same as Skull Knight. Its appearance position depends on RNG.
Second form: Fight style is same as Giant Merman. Its movement depends on RNG.

Other comments

I made this movie to celebrate the release of Castlevania Advance Collection.
I hope Castlevania community grows more and more.
And thank you for all CVHoD TASers.

feos: Judging...
feos: I guess I'll have to delay this in the end, because the most likely decision on this movie will be going to Playground which is not yet implemented, but is pretty high on the priority list.
feos: Playground almost fully exists now, so I checked this submission again, reread the thread, and I didn't feel perfectly comfortable sending this movie to Playground. We definitely don't want to reject it, because it's a great movie up to par with existing branches. Canceling this would be useless because it wouldn't improve things on its own. Accepting this raises a question whether it's different enough from existing branches, because it's definitely as entertaining as they are.
Then I reread this post by my fellow Senior Judge:
We shouldn't feel like we have to wait for a rule change or a new class to be able to accept something that might not perfectly fit what we currently have in place. If we're going to be making those changes in the future anyway, why not bend the rules now? It's not like we're going to make these kinds of runs less acceptable.
And I thought: if we senior stuff are not the people to define future directions for the site, I don't know who is.
I think having a different character do this mode, even if there's the same heavy glitch in both movies, satisfies more people by presenting them more content with clearly explainable difference (because it's an explicit in-game option). The whole idea that we should publish less content simply to get more better content feels counter-productive to me ever since #7292: Serena's Linux Iconoclasts in 22:47.36. If somebody sees this movie nearby Simon, it's a higher chance they get inspired to make (or annoyed into making) a new Simon run without the damage glitch, compared to no current movie to stick out.
Accepting as a new branch!

