Game:

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (2010)

Duration: 3:28

460 views

4

NOTE: I beat this time recently. See the new run here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seMHOcJZQy4

A quick note about the video quality. I normally don't play my 360 on widescreen mode, but Aftermath suggested it for this game. It looks really stretched to me, but I'm used to the normal resolution. The picture does look sharper but idk if this is normal.

This chapter took me probably close to 25 hours of attempts. This is not an easy chapter by any means, especially for Simon. The medusa heads and specters can block/kill me whenever they want because I don't have good options for killing them when they aren't at my level. The very last few rooms are even bigger trolls, though. More on that later. So, while there are obvious errors in this run, it is my fastest by around 4 seconds and while it is tempting to try to do just a little better, that could easily take another 30 hours of attempts.

This run is really, really good. The major error is that I corner boosted right into the Dullahan. He was one dagger hit away from dying, so I guess I throw them just BARELY too low. It is very unfortunate. I could have killed him with a dagger while corner boosting pretty easily but I thought I had killed him and didn't react soon enough. It's very unfortunate. The other main improvement would be hitting the corner boost in the second Disk Armor room, IMO.

I hit all the important corner boosts in this level: the room after the first Malachi, the Dullahan boost, first Disk Armor boost, treasury room boost, and the Final Guard boost. Those save the most time and it is very rare to hit even 3 of those in one run (at least for me). I'm really happy about that.

The most difficult part of the stage for Simon is everything after the Sea Demon. The second medusa head room is REALLY random and trolls me unavoidably most of the time. Getting hit at this point is death, so I need to climb quickly and safely. The first Final Guard room is not an issue normally. If I hit the corner boost, I can make it past him quickly. If I don't, Simon can still jump over him but I lose a few seconds. The second Final Guard cannot be dealt with any other way than jumping over him. If I don't get hit and collect the food to the right of the first Final Guard, I can damage boost through him, but this is slower than jumping over him. The main issue with jumping over him is that it only works if he uses the right patterns; if he walks forward or does the yellow earthquake, I either can't jump over him or I lose an additional 4-5 seconds. The pattern in this video is the fastest possible pattern for him.

To top it all off, I need good patterns from Drac. Phase 1 is the only REAL concern with my new strats. In order to get a 1-round kill, he needs to use his black fireballs or the fire pillars, and I need to throw 7 crosses at head level (and whip him once, usually). If any of them miss or if I'm not spaced out correctly, I'll miss the 1-round kill. That costs a lot of time and is unacceptable. Drac 2 is really easy with R.Dagger. Drac 3 used to be very hard, but this new strategy seems to work well. I can kill him just as he begins his attack, which still means I have a slim chance of survival. I stay by his hands so I don't die if he uses his triangle attack; however, if he brings his hands in for another attack or if he moves to the center, I die. It is a horrible boss at the end of a long a difficult level. Fortunately it goes perfectly in this run!

I will not be improving this.

Other Statistics