Revision as of 16:42, 10 January 2019

This is the most popular 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.

Route

Prologue

In the Prologue, you play as Richter. Actions performed as Richter will determine the starting state of Alucard once the main game begins. These effects include:

- If the fight ends and Richter has 0 hearts, Alucard will start with a Heart Refresh in his inventory.
- If Richter gathers more than 40 hearts (41 or more), Alucard will start with a Neutron Bomb.
- If Richter dies and gets revived by Maria, Alucard will start with a Potion.
- If Richter ends the fight with the Cross (rather than Holy Water), Alucard will start with an extra 5 MP.
- Alucard seems to start the game with 70, 75, or 80 HP. This may be influenced by the Prologue.

In the Any% Run, we want the first two of these. Therefore, you will need to gather 11 hearts before the fight starts. This is accomplished by:

1. Launch up into the ceiling to the treasure room (the one that the staircase comes down from. Don't extend the staircase though; although no opening is visible, Richter can still go through the gap). With proper alignment, Richter will strike the candlestick to the right, gaining 5 hearts.

2. After falling back down from the ceiling, strike the first candlestick and the vase on the table, These will give you 1 and 5 hearts respectively, adding up to the 11 hearts you need to collect. From here, go fight Dracula. You have 2 Hydrostorms available, and 11 normal floor-throws. The majority of these floor-throws will be tossed off-screen, just to get rid of them. This fight should be pretty easy. You just need to make sure not to finish off Dracula until you're down to 0 hearts to ensure that you get the Heart Refresh.

Death Skip

In order to perform the Death Skip, a Reverse Shift Line is triggered in order to transfer Alucard to the opposite side of the Death room. This can be performed either with a Neutron Bomb (which should have been obtained from the Prologue) or with a spell (Summon Spirit or Tetra Spirit). The Neutron Bomb method is easier because it can be pause buffered but consumes the Neutron Bomb. The current top two speedruns each uses one of these methods, indicating that neither one is highly superior to the other. It is also possible to do a Heart Refresh Death Skip, but that method is not favored because it is desirable to save the Heart Refresh for use in the Relic Skip at the end of the run.

Tutorials for the Death Skip, courtesy of Turbodog702, can be found here:

Neutron Bomb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw2WbUl6Id0

Spell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-OVdDa6XvM

Clock Rush

The Clock Rush is the sequence where the player must go from Death's Chamber (after skipping him, of course), obtain the Form of Wolf, and return to the Clock Room. This is particularly complicated by the fact that, once returned to the Clock Room, the player will be entering the upper-left statue opening, which opens and closes on every minute. On even minutes, it is open, and on odd minutes, it is closed. For example, at 07:59 it will be closed, and at 08:00 it will open up. This timer appears to be identical to the in-game timer shown on the pause screen. Note, however, that this is NOT going to be the same as your speedrunning timer, because your speedrunning timer does not stop for anything, while the in-game timer that controls the clock room stops ticking whenever the game is paused or on the map screen, and possibly during loading screens. This means you can not simply rely on your speedrunning timer to tell you when the clock will open or close. The current top speedruns arrive back at the clock room around 07:50, meaning that they will be waiting around for 10 seconds until the clock opens at the 8:00 mark. It is important to understand that, because the clock will not open until 8:00, you could shave off up to 50 seconds from the beginning of your run with zero benefit. Arriving at 07:20 is no better than 07:50. For this reason, unless an alternative strategy can be found that is substantially better than the current strategy (or if the entire run is overhauled), it is unlikely that any changes or improvements will occur during the Clock Rush phase of the round. As long as you get to the clock before the 8 minute mark, no benefits will be found, unless someone can beat the 7 minute mark, which seems currently to be impossible.

Colosseum

After arriving at the clock and either finding the upper-left statue to be open, or waiting for it to open, Alucard must align with the left candle, jump above it, transform into Wolf, then untransform in midair, and dive-kick at the candle, bouncing off of it, and landing in the statue opening. This is the reason we needed to obtain the wolf - the untransform action causes Alucard to be able to dive-kick, an action that normally requires the Leap Stone. After entering this space, Alucard must then go to the Minotaur and Werewolf room, defeat them, and obtain the Form of Mist. From there, use the Library Card (obtained just prior to the boss battle) to teleport to the Library.

Library

Clock Tower & Castle Keep

Second Castle

Experience Route

• 3 zombies
• all 3 skeletons in the first room of alchemy lab
• one green axe lord in the spittlebone room

Slogra and Gaibon Double Kill

• all 3 flea men
• everything in the long hallway
• one blue axe knight
• fast route with sub 8 clock rush
  • kill everything in the outer wall
  • kill sword lord once
  • everything in the long hallway
• playstation / emulator route
  • skip blue axe knight and spear guard
  • everything in the long hallway
  • kill first blade master
  • everything in the long hallway

No Double Kill

• all 3 flea men
• fast route with sub 8 clock rush
  • everything in the long hallway
  • kill both blue axe knights
  • kill everything in the outer wall
  • kill sword lord once
  • everything in the long hallway
• playstation / emulator route
  • skip dipplos before dopple
  • skip both blue axe knights
  • skip blue axe knight and spear guard
  • kill all 3 bone muskets
  • everything in the long hallway
  • kill first blade master
  • everything in the long hallway

Record Progression

SOTN Record Progression#Alucard Any% No Save Corruption

Video Tutorials

• Turbo Tutorials: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Any% NSC
• Castlevania:SOTN any% skips compendium