despoa: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15628
Location: 127.0.0.1
mklip2001
He/Him
Editor
Joined: 6/23/2009
Posts: 2227
Location: Georgia, USA
It's too bad that the boss music for this mode isn't very good. It makes the run more repetitive. But nice job with strategy adjustment and some fast glitches.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
Movement is very different from [2455] GBA Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance "Simon, Boss Rush, Hard" by Robert_Ordis in 07:51.27, but bosses are killed in a very similar way and die almost instantly, and that's basically all this mode has. While it's cool to showcase Simon, I don't know if these two movies are different enough to co-exist in the end. Will need much more feedback that there currently is!
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
ikuyo
She/Her
Judge, Experienced player (506)
Joined: 7/8/2021
Posts: 101
While it is true that most bosses die in similar fashions, the movie is really good at having interesting movement. It might be a bit repetitive, but I see no reason to not have it. Yes vote.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
It's a Moons-only branch so it needs to be different enough from existing ones. If it's not, it either obsoletes Simon or has to be rejected (feedback is really lacking so far, even tho the run is very well made).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Fortranm
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (879)
Joined: 10/19/2013
Posts: 1122
First, for reference, this movie does beat what seems to be the fastest TAS with the same goal choice on Nicovideo. Link to video That being said, as entertaining as this movie is by itself, it definitely doesn't differ from the Simon movie that much during the boss fights themselves. Now, a Maxim boss rush movie might look a bit more different from either of these (the one on Nicovideo seems to be deleted for some reason and is no longer available), but then we already have [3126] GBA Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance "Maxim, all bosses" by gstick in 05:47.68 and the one additional boss that isn't fought in normal gameplay for Maxim (Dracula Wrath phase 1) probably doesn't make it worth it either. So yeah, having one Simon movie for the boss rush mode of this game probably suffices.
Samsara
She/They
Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2241)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Fortranm wrote:
First, for reference, this movie does beat what seems to be the fastest TAS with the same goal choice on Nicovideo.
To be fair, that's an old run from the same author. This submission is also on Nico, for the record. This is one of those runs that triggers my feeling of "If we reject this, then that's a failure on our part and not the author's". It's a solid record and it's entertaining, there's pretty much no reason to reject it. The site really shouldn't need to be about "unique content" and "difference" anymore as long as the goal makes sense, which it does to me. I'd argue the same for Maxim boss rush as well if that ever gets submitted. We shouldn't feel like we have to wait for a rule change or a new class to be able to accept something that might not perfectly fit what we currently have in place. If we're going to be making those changes in the future anyway, why not bend the rules now? It's not like we're going to make these kinds of runs less acceptable.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Judge, Moderator, Player (200)
Joined: 7/15/2021
Posts: 112
Location: United States
It's funny that each boss is defeated relatively quickly. Gets a yes vote from me.
Fortranm
He/Him
Editor, Experienced player (879)
Joined: 10/19/2013
Posts: 1122
Samsara wrote:
This is one of those runs that triggers my feeling of "If we reject this, then that's a failure on our part and not the author's".
But why would it imply a failure on either side in the first place? Oak's words echoed... There's a time and place for everything. If someone "submits" something completely unrelated and gets rejected, does it mean there is a failure on the part of the person regarding the making of the contents itself? Of course not. A rejection simply means the two (or more) sides don't fit due to factors, and that's perfectly fine. Regarding future rule changes, I actually think this arguably qualifies for Standard if the requirement of clean SRAM is removed, but until that happens, there is no reason for the current rules to not apply. It wouldn't hurt to wait until then to re-judge it, and/or set this one to Delayed if the change in question that can reach such result is expected to happen very soon.
Samsara
She/They
Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2241)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Fortranm wrote:
Samsara wrote:
This is one of those runs that triggers my feeling of "If we reject this, then that's a failure on our part and not the author's".
But why would it imply a failure on either side in the first place?
Maybe "failure" is too strong of a word, but it's definitely not a success. Like I said, there is no logical reason for us to reject this. The goal choice makes perfect sense, there's a high level of optimization, and people find the run very entertaining. Anything outside of that should not matter. The only reason it matters right now is because we're waiting on the opportunity and the feedback to be able to change.
If someone "submits" something completely unrelated and gets rejected, does it mean there is a failure on the part of the person regarding the making of the contents itself? Of course not. A rejection simply means the two (or more) sides don't fit due to factors, and that's perfectly fine.
In cases of things like unfixable sync issues and poor optimization, yes, rejection is perfectly fine, but for a movie where the only thing """wrong""" is that we don't currently account for the goal choice, it's unacceptable to me to outright reject it. A rejection in this case can only send a negative message: "You did great, people love your run, and there's nothing wrong with your category, but we still can't accept it. Tough luck." I've always made it a point with rejections like these in the past to say that the rules can and likely will change to be able to account for these movies, but the fact of the matter remains that these rejections just shouldn't be happening in the first place. I've said it before: If we reject a movie, everybody involved should understand the reasoning. Not just us, but the author and the audience as well.
Regarding future rule changes, I actually think this might qualify for Standard if the requirement of clean SRAM is removed, but until that happens, there is no reason for the current rules to not apply. It wouldn't hurt to wait until then to re-judge it, and/or set this one to Delayed if the change in question that can reach such result is expected to happen very soon.
I'm in the process of drafting up a proposal for allowing SRAM-anchored movies as standard, as it's something that I've seen people asking for, and a change I want to happen myself. I just don't think a movie should have to remain unjudged on the workbench for potentially weeks or months because a change is waiting for community feedback and consensus that might not be coming in immediately. I do agree that I'd much rather see this delayed than rejected, but ideally it shouldn't have to come to either.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1255)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11495
Location: Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg
An important question is: why does the goal make sense? I think it makes sense because it fully relies on in-game options (not just settings but modes). NG+ is one of them, character choice is another. If 2 movies that are entertaining and similar don't have the difference in those in-game options, I'm not ready to accept them to Moons. Rejection would indeed feel discouraging IMO. We can cancel it for now and then uncancel and rejudge when the rules are updated. And I'd still want to look at a rule draft before doing anything with this movie, because I need to understand what kind of direction we want to be going with movies like this. It's not only about save anchor, but also about character choice on top of that. Simon's rating is rather solid, even though feedback in the submission thread mentioned that it still looked repetitive, just short enough not to get bored. I think this movie looks crazier. Is there a way to play some other mode as Simon? What are people's opinions on obsoleting Simon? Personally I think, if we're going for Simon as a separate branch, he really needs to do something different to showcase why he's a great char. Ideally he would avoid this spam attack, so some tactics could be involved and the spirit of the original game could shine. Then it would make perfect sense to have him as a separate movie by regular Moons principles. Until then, I would obsolete Simon.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Editor, Reviewer, Skilled player (1361)
Joined: 9/12/2016
Posts: 1646
Location: Italy
feos wrote:
Simon's rating is rather solid, even though feedback in the submission thread mentioned that it still looked repetitive, just short enough not to get bored. I think this movie looks crazier. Is there a way to play some other mode as Simon? What are people's opinions on obsoleting Simon? Personally I think, if we're going for Simon as a separate branch, he really needs to do something different to showcase why he's a great char. Ideally he would avoid this spam attack, so some tactics could be involved and the spirit of the original game could shine. Then it would make perfect sense to have him as a separate movie by regular Moons principles. Until then, I would obsolete Simon.
My first thought after watching this movie is that it should obsolete the Simon movie. The two movies are similar, however this submission is both faster and (in my opinion) more entertaining.
my personal page - my YouTube channel - my GitHub - my Discord: thunderaxe31 <Masterjun> if you look at the "NES" in a weird angle, it actually clearly says "GBA"
Editor, Skilled player (1441)
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2113
The execution of the run looks excellent, but I am also not sure what separates the run from the existing branches. There's plenty of other movies that showcase Juste's crazy movement, which are also much less monotonous since it isn't the same room over and over. The damage stacking is also present in every other branch. I would personally lean against this obsoleting 2455M, as the Simon Boss Rush shows off more unique things from to the other branches compared to this one. I'll admit I haven't done a very good job at keeping up with the changes to the site's rules, so my understanding may be way outdated, but if we want to limit the number of categories for a game, I honestly don't think this run shows enough unique things compared to the other runs. The technical quality of the run looked great, and it is really cool to see just how fast the Boss Rush can be beaten, but if we just have one, I'd honestly much rather keep the Simon run.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15628
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4636] GBA Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance "Juste, Boss Rush, Hard" by Tarion in 05:01.34