Castlevania Symphony of the Night
	posted Sunday, August 20, 2006

This is a full-game speedrun of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, using Alucard. Both castles are completed, there's no Crissaegrim, no Shield Rod, no glitches, and no saves.

Someone once asked me what the hardest part of doing a speedrun is. If you don't have much speedrunning experience, I would say the hardest part is learning how to think like a speedrunner; learning how to demand perfection and learning just what it takes to get it done, and what doesn't really need to be done or collected, etc. Otherwise, the hardest part would probably be not getting sick of the game you're trying to speedrun. There's an old cliche gamers like to throw around about their favorite games: "I never get tired of it." Well, speedrunning will definitely put that statement to the test, because in doing runs on other games, it got to the point where I couldn't stand the thought of playing one of my favorite games anymore. It doesn't help that I don't care for segmented runs, either.

In the Spring of 2005, I took second place in a massive contest on GameFAQs, earning $250. When I received the money in September that year, one of the first games I bought was Symphony of the Night, and it became an instant favorite of mine. It is truly a game that I never get tired of. Even now I could play SOTN and still be entertained and interested in it. There's no reason anyone should not have this amazing game.

You'll find I backdash practically through the entire first castle, as it's the fastest way that Alucard can move at first. Once I get the Soul of Bat, I'll also use Wing Smashes to get past enemies and to get through a long corridor quickly. If there's a moment in the run where it looks like I could get a Wing Smash in, yet I elect not to, it doesn't mean I just missed it; it means I'm saving my MP for a tough stretch later in the game, or for MP-intensive acts, like using the Soul of Mist at a certain point.

I use two sequence breaks in this run. I get the Souls of Mist and Bat before the Leap Stone, and I skip the Spike Breaker armor altogether. At the ten minute mark, I use a trick involving the Soul of Wolf to bounce off of a torch in the Clock Room up into Olrox's Quarters, and then I do a similar trick to get to the Soul of Bat in the Long Library. As for the Spike Breaker, it's purpose is to let you get past a supposedly impassible hallway riddled with spikes and a magically sealed door, but it's possible to fly to the door at the end of the hall with the Soul of Bat, return to normal form, and use a potion before touching the spikes on the floor. Whenever you use a potion in SOTN, you get a brief period of invincibility, and the spikes are no exception, allowing Alucard enough time to stand on the spikes unharmed, and open the sealed door. It really isn't a glitch; it's a programmer's oversight, if that trick was unintended anyway.

Very few hits were taken in the run, and most of them were simply from getting carried away and trying to go too fast. For example, trying to get an extra backdash in while closing in on an enemy, only to run into the enemy. When I realized that I was taking unnecessary hits over fractions of seconds, I calmed down and paced myself better.

The boss fights are very quick and efficient. I'm happy with just about all of them. Oddly enough, the only one I'm not pleased with is the battle against Dracula, in the intro stage. I took no damage, but a trick I wanted to use didn't work out. After using a Hydro Storm on Dracula's second form, if you stand just the right distance away from him, and nail him with Holy Water and the Whip, he takes a massive amount of damage, and it's possible to kill him before he ever makes a move or gets off an attack, and it just looks like Dracula just gets ruined in the worst way. Unfortunately, that didn't happen here, so the battle lasted a few more seconds than usual. I'm not unhappy with the extra few seconds taken, just that it would have looked more impressive had the trick worked. :P

I stop at two save points to get my MP back, but I don't actually save and quit. In fact, I don't save at all, since my memory card was intentionally full. This was done so there will be no confusion about the validity of this single-segment run.

One thing I'm especially proud of is how hard I worked to find the optimal route. I ran many tests and timed many different routes through the game in order to determine which is the fastest. If someone comes up with a better route than the one I have produced here, I will be very surprised. But if I had to review the route, I would go back and run some more tests on the Holy Rod, to try and better determine if it's truly worth getting. I believe that's really the only iffy part about the route I take.

Overall, I'm very pleased with this run. The route and tricks I use are great. The execution was exceptional, the boss fights were quick and entertaining. Thanks to Persona; his video introduced me to the "wolf stomping" trick. Thanks to Enhasa for convincing me to run some tests on the trick and see if it was worth using. It sure was. Thanks to CJayC for the funds to buy this game. Thanks to MegaPowerNinja for lending me a PS1. >_>

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