SOTN/Death Skip

Death Skip

Death Skip is the first major glitch performed in several categories, including Alucard Any% NSC, and there are multiple known methods for performing it. It allows Alucard to keep his starting equipment, which the game ordinarily takes away from you when you first encounter Death. The Standard method of executing this trick uses the Neutron Bomb gained during the Prologue, and it and the other methods are detailed below.

Big Toss Death Skip

The only way to execute the Big Toss version of Death Skip in a typical run is to use Luck Mode (TODO: Provide information on Luck Mode).

TODO: Describe the Big Toss version of Death Skip

Lycan Death Skip (Randomizer Only)

TODO: Describe the Lycan version of Death Skip

Neutron Bomb Death Skip

Both this version and the Spell method described below rely on a Level Up animation as the trigger for a Reverse Shift Line. Alucard begins the game at Level 1 with 0 XP, and will first level up upon reaching 100 XP. The goal is to arrive at the room just before you first encounter Death having between 88 and 99 XP and with one last Warg to kill. Since you encounter 7 Wargs prior to this point, worth 12 XP each, all you need to do is kill between 1 and 3 Zombies (worth 5 XP each) from the room where they spawn to have the right amount of experience, assuming you kill all the Wargs you encounter along the way. Upon reaching the last Warg, allow it to charge at you right as you jump over it. Once it is on your left, you will hit the breakable block at the base of the stairs, revealing a Turkey. Move to the right until you are touching the edge of the stairs, and equip the Neutron Bomb. The next step requires careful timing, as you want to activate the Neutron Bomb at the exact moment you are walking to the left of a certain vertical line on the screen. Use pause buffering and knowledge of the visual cues to time it correctly. Once you see the Level Up animation start to play, hold down the Dash button until the animation finishes and Alucard dashes. If done correctly, all that remains is to walk to the right against the stair, do a full jump to the right, and enter the next room. If you timed it correctly, you should see a brief flicker as you enter the next room for a frame, then immediately are transported to the room after it. As you climb the stairs in the next room, and proceed to the room to the left at the top of the stairs, it is vital that you jump over the gap in that room and do not fall back down into the room where you would have encountered Death. Doing so will cause the game to go into a glitched state and will soft-lock you, ending the run.

Unbuffered with visual cue

When you press LEFT, you are trying to hold LEFT for exactly 5 or 6 frames (1/12 or 1/10 of a second). Instead of bringing up the map to confirm Alucard's position, you can instead let Alucard's foot come to rest on the floor (takes slightly less than half a second after you let go of LEFT). Alucard's frontmost foot has 3 light gray pixels that touch the floor. If either the right or middle gray pixel of Alucard's foot is resting above the dark gray vertical line in the stone texture of the floor, Alucard is in the correct position to map buffer or menu buffer the rest of the inputs (LEFT and ATTACK).

Common mistakes

If you activate the Neutron Bomb, and the Warg doesn't die, then the Warg was off-screen when the Neutron Bomb activated. Make sure you give the Warg enough time to be lured a little to the right after you jump over them.

If the Warg dies, but you don't see a Level Up animation, then you did not have the correct experience before killing the Warg. Make sure your XP value is in the range of 88 to 99 before you reach the final Warg.

If you get the Level Up animation, but you still do not get the skip upon entering Death's Room, make sure you are doing all of the following:

• Playing on the Playstation or XBox version of the game (some versions of the game do not have this method of Death Skip)

• Begin holding Dash while the Level Up animation is playing, and don't let go until after you see Alucard dash to the right

• Do a full jump to the right (hold RIGHT and JUMP and don't let go of either) over the stairs leading into Death's room (If you make contact with the stairs, it can alter Alucard's sub-pixel values and ruin the setup)

• Walk through the screen transition (do not attempt to Dash or Shield Dash through the screen transition)

If, after all this, you are still not getting the Death Skip to work, you may not be finding the right pixel position when starting the skip. Consult the above visual cues, or study the unbuffered with visual cue method listed above.

Spell Death Skip

TODO: Describe the Spell version of Death Skip

Wing Smash Death Skip (Randomizer Only)

TODO: Describe the Bat Master version of Death Skip