Internet Archive: Free Download: Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA) - Fighter mode 0:31:14

Speed run of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon on Fighter mode in 9 segments completed on October 31 2005. Available in three versions: low quality, normal quality, and 60 fps high quality. Note: the game's timer is ignored since it isn't displayed at the end (pausing to show it is considered unreliable) so real-time is used instead.

Author's comments:
I started this run a few days after I got the 0:40:48 SS time. I knew the best way to go was to force Strength Rings to defeat later bosses a lot faster, and to not kill so much. Segment one took longer than most other segments because I kept changing my mind about if I wanted to force a drop of a Wrist Band or not, and if I wanted to save before Cerberus. Like most segmented runs it turns out to be the worst segment, because I got better as I went and also I regretted the decision. I should've forced the Band and I should've saved, making it 10 segments. Instead I tried to get a nice Cerberus battle and reset if I didn't... but I got very sick of that. He needs to turn blue to have a good fight but he only does it like 1/8th of the time (or I just had really bad luck) so I ended up accepting a fight where he turned red.

I limited the segments to one random thing each and in the second one it is definitely Necromancer. His first form is a little tricky but I quickly came up with a good strategy. The second form involves praying he doesn't turn into an energy ball on one of his two chances. Of course that's not the end of the segment and sometimes I got good fights that got ruined after that. At 2:30 you might wonder why I seem slow and it's because that bone the skeleton throws ruined a segment once.

The random part of segment 3, Iron Golem, isn't as easy to do well as you might think. The number of hits each boomerang takes can vary a lot and I need to beat him before my hearts run out. In segment 4 I need to force my first Strength Ring from a Were-bear. If I would get a Night Suit from a Hyena along the way I wouldn't complain, but I never got a ring when I got one of the suits. Even if the first bear gave a ring I'd still kill the rest to try to get the second one, but this time it was the last bear that dropped. There's a tricky shortcut after the drop that ruined a few segments.

A large shortcut in segment 5 looks harder than the one in segment 4 but I think it's not that much more difficult, and only 35 seconds into the segment. Of course then comes forcing another Strength Ring from a selection of only two Were-Bears. Many more resets from that. In this run everything went perfectly until I got hit by a Were-panther, but I said I'd go on because I wouldn't get the darn ring... and then I did. Boy was I cursing as I wall jumped up to the save.

Segment 6 took two weeks, not because of Adramalech, but because of what's after. For Adr. I need to be in just the right spot so that each boomerang hits eight times, and thanks to my very high STR, that kills him with only four of them. After the fight there's three minutes of running to the Underground Waterway and doing its first half. Doing it all without mistakes took a lot of tries.

Getting the rest of the way to Camilla is pretty easy. It took me a while to come up with a good strategy for her, and it involves hoping she does a certain attack after she reaches the left side of the room. The boomerang is my savior again, only 7 to take her out. I missed a jump right before the save room which cost a little time.

I thought this segment would take a month or longer. I need to force a drop of Soldier Fatigues from the Catoblepas in the secret room with a Heart up. It's very rare... takes a few times even when you have 6000 LCK on Thief mode. Because of that I was often taking up to five seconds of mistakes just to get to the darn thing to kill it. I ended up getting this segment the first night I tried it after only an hour or so, but there's one bad mistake where my Roc Wing usage sent me straight into the ceiling. This seems to be because of the way I hold the GameCube controller, sometimes when I press R to do the super jump it just doesn't do it, probably because even though I'm pressing up+left, it's not "enough up" for the GBA to see it as both up and left, only left.

The final segment is both Huge and Dracula since there's no good save point after Hugh. The Dark Armors aren't fun, especially the first two. I think I only ever made it all the way to Hugh without getting hit once. Got hit twice this time. Hugh is pretty easy, and I love killing him by sliding into him. Dracula's first form is easy, he only gets to appear twice. I stupidly got hit by his fire bats but it makes for a cool shot when I get the final level ups. Ideally I would get Dracula's rock summoning form next because I can take him out right there. But like Cerberus's red/blue decision, it doesn't seem to be balanced at 1/3rd of the time. So I just took anywhere where I beat him on the second appearance, and this time I barely was able to.

The final form is really hard to get good boomerang hits on. Some of the ones I tossed only hit once, but I was able to beat him in only two rounds, my goal. I also got lucky in that he only appeared twice each for his rush across the screen attack. I can't tell you what the game timer is because I don't show it and frankly don't care... but I'll mention that on a previous attempt I did look and it was 29:02. Since this is better, I'll say with confidence that it was <= 28:59.

Under 31 minutes real time is obviously possible, practically from my shoddy segment 1 alone, but I don't know about under 30. I won't be trying it! I did try an SS luck mode run after I did the 36:58 SS fighter, but I never got very far. I'm done with this game.

This movie is part of the collection: Speed Runs

Producer: Nolan 'Radix' Pflug
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: Castlevania: Circle of the Moon

Reviewer: MyCatSucks -

- May 26, 2006
Subject: !
Well I don't think this run had anything to do with the "power of the whip." It was damn impressive. I remember all of those boss fights taking me so much longer. By the way, how many sped run records do you have at the moment?

and p.s. I randomly felt like writing this while the last segment downloaded and would like to be a verifier on your SDA site. I will PM you in the future.

Movie Files	DivX	Ogg Video	512Kb MPEG4
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_HQ_part1.avi	100 MB	28 MB	27 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_HQ_part2.avi	58 MB	16 MB	16 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_HQ_part3.avi	37 MB	10 MB	10 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_HQ_part4.avi	58 MB	17 MB	16 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_HQ_part5.avi	27 MB	8.09 MB	7.54 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_HQ_part6.avi	75 MB	21 MB	20 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_HQ_part7.avi	48 MB	14 MB	13 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_HQ_part8.avi	33 MB	9.02 MB	9.15 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_HQ_part9.avi	154 MB	40 MB	41 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_LQ_part1.avi	9.10 MB	26 MB	27 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_LQ_part2.avi	5.33 MB	15 MB	16 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_LQ_part3.avi	3.44 MB	9.63 MB	10 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_LQ_part4.avi	5.32 MB	15 MB	16 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_LQ_part5.avi	2.49 MB	7.08 MB	7.40 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_LQ_part6.avi	6.83 MB	19 MB	20 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_LQ_part7.avi	4.41 MB	13 MB	13 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_LQ_part8.avi	3.03 MB	8.56 MB	8.97 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_LQ_part9.avi	14 MB	39 MB	41 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_part1.avi	26 MB	26 MB	27 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_part2.avi	15 MB	15 MB	16 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_part3.avi	9.94 MB	9.82 MB	10 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_part4.avi	15 MB	15 MB	16 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_part5.avi	7.13 MB	7.16 MB	7.40 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_part6.avi	20 MB	20 MB	20 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_part7.avi	13 MB	13 MB	13 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_part8.avi	8.73 MB	8.62 MB	8.99 MB
CastlevaniaCotM_Fighter_3114_part9.avi	41 MB	39 MB	41 MB

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Nolan 'Radix' PflugCastlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA) - Fighter mode 0:31:14 - Nolan Pflug (2005)

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