SOTN/Alucard Any% NSC
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.
Contents
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) and does so BEFORE the start of the fight, Alucard will start with a Neutron Bomb. - If Richter dies and gets revived by Maria, Alucard will start with a Potion. This is not something we want to do, particularly due to this making Alucard's starting stats weaker. - If Richter ends the fight with the Cross (rather than Holy Water), Alucard will start with an extra 5 MP. - Alucard will start the game with 80, 75, or 70 HP. If Richter defeats Dracula without taking any damage, Alucard starts with 80. Taking more damage will lead to less starting health, so we want to avoid taking damage. - If Dracula is defeated in under 42 seconds, Alucard will have stronger stats to begin with. This is convenient because we want to go fast in our speedrun anyway.
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.
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