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Alucard Any% NSC (No Save Corruption) is the most popular speedrunning category for Symphony of the Night. It is well balanced and a good choice for first category to learn. There is only one route, but it contains some advanced and safer strategies runners can choose from.
Symphony of the Night has a Save Feature and requires you to create a new Save File every time you start a new game. You obtain a Clear File by beating the game and keeping the Save File from that game on your Memory Card. Having a Clear File is important for speedrunning the game as it allows you to skip dialogs and cutscenes throughout the game, saving roughly 8 minutes of time during the course of a run. Once you have a Clear File, you should not delete it.
The easiest way to obtain a Clear File for someone new to speedrunning this game is to use a slightly-modified route from the standard Any% NSC route. Before you begin, you should familiarize yourself with one of these routes, and understand how to perform [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Death Skip|Death Skip]], [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Richter Skip|Richter Skip]], and [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Relic Skip|Relic Skip]]. Of these, the only skip that can't be practiced or learned efficiently during the run itself is [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Death Skip|Death Skip]], as there are no Save Rooms prior to it and you only get one shot at it per run. Therefore, you should start out familiarizing yourself with the visual cues for [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Death Skip|Death Skip]], in particular.
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(00:31) During the Prologue, as Richter, your goal is to gather at least 41 Hearts, then enter the throne room to trigger the fight with Dracula. If you grab 45 Hearts, you will have enough to use three Item Crashes with the Holy Water, which is enough to destroy Dracula in both his forms combined with hitting him with your whip.
(04:21) After the Prologue, as Alucard, your first goal is to execute the [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Neutron Bomb Death Skip|Neutron Bomb [[Death Skip]]. Next, grab the Cube of Zoe, defeat Slogra and Gaibon, and proceed to the Marble Gallery. From there, you will continue on to the fight with Doppelganger, and then activate the elevator in the Outer Wall and grab the Soul of Wolf Relic. Then, return to the Clock Room, and use the Wolf transform to jump off the candle and reach the left pathway once the Statue is no longer in the way.
(15:38) Once you reach Olrox's Quarters, find the secret wall to the right of the Spectral Sword and break it open with your sword and enter the room. Inside that room, break open the middle vase to acquire an Onyx. Return to the room with the Spectral Sword, then proceed onto the Colosseum, and obtain the Shield Rod. The enemies in the Shield Rod room can be a tad difficult to deal with, so take your time making your way through them.
(23:19) Fly across the chasm leading towards the Clock Tower. This upcoming section has lots of Harpies and Medusa Heads in a relatively small area, which can prove difficult to deal with. Before entering this area, it is a good idea to have a Stopwatch and plenty of Hearts so that you can freeze everything in the room when needed and maneuver around them. The Shield Rod spell is also effective against the Sword Lords in the next section and will help you kill Karasuman very quickly. Once Karasuman is defeated, move on to the Castle Keep area.
(24:53) Once in the Castle Keep, it is a good idea to save in the nearby Save Room while you prepare to execute [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Richter Skip|Richter Skip]]. This glitch can be very difficult to pull off at first, but you can retry indefinitely, and with the nearby Save Room, you can always return to your save file at this point to practice it until you get a feel for it. Once you have confirmation that the glitch worked (you will be able to freely move the camera up and down while in the hallway leading to the Throne Room, allowing you to see clouds up above when jumping), move on to the Throne Room to activate the cutscene with Richter. Due to the glitch, you will get the cutscene associated with saving Richter, and you will be permitted to move onto the Inverted Castle after the cutscene is finished.
(26:38) When you arrive in the Inverted Castle, proceed to the left and fly up until you reach the long hallway with Tombstones. These Tombstones can be tricky to deal with, but a safe strategy is to have the Shield Rod spell active, stop just before a Tombstone and wait for them to hop into you with your shield out. Make your way to the fight with Medusa and dispatch her quickly with your Shield. Continue onward to the portion of the Anti-Chapel filled with Imps and Snipers of Goth.
(30:09) The Minotaurs and Werewolves in the Reverse Colosseum deal a lot of damage, so it is important that you take care not to get hit. Make your way to the next section as safely as you can, and once you are there, you will immediately fly up and past an Azaghal (a ghost swordsman), then zig-zag upward in the next area until making it to the Black Marble Gallery. Once there, proceed to the right into the room with Giants, (if you stay high up near the ceiling, you can safely fly over the giants) and fly up above the room with a Gorgon and 3 Jack O' Bones.
(32:25) Now that you are in the room where you will perform the [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Relic Skip|Relic Skip]], take the opportunity to save in the room just to the left of here. Since this route does not involve getting the Duplicator, you will only have one Heart Refresh to use for the skip, so if you fail, you will want to reload from your last save to try again. If you are uncomfortable with Wing Smashes, when you are in the ceiling heading left after the skip, fly until you are just past the middle, bronze grandfather clock. Stop here, and do exactly one Wing Smash and then immediately hold up and left while tapping jump repeatedly. From that spot, the single Wing Smash should be enough to carry you to about the right spot. Do not stop tapping jump until you wind up in the other Save Room above the ceiling. From here, take the elevator upward into the area where you will fight Shaft and then Dracula.
(33:53) With the Shield Rod and Alucard Shield equipped, all you really need to do to defeat Shaft and Dracula is hold out your shield while repeatedly jumping into them. Shaft can be beaten in under a second with this method, and Dracula can be beaten in under 5 seconds. Once you have defeated Dracula, you should have a Clear File, and in all future runs you will be able to skip the cutscenes.
= Standard Route =
The standard route requires knowledge of how to perform the following glitches: [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Death Skip|Death Skip]], Faerie Card Shop Glitch, [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Death Skip|Richter Skip]], and [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Relic Skip|Relic Skip]]. You collect the following Relics, listed in order: Cube of Zoe, Form of Wolf, Form of Mist, Faerie Card, and Soul of Bat.
== Prologue ==
== Death Skip ==
After the Prologue, and for the remainder of the game, you play as Alucard. A few rooms into the run, you will come across a section where the game tries to force you into a cutscene with the Grim Reaper (also known as Death), who steals your starting equipment. It is possible, however, to execute a glitch known as a [[Reverse Shift Line]] to skip this cutscene and keep all of your starting equipment, which is some of the strongest equipment in the game. This glitch is known as [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Death Skip|Death Skip]], and executing it is vital for continuing on in the run.
[[File:SOTNDeathSkipMapBuffer.png | 280px]]