About This Run

The main goal of this run was to get everything in the game (100% completion) as fast as possible. Getting all the items (even though I don't use most of them) is necessary to acheive the "good" ending, and also makes for a more entertaining video, I believe. My main chances to shine were during boss fights. The bosses in this game are (for the most part) highly manipulatable, making many of the normally frustrating bosses look extremely simple.
This is 2212 frames (or about 37 seconds) faster than my previously submitted run, which I cancelled due to the fact that I could spot large costly mistakes even after submitting it. Improvements cover a broad range of techniques and route changes, as well as movement optimization and me not being stupid.
  • Aims for fastest possible time.
  • Items: 100%
  • Takes damage to save time.
  • Uses death as a shortcut.
  • Abuses programming errors in the game.
  • Manipulates luck.
  • Genre: Platform.

Sync Settings:

  • Use WIP1 Timing: ON
  • Allow Left+Right / Up+Down: ON
  • Volume Envelope Height Reading: OFF
  • Fake Mute desync workaround: ON
  • Sync samples with sound CPU: OFF
  • I used the modified version of SNES9x with reset recording to record this particular run. Other versions of SNES9x that support the smv should run it fine though, since I don't use the reset feature.

The Run

Level 1

  • Hippogriff 1 is manipulated by headbutting him a few frames late. This causes him to die near the ground, saving time.
  • The extra jump from the floating platform is used to manipulate a later platform to come sooner. Killing the spider soon after is also necessary to manipulate the one above it.
  • Arma 1 is manipulated by hesitating before entering the boss screen, so that he dies on the ground, saving time.

Level 2

  • From this point out, I try to use the Ground Gargoyle as much as possible to get through areas quickly. Jumping at the end of the dash extends the dash quite a bit, hence all the dash-jumping.
  • It seems to be impossible to dash back through the water after collecting the vial, seeing as I don't have quite enough vitality. There is a very good reason why I don't come back for the vial when I have more vitality (i.e. on the second and third runs through the level), but it's a long explanation involving having enough vitality to mitigate the lag in the first underground area, which is important.
  • Speaking of the first underground area, this is my best attempt at lag reduction. Though I do get hit a lot, and the dashing is jerky, it still ends up being considerably faster than just killing all the enemies as you see them.
  • Ovnunu's slime passage is a lag fest--unless you collect the vitality as early as possible and stay off the walls and in the slime.
  • You'll notice that Ovnunu "pulses" within his slime. He "checks" to see if his mini-eyeballs are dead every once in a while, which means there's a frame rule on when he comes out of the slime himself. I can't seem to kill the mini-eyes fast enough for him to come out after the third "Ovnulation Cycle" (an endearing term coined by Dromiceius). This would save a lot of time if it could be broken (about 130 frames).
  • On the third run through the level, you may notice that I don't just die to exit the level. The reason is that the very thing I came here for (the life extension) would bring me to full health. I tried several ways of dying while collecting it, but the game just won't let you do it on the same frame. So I just walk out of the level by entering the boss room.

Level 4

  • The horizontal section is quite windy, in case one is wondering why I'm able to fly so fast. Same goes for the large outdoor vertical section, except the wind is blowing up this time, aiding my jumps up the wall.
  • Right before entering the room with the three statues and the Crown talisman, you may notice I get snagged on the door. This is on purpose and saves time (for some unknown reason).
  • Arma 2 gets caught in a loop, but to do this, I had to tweak my shots a little (which is why they look unoptimized). The loop is necessary so that he stays near the ground half the time, where the Ground Gargoyle shots do 2X damage.

Level 3

  • Even though the Aerial Goyle can snap those vines, I use Ground because he's still faster.
  • Dying at the boss is necessary to burn the canopy prematurely so that I can collect that Life thingy that was inaccessible before.
  • Killing the boss while I was inside him saved a huge chunk of time. This is because the item falls on top of me, and I'd otherwise have to wait quite a while before I could walk over and pick it up.

Level 6

  • I could have flown to the right until I exited the area after collecting the first Vial, but it was pretty boring up there in the sky. I sacrifice a few frames and take the ground route, which is more entertaining.
  • I jump around a lot in this level instead of walking because the ground has slippery properties, wasting frames if you try to walk on it.
  • The dark room is the Desync Room of Death. Just thought I'd let everyone know that I hate it.
  • Shots aren't optimized at the very end of the Arma 3 battle so that I can get him to the ground before he dies.
  • The odd sliding through the air right before I fight Grewon is partly for entertainment value, though it's also faster for some reason.

Level 1

Just backtracking to pick up a few items.

Head-Butt Mini Game

Looks easy, but is actually quite difficult in real time. I manipulated the skulls to appear on the bottom two rows only. I'm quite pleased with how this came out on this run.

