RNG manipulation

Both the Playstation and the Saturn version of SOTN use the Evil RNG to determine item drops
Evil RNG advances every frame, whether the player does anything or not, making it virtually impossible for a human to manipulate item drops

Sega Saturn

On Saturn, the Evil RNG resets to the same starting value whenever you load a save file, meaning it is theoretically possible to manipulate rare drops near save rooms

There is a save room near the first Black Panther you encounter in the Alucard Any% Saturn route, and the Black Panther's rare drop is a very powerful weapon called the Masamune
In Alucard Any% Saturn, a lucky drop of the Masamune can save minutes off of a run
Normally, the Masamune has a roughly 1 in 300 chance of dropping from a Black Panther
With the manipulation, it instead becomes a frame-perfect trick with the right setup
The setup involves performing the following steps

Make sure Alucard's XP is not such that killing a single Balloon Pod would cause him to level
Create an Alucard Save file in the save room near Medusa
Restart the game by pressing START+A+B+C
Load that save file
While the "Now Loading" animation is playing, begin holding RIGHT
As Alucard approaches the ledge leading out of the save room, JUMP at a medium height such that you are not slowed down by colliding with either corner of the geometry
When Alucard leaves the save room, as the screen turns black, let go of all other inputs and hold BAT to buffer a Bat transform when the next screen loads
Let Alucard transform into bat and float into position naturally
Use the audio cue and visual cue to time when you perform a wingsmash
- Audio cue: Begin your wingsmash input before the 5th note of the song plays, releasing just after the 5th note begins
- Visual cue: Begin your wingsmash input as the cluster of clouds coming down the left side reaches the corner of the stone wall
Let Alucard fly straight to the right, killing both the Balloon Pod and Black Panther

Right around the correct frames is a cluster of item drops and critical hits that you can use to tell if you are close
- A $50 Bag means you were 1 frame off
- A crit on the Black Panther means you were 2 frames off
NOTE: Alucard's Luck stat does not ultimately matter for this setup
NOTE: Killing the Balloon Pod gives you 2 frames (exactly 4 frames apart from one another) that will yield a Masamune drop instead of just 1 frame, possibly due to a fortunate interaction involving crits on the Balloon Pod consuming some of the RNG