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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, (see the map slideshow below for one such example) and understand how to perform [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Death SkipDeath_Skip|Death Skip]], [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Richter SkipRichter_Skip|Richter Skip]], and [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Relic SkipRelic_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 SkipDeath_Skip|Death Skip]], in particular.
{{#ev:youtube|youtu.be/-COit1FH7Kc|480}}
(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 SkipNeutron_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 SkipRichter_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 SkipRelic_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 SkipDeath_Skip|Death Skip]], Faerie Card Shop Glitch, [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Death SkipDeath_Skip|Richter Skip]], and [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Relic SkipRelic_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 ==
From the moment you gain control of Richter in the Prologue, the game has an internal timer used to determine whether or not the statue in the upper-left corner of the Clock Room is blocking your path. On odd minutes (say, 7:00 through 7:59 or 9:00 through 9:59), the statue will be blocking your path. On even minutes (say, 8:00 through 8:59 or 10:00 through 10:59), the statue will be out of the way and the path will be open. This internal timer is not the same as your real-time timer used during a speedrun, as time spent in menus or looking at the map does not count towards the internal timer. However, if you spend little time looking at your map or in the menu, they will be close.
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. If you execute the [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Death SkipDeath_Skip|Death Skip]] glitch, however, you can bypass this cutscene and keep all of your starting equipment, which is some of the strongest equipment in the game.
During the Clock Rush section, the goal is to make your way to the Outer Wall and obtain the Form of Wolf Relic from the elevator shaft, use a wolf stair jump to reach a vase on a high-up ledge and break it to get a Garnet, and return to the Clock Room while the path is open. If you reach the Clock Room while the path is closed, you will be forced to wait until the statue moves out of the way to progress. For example, if you arrive at the Clock Room when the internal timer is at 7:50, you will have to wait 10 more seconds before the path opens up.
*Purchase a Manna Prism
*Purchase 2 Buffalo Stars
*Purchase a Library Card (optional if you are attempting the [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Wolf_Floor_Clip|Wolf Floor Clip]])
*Purchase the Duplicator
*Obtain the Soul of Bat Relic
Leave the shop, heading to the right back to the stairwell with Books. Execute a wolf jump on the stairs to take the lower of the two paths on high-up ledges above the stairwell. This path will lead you to a fight with Lesser Demon and, eventually, the Soul of Bat Relic, which is behind a Gate that you must use Form of Mist to get through.
Once you have the Soul of Bat, leave the Library as quickly as possible and make your way to the Outer Wall. The easier method is to teleport back near the shop using a Library Card, then proceed to Wing Smash your way to the Outer Wall. The much more difficult method is to execute the [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Wolf_Floor_Clip|Wolf Floor Clip]]. Whichever method you execute, once you find yourself at the Outer Wall, take the elevator to the top, then continue upward until you reach the entrance to the Clock Tower.
== Clock Tower & Richter Skip ==
At the start of this section, you will transform into Bat and Wing Smash your way across the large chasm. This next section is filled with spawning Medusa heads and Harpies throwing knives at you, so precise movement is critical to avoid getting hit while you make your way to the section with the Sword Lords. Navigate between the broken stairs and make your way toward Karasuman. After killing Karasuman with Buffalo Stars, move left into the Castle Keep section.
The Castle Keep section is the same section as from the Prologue with Richter, except now the staircase has fallen into ruin, leaving a gap you must fly over to enter the section where you will encounter the fight with Richter. During a normal playthrough of the game, you are expected to have the Holy Glasses at this point if you wish to be able to proceed to the Inverted Castle. In this category, however, the fastest routes all involve executing a glitch known as [[Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Richter SkipRichter_Skip|Richter Skip]] to avoid this check and proceed on to the Inverted Castle anyway.
== Inverted Castle ==
After you teleport into the Inverted Castle, transform into Bat. Almost the entirety of this section will be spent in Bat form and involves chaining Wing Smashes together in long hallways and precise bat movement around and through enemies as you make your way through the Route. Along the way, you will encounter a fight with Medusa. Medusa is one of the bosses that drops a Relic that would ordinarily be required to complete the game, but since we will be performing the [[Relic Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night:Glitches#Richter_Skip|Richter Skip]] in the upcoming section, there is no need to collect it.
After the fight with Medusa, make your way to the vertical section with Imp and Sniper of Goth enemies flying around. With precise Wing Smash movement, you can make your way through this section unscathed as you ascend and head toward the Reverse Colosseum.