Level 5

  • When Crawler (the pile of puke or whatever) falls down from the ceiling, you're supposed to run away from him to the right and wait for him to transform. You're also supposed to return later and head up into the area that he falls from to get a Life Vessel. I do neither and simply walk through him, which saves me from returning to the area later, and also saves me the hassle of waiting for Crawler to reach the boss area and transform.
  • The aquatic parts of this level were the hardest to optimize, especially the areas where I had to continuously avoid spikes, destroy blocks, and kill the swimmy guys. The parts where I touch spikes or otherwise get hurt are to better position myself to eliminate as much as possible on the screen to reduce lag, which is a plague in this level. It's also necessary to space out your shots, even though it slows you down, since firing too many at once causes horrible lag.
  • Switching to Legendary Gargoyle during the Holothurion fight (the snail) is faster, despite the fact I am slowly drowning. Also, his invincibility times after he gets hit vary wildly for no reason whatsoever, which is why I can hit him at odd times.

Level 3

Not much to say about this section, really. It's as easy as it looks, even for the casual player, including the pathetic boss.

Final Level

  • When I ring the bell, it takes forever for the Life Extension to fall out, hence me falling back down and messing around.
  • I never thought I'd actually use the Claw shot in this run, but it proved itself invaluable in the horizontal wind section, especially when I realized that I can stand on top of the goo in addition to using it normally to latch on to.
  • Annoyingly enough, Phalanx is one pixel out of reach, forcing me to switch to Aerial Gargoyle, fly up, and switch back to Legendary. Phalanx's third form is amazingly brutal for the casual player. It's stupidly simple in this movie. I fly to the left towards the end to end input sooner.

The one minor glitch

If left and right on the control pad are held down while firing, Firebrand will shoot a fireball to the right, but it comes out of the back of his head rather than his mouth. I use this a lot to kill enemies that are behind me, and to manipulate bosses into positions I normally wouldn't be able to. This is especially valuable in the Holothurion fight.

Special Thanks

Zurreco for various suggestions and his 100% route
Mechuyael for various suggestions
Dromiceius

Suggested Screenshot


NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. Here goes! Feel free to clean up the list.

Truncated: Some small possible improvements have been mentioned, but nothing that I feel keeps this run from getting accepted.


Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA
Adelikat, you forgot the first 'r' in electrospecter in the filename. The subtitled version is correct though. Level 4 Snagging the door might be faster in a corner boosting manner, as a hypothesis. Level 6 Amused that you got a cheap pre-fight shot at Arma. And by the silly entry into the Grewon fight. Level 5 This music seems like it's trying to be Castlevania music crossed with the MM7 Ghouls'n'Ghosts Shade Man music. (T?)Water Gargoyle should've had multiple swim animations for the directions like Air did, minor ding on the game for that. Level 3(revisit) Legendary(time) Gargoyle. Wouldn't Ground be faster? Or even Air to cut a quicker path? Final Level After the bell-ring, it looks to me like you'd have a faster time with air or ground, again. Miscellaneous Does the normal form have unlimited hover time? Time crest = half-damage? Huh? Odd. And the ending claims it allows you to go into the past, and it doesn't let you? Meh. The back-upwards motion(frame ~71750 for one example) in Air Gargoyle form looks fast, faster than the forward flight. Is it sustainable? Did you test it as a form of general movement? "Flier"? Come ON, Capcom. You can give that boss a better name...though that one also seems to be of Castlevania vintage. and "Hippogriff"? ...argh, mangling mythological creatures! Did you consider buying either the warp-to-map and warp-to-level beginning potions in any quantities? It does look like your route is quite good at not needing them/being able to use them, but it's something to think about. This game has good visuals (if laggy) and fair-to-good music. I kinda wish I had the cartGame Pak. Overall a great run.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
The normal form does have unlimited hover time. This game controls where you can go by only unlocking new levels after you've finished previous ones, instead of (as in the Gargoyle's Quest games) having bridges that are impassable until you get a powerup. Buying any potions or scrolls is a pretty lengthy process (probably on the order of 15-20 seconds assuming you're already in town). Of course, while you were there you could also get an attack spell or two, which might make some boss fights faster. I think it'd've been worthwhile to add the bonus boss onto the end of your movie; you've done everything required to access him at that point, and I'd so dearly love to see him die. Plus you'd get to show off the ultimate gargoyle.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Player (246)
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
eternaljwh wrote:
Snagging the door might be faster in a corner boosting manner, as a hypothesis.
I think it messes with Firebrand's hitbox, making it touch the hitbox of the door sooner...
eternaljwh wrote:
(T?)Water Gargoyle...
I think T. stands for Tidal
eternaljwh wrote:
Legendary(time) Gargoyle. Wouldn't Ground be faster? Or even Air to cut a quicker path?
I think the deal here is that the time saved with Ground Gargoyle would be canceled out by the fact that I would need to switch back to Buster or Legendary to break the blocks (both for the Vellum and the Life Extension).
eternaljwh wrote:
After the bell-ring, it looks to me like you'd have a faster time with air or ground, again.
The area that I use Claw shot? In that case, it's faster to be regular Firebrand, since he gets the wind speed bonus, and Aerial (for some reason) does not. If you're talking about the mummy area, I don't know, I had it in my notes to not switch to Ground, probably because of that large wall with spikes. I don't think he can dash jump over that. Aerial would be a waste of time in this section, causing me to make an unnecessary switcheroo.
eternaljwh wrote:
The back-upwards motion(frame ~71750 for one example) in Air Gargoyle form looks fast, faster than the forward flight. Is it sustainable? Did you test it as a form of general movement?
Gosh, I don't know... I'll have to look into this.
eternaljwh wrote:
Did you consider buying either the warp-to-map and warp-to-level beginning potions in any quantities? It does look like your route is quite good at not needing them/being able to use them, but it's something to think about.
I will consider this if I do another run... I can't remember where the Death spells are (OHK the Fliers) but I have a bad feeling they're not available in town. And the potions are in a separate shop than the spells, so I can't buy them all in one trip.
Derakon wrote:
I think it'd've been worthwhile to add the bonus boss onto the end of your movie; you've done everything required to access him at that point, and I'd so dearly love to see him die. Plus you'd get to show off the ultimate gargoyle.
Yeah, there's quite a demand for DD. I'll admit that I was surprised, but I promise to tackle him if / when I redo this run. Anyway, I don't want to sound impatient, but I also wanted to bring to the attention of a publisher that I recommended a screenshot and submission text above. Not sure if that flew under the radar or not. I apologize if it's being worked on.
Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA
Yeah, I watched the pause menus in frame advance and it's Tidal Gargoyle. Hmm...the Death Spell OHKOing Flier would be nice. HOWEVER! It costs 100gp, so you'd need to up luck a lot. (And/or equip the crown instead of hand sometimes) I have a sinking feeling that that backwing is merely what happens if you turn around going up and only happens for one motion equivalent, but I haven't tried it (Haven't got things in the right places atm) Just as theory it could be that you fly backward for that much, then press the other direction for a frame or few to cancel turnaround, but I'm purely speculating now... Aerial Gargoyle doesn't get wind bonus? Huh. I'll recheck the run segment I meant, though I think it was the room immediately after the bell. Room with mummies slumping out of coffins. And yes, seeing the last bonus boss would be apropos as else you are kind of skimping on 100%... DKC2 full complete (102% was it?) had to go past credits once... And the Ultimate Gargoyle.
Player (246)
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
Posting this message elsewhere
Joined: 4/3/2008
Posts: 2
Location: Brazil
From the first time I've visited this site I've wanted do watch a Demon's Crest speedrun. Finally I can, and a 100% one :D. I really enjoyed the battle with that flying eye, plus, the flashing animation and the 'drown' into his slime at the end. "- Pre-emptted strike! Eat that, Arma! XD " [2] That battle was pretty cool too.
[code:1] ___ {o,o} |)__) -"-"- O RLY?[/code:1]
Joined: 5/30/2007
Posts: 324
I consider "Demon's Crest" one of the two greatest games ever made, (seriously) so I'm happy to finally see a published speedrun on here. As for the Dark Demon, defeating him wouldn't be particularly difficult for a TAS, but as mentioned earlier, manipulating the password would be an absolute horror. A lot of neat moments in the run for fans of the game. Edit Haven't looked into it too deeply, but it does seem that Ground Gargoyle would be faster than Legendary on the first part of the final stage, and it might have made sense to quickly switch to Tidal Gargoyle for hidden area in the forest.
Skilled player (1417)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
IronSlayer wrote:
As for the Dark Demon, defeating him wouldn't be particularly difficult for a TAS, but as mentioned earlier, manipulating the password would be an absolute horror.
I shared this with Specter on IRC a few months ago, but here you go. It actually wasn't too bad, about 20 minutes of route optimizing. Although I do agree tackling him would be fairly easy (once you get to his second form, anyway), but would be quite boring to watch. I did some loose tool assistance on him in my spare time (50%, save spamming, but no movie), and I took him down before he got out of his his Angel of Death form. It would just be a minute or two of dodging some easily dodged rocks. :(
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Joined: 5/30/2007
Posts: 324
Ferret Warlord wrote:
I shared this with Specter on IRC a few months ago, but here you go. It actually wasn't too bad, about 20 minutes of route optimizing. Although I do agree tackling him would be fairly easy (once you get to his second form, anyway), but would be quite boring to watch. I did some loose tool assistance on him in my spare time (50%, save spamming, but no movie), and I took him down before he got out of his his Angel of Death form. It would just be a minute or two of dodging some easily dodged rocks. :(
Yeah, that's essentially what I imagined it to be. The entertainment of the Demon's Crest speedrun really isn't in any visually amazing element, but rather, how different and unusual it is compared to a normal playthrough.
Post subject: hidden last boss?
Joined: 4/18/2010
Posts: 1
Location: colorado
why no hidden last boss?