[Former WR] Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - Magician Speedrun in 3:29
109Sup, this is the luckiest I'll ever be in my life. Been streaming the CV Advance collection cause the games are good. After playing cotm casually and getting all the cards, I learned the Magician run for the steam cheevo but it turned out to be incredibly fun. Banged out a 5 hour stream of attempts last night and this absolute miracle happened.
So in short, this run should probably not exist with only 53 attempts. Let me explain:
The run is done in the unlockable Magician mode because you start with all the cards, have a ton of MP, and it's ultimately the fastest way to beat the game. The run starts with ~42 seconds of text mashing (J version saves time), then you start zipping by using the Apollo + Golem summon on the screen transition. This puts you in the ceiling. Doing the summon again will send you downward and if you hit the right spot of the door you'll go through, do that twice. Go off the right side of the screen and wiggle and drac's door will open. And THIS is where the casino opens.
Pluto + Black Dog turns Nathan into a skeleton. He takes 9999 damage and throws tiny bones that do 1 damage. But, there is a 1 in 8 chance to get the BIG bone. This is how you win. With the right positioning, a big bone can double hit drac 1, and he dies in 3 hits, so you gotta get the 1 in 8 twice to win. This is the worst split of my run, it's about 15 seconds off a near perfect gold I got earlier. Imperfect execution and bleh bone luck, 2/18. And yes, you have to watch Nathan level up 26 times for about 52 seconds. As a bonus I fat palmed the left trigger on my controller which opens the Advance Collection menu, thanks Konami, I'm a moron.
Dracula 2 is where it gets extra dumb. He can attack with bubbles, which is the worst because you have no chance to damage him. Meteors, which you can get a few attacks if you're courageous but ultimately need to use the Pluto + Unicorn invincibility combo to reliably live. And lasers, which is what you need and I get here. That allows you to just go ham. 4 bones to beat this phase.
HOWEVER, after 3 bones you need to do a little trick. By pausing directly after pressing B, before the bone comes out, and switching to Pluto + Unicorn, you'll get an "elemental" big bone that does double damage in this case. Dracula 2's two phases share a health pool. The goal here is to overkill phase 1 so you only have to hit phase 2 once. In this run phase 1 was essentially perfect. This was the only 1 cycle I ever got, and despite the bones being late into it, it doesn't matter because you have to wait for him to finish lasering anyway. First try on the elemental saved time too. Absolutely bonkers luck here, 4/13 bones were large.
Phase 2, when done correctly, is super quick. First he dashes across the screen 2 to 4 times, the luck continues as this run got the minimum. Then you get basically 1, MAYBE 2 elemental bone attempts at the eye before he flies away or directly into your face. Unbelievably I don't choke the inputs, get my fourth 1 in 8 in a row, and get the record by 10 seconds.
Drac' HP is 3,000. 450 + 450 + 450 + 900 (phase change) + 900 = dead
So it's an extremely fun and entertaining looking run. There's not THAT much gameplay or stuff you have lots of control over, but it has those really goofy factors like zips and a giant bone. I would do more runs of it, but I will absolutely never try to beat this time. There are many other longer/probably more interesting categories of course, but I don't have much interest.
In total I went 7 for 32 on big bones, which is beyond stupid when you factor in the 1 in 3 for lasers, and the (probably?) 1 in 3 for minimum dashes. First try on both elementals is nuts too, you lose a couple seconds every time you have to pause otherwise. I will never be luckier.
bonus: the commentary in this run is dumb as heck and is infinite foreshadowing flags.
=)
update: jupiter the god of castlevania beat this with an utterly ridiculous 3:18, basically on accident as well. this category is dope
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