Revision as of 11:13, 23 August 2021

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. Your performance in this section affects your starting equipment and stats during the main game when you play as Alucard. Your primary goal in the Prologue is to beat Dracula while meeting the conditions necessary to give Alucard two items in his inventory at the start of the main game, the Neutron Bomb and the Heart Refresh:

- To acquire the Neutron Bomb for Alucard, Richter must have 41 or more hearts BEFORE the wine glass cutscene that triggers the fight with Dracula. Note that accessing the secret treasure room at the top of the stairs is required to be able to get this many hearts.
- To acquire the Heart Refresh for Alucard, Richter must have 0 hearts remaining by the time the photo burn cutscene begins after the fight with Dracula.

Richter begins the Prologue at the bottom of stairs that lead to an entrance room and Dracula's throne room.

At the top of the stairs, hidden in the ceiling, is a secret treasure room. The fastest way to gain access to it is to use Richter's uppercut move (Down, Up + Jump) while roughly halfway between the chandelier and the ledge. If you are in the correct position, Richter will pass through the ceiling and you will gain access to the secret treasure room without needing to lower the hidden staircase. If you are not in the correct position, you will collide with the ceiling instead. There is a candlestick containing 5 hearts on the right side of the hidden room that you will want to collect before dropping back down into the entrance room.

Once you are back in the entrance room, collect 6 more hearts from a candlestick and the vase. Along with the 30 hearts Richter starts the Prologue with, you should now be at 41 hearts.

Move to the left to enter the throne room and trigger the fight with Dracula (having 41 hearts at this point fulfills the condition for acquiring the Neutron Bomb for Alucard). During this fight, Dracula has two forms. In his first form, he will teleport and throw projectiles. The easiest way to defeat Dracula's first form is to get the Holy Water sub-weapon from the leftmost candlestick in the throne room and use your Item Crash (Triangle or Y) with the Holy Water to cast Hydro Storm.

After defeating Dracula's first form, he will transform into a large monster. In his second form, he jumps around while throwing projectiles. The easiest way to defeat him in this form is to use your Item Crash again while whipping him and throwing Holy Waters. Remember to use up all your hearts during this fight so that you end the fight with no hearts remaining to fulfill the condition for acquiring Heart Refresh for Alucard.

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.

The run-up to reach the Wolf and return to the clock doesn't have anything particularly special involved. It is essentially the developer-intended path. The biggest change to remember is to obtain the Garnet in the vase in the Outer Wall, using the newly-acquired Wolf form to jump off the stairs.

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

In the Library, there are three primary goals to accomplish.

1. Obtain Fairy Card

2. Perform Gem Duplication Glitch

3. Obtain Bat Card

After teleporting to the Library, be sure not to enter the Librarian's room. From there, run as wolf to the right, then run up the stairs and jump off, dive-kicking off the book at the top and reach the platform at the top with the fairy card. From there, go back to the librarian and perform the Gem Duplication Glitch. Get 550,000 gold, then purchase the following: Manna Prism, Buffalo Star (x2), Duplicator, and, optionally, Library Card. After exiting, equip the Duplicator, as well as the Manna Prism in your Sword hand, and one Buffalo Star in your Shield hand.

Now, go back out, halfway up the large stairs, and get onto the platform. Go through the doorway, and after the save room, you will find a large group of enemies. Activate your stopwatch, and jump into the gap behind the first pair of enemies. Jump again, and hit your Manna Prism in midair to get momentary invincibility as you land in the next small group. Jump over the last enemies and exit the room. Now, leave the room and go to the Lesser Demon. Blast him with Buffalo Stars, which should kill him extremely quickly. Go get the Soul of Bat, and then Exit the Library.

To Exit the Library, there are two methods. The first is to use the optional library card we may or may not have purchased from the Librarian. If you do this, you'll simply Wing Smash your way out of the Library.

The second method is faster, but much more difficult. If you go with this method, you will not need to purchase the Library Card from the Librarian. {PLEASE INSERT DESCRIPTION OF HOW TO PERFORM THE GLITCH HERE}

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
• How To Get World Record - Castlevania Symphony of the Night Any% Speedrun Tutorial