MiSTer FPGA - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - First Castle Rogue / PlayStation [BETA]
38It's the return of Count Shankula! Been close to 10 years since I last played through Symphony of the Night, before practicing a run on the new PSX core this past week. I decided to try and spice up the challenge by playing it rogue-style, with no saving. In this run I'm also playing on arcade stick and specializing in knives like a rogue class character. The quick rhythmic tapping is easier for me on stick, so I picked this specialization as it compliments the input device I'm using. No cheats or turbofire, with one savestate to skip the beginning video after deaths. All rooms are visited, and all secrets/items acquired.
With the vast amount of (often overpowered) gear you can find, it gives a lot of flexibility to choose how you want to approach the game. No real need for farming the best stuff really. So far I have only been practicing the first half, saving the second castle for when I get comfortable enough plowing through the first one without dying. I got a bit sloppy towards the end as fatigue set in, and started missing some inputs like wing dash chains. Those are still difficult to pull off reliably for me in higher pressure situations. Playing as Richter is also very fun on stick, although because of his move set I think I prefer using a square-gate stick with him, as opposed to my preferred octo-gate for Alucard.
I decided to go with standard fullscreen scaling and interpolation for this video, because of the smaller play area and high amount of noise that scanlines bring in a game like this when recorded. There are just too many dark purple and grey areas that look awful when re-compressed by YouTube's 1080p codec. The game looks phenomenal with adaptive scanlines. (See recommended settings below)
Some of you may have heard on my Twitter feed that I had an accident earlier this year that had me out of commission for a bit, and fast paced games have been very difficult to play for any extended period of time as a result. I had to take some breaks during this run, but tried to save those for rooms that had chairs in them and spread them out as much as I could. I'm ~90% recovered at this point, and my reflexes seem to be returning to normal. Hopefully videos will return to a quicker release-schedule soon here, but I need to take it in stride currently and not push myself too hard. I plan on one or two more PSX videos after this, and then the normal jump-around to other various systems on MiSTer. Thanks for your patience through this.
The PlayStation core was created by FPGAzumSpass, whom previously brought us the GBA, Lynx and WonderSwan cores, along with enhancements to the Game Boy and NES cores, and significantly improved performance in the AO486 core.
You can support his Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/FPGAzumSpass
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PSX BETA core 3-24-2022 build - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Filter Hori: Gaussian Sharp 85 // Filter Vert: Same as Hori
Gamma: Off // Shadow Mask: Off
*Recommended filters when not recording*:
Integer scaled // Filter Hori: Gaussian Sharp 60 // Filter Vert: Adaptive\50_60
Shadow Mask: Aperture Grille (NS) (If not using Shadow Mask, try Adaptive 50_70)
Played using a Hori Real Arcade Pro VX-SA (with Seimitsu LS-62 lever) and 1ms USB polling.
Video: Fullscreen scaled to 1080p // HDMI to Datapath e1s capture card
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|:=-Timestamps-=:|
00:00:00 - Boot / Settings
00:00:31 - Title / Intro / Prologue
00:06:55 - Alucard
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Occasional livestreams on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/WalrusFPGA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WalrusFPGA
=--------------CONTRIBUTE--------------=
None of this would be possible without the constant hard work of Sorgelig. It cannot be overstated how much he has done and continues to do for this project, since its beginning. You can support him either at his Patreon in the link below, or on Paypal, depending on your preference. MiSTer is a paradigm shift in how we can experience these classic games. This is a long-term preservation project that will continue to grow so that gamers today and in the future can experience these excellent systems as accurately and lag-free as possible. Donating what you can will help keep the updates coming. Thank you.
Patreon: https://patreon.com/FPGAMiSTer
PayPal: https://paypal.me/FPGAMiSTer
=----------------INFORM----------------=
Github link for this core: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PSX_MiSTer
MiSTer Forum: http://MiSTerFPGA.org
MiSTer Documentation: https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_MiSTer
Official MiSTer Discord (live chat/help): https://discord.gg/misterfpga
(Be respectful; this server is moderated. New users must be verified.)
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Worldwide sellers for MiSTer expansion boards: https://misterfpga.org/viewforum.php?f=34&sid=74e1c5e7dae1b99284789d93194cfa0b
I have personally ordered all my parts from https://www.MiSTerAddons.com and have been 100% satisfied w/ the quality and service there.
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Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Statistics For MiSTer Walrus FPGA
Currently, MiSTer Walrus FPGA has 1,201 views for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night across 1 video. His channel currently has around 2 hours worth of content for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, less than 0.60% of the total video content that MiSTer Walrus FPGA has uploaded to YouTube.