Some useful TASvideos pages: http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/GBx/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance.html http://tasvideos.org/2124S.html The X Speed address in the first page is a good one to put into RAM watch to test whiplaunches.
Some useful hard to find channels: http://i.youku.com/i/UMjU3OTYwMTY http://i.youku.com/i/UMjUzMjIwNzg0
##General Movement: Dash Jump If you jump during a dash without holding left or right, then for a few frames you will move in that direction in air faster than you would if you were holding that direction. Doing this and then starting to hold in that direction as you decelerate makes a single jump go further than it normally would. This is most useful for Juste before getting the double jump. It lets you skip a platform in Skeleton Cave B in the room before meeting Maxim for example. Since Maxim decelerates much more quickly, it only barely speeds him up.
Slide Momentum Whipping after sliding off a ledge preserves the speed of the slide. It's only slightly useful for Juste before getting the double jump. If you really want to go off a ledge quickly then it's better to whiplaunch, but this is a little faster in save rooms for example.
Whip Alternation The game keeps track of different invincibility timers for enemies for different attacks and it counts ground-whips and air-whips as different attacks, so it's faster to alternate between these attacks than to use just one. The basic sequence for this is Whip->Dash-cancel->Jump->Release Jump->Whip->Dash-cancel->Crouch-whip. With doing dashes and crouching differently you should be able to move around left and right while attacking the enemy. It takes some practice to do well though. It's mostly useful for Juste at low level before the double jump or when you want to kill an enemy without using magic or hearts.
Maxim Super Ninja Attack Press side, side, down, attack in air or side, side, down, up, attack on the ground.
Maxim Heal Spell Three quarter circle motion (up, up-right, right, down-right, down, down-left, left or opposite if facing right) This might end up being useful in boss rush since there's lots of hearts there and it normally takes a long time to heal.
Juste Spellbook Controls You can press down+L+R to activate and deactivate spellbooks out of menu and up+L or up+R to change spellbooks out of menu.
Annoying Jump Memory When you have the double jump, if your last jump before landing didn't use the double jump, then the next time you go off of a ledge you won't be able to divekick until you jump again. This means it might be faster to quickly do divekicks for no other reason just so you know you'll be able to divekick as soon as possible after going off of a ledge. Doing a divekick right after killing Death in Maxim All Bosses makes the next room faster for example.
Annoying Jump Direction Lock The game keeps track of two different going up and going down states during your jump. For Juste these two have different sprites, but it's invisible for Maxim. When you go from going up to going down either at the top of your jump or from bumping a ceiling, the game will lock your speed for 5(?) frames, though you can regain control by jumping again. This is really annoying when you expect to be able to change your movement in air but can't. On the other hand, this can be useful as an input buffer for some precise OoB movement.
##Basic Glitches: Damage Glitch The game has different IDs for different attacks, and enemies can only keep track of two of those IDs at a time. By attacking with two different kinds of attacks and then another different kind before the invincibility time of the other two ran out, you can overload the enemy's invincibility and hit with one of the attacks on every frame. Which of the three attacks hits multiple times depends on their IDs.
(For Juste) 1-Jump and throw a cross, then divekick and whip. You might need to do delay the divekick to make it work. 2-Throw a cross or axe, hop forward and whip in the air, then dash cancel after landing and whip again. I think this is easier to do than the one with the divekick. This also works with some spellbooks like Fire Cross, Fire Fist, and some others. 3-Summon a fairy with Summoning Tome + Bible, then charge the crushing stone whip, and when the fairy has the hammer raised, release the whip really close to the enemy. This is the most damaging damage glitch in the game. The charged whip only hits with both types of its hitboxes if you're really close when you release it. This damage glitch won't work unless it's done with the crushing stone.
(For Maxim) Jump and throw a shuriken, then divekick and slash.
(For Simon) Throw the cross, then whip so that you hit near the end of the whip animation, and then whip again quickly. How to hit at the end of the whip animation will depend on the boss, but it's usually easiest to do by jumping from a platform.
Door Glitch When entering a room through a door, you have control of the character for one frame on the first frame of the new room or last frame of the old room. (It doesn't seem consistent which frame it is if any, so it probably depends on subpixels.) This can save time by dashing through or by charging the crushing stone whip early. More importantly, by backdashing into the old room, it can sometimes warp you somewhere. All of these involve dashing right after entering the room to the left. They don't work if you're entering the room on the left the first time so that the area name appears.
(Door warps:) Walkway/Aqueduct A --> Merman Boss room A Aqueduct/Cavern A --> middle of Cavern A (two rooms to the right of save) Clock tower/Walkway A --> top of the second Chapel B room from the Walkway entrance Cavern/Treasury A --> merchant of Treasury B Walkway/Aqueduct B --> Merman Boss room B Clock tower/Walkway B --> top of vertical shaft connecting ball race room and clock tower A Treasury/Skeleton Cave B --> next screen of the skeleton cave B Aqueduct/Cavern B --> middle of Aqueduct B Cavern/Treasury B --> black screen Treasury/Skeleton Cave A --> black screen
(Early Lizard Tail:) The door glitch can also be used to unload and go through the barrier between the door and the Lizard Tail at Entrance/Shrine A.
Ice Fist Glitch If you can almost jump up to a ledge, the ice fist spell can prop you up a few pixels onto the ledge.
First Jump Conservation If you go off of a ledge while using a subweapon, the few frames that you can jump after going off of a ledge only start after the subweapon animation ends, which means you can save your first jump for later after going off of a ledge. This is mostly useful with the fist to enter Dracula's room with only a double jump as in the video. It can also be used instead of a launch to get the early platinum tip.
Candle Invincibility After touching a candle stand you become invincible for a short while.
##Launches, Zips, and Getting OoB: Whiplaunch Launching involves decelerating in one direction and then tricking the game to apply that deceleration in the opposite direction so that it becomes acceleration without a speed cap.
Near a ledge, move away from the ledge, stop moving away, then as you are slowing down (7 frames for Juste and 6 frames for Maxim) dash toward the ledge, and whip or use a subweapon after going off a ledge before you start slowing down (6 frames for both). This lets you accelerate for every frame that the launch continues. To continue the acceleration after the whip or subweapon, you have 6 frames to whip or use a subweapon again. The acceleration continues to be applied until you either miss those 6 frames, or land on the ground, or jump. After the acceleration stops, you start to decelerate and you can't start accelerating again.
Whiplaunches are most useful to get into walls, which is called zipping because the wall zips you up. You need to go at a speed of at least about 8 pixels/frame to do this, but it depends on positioning and subpixels.
Empty Launch Going off of a ledge this way accelerates you a little even without whipping. This is useful for getting Platinum Tip early with Juste and for skipping rolling the skull down in the third Skeleton Cave room with Juste.
Divekick Launch
Moon Physics Some zips take you into a wall in the water room in Cavern A, which then takes you to Aqueduct B. If the water wasn't lowered by using the Floodgate Key, this gives Juste moon physics which opens up more possibilities for zips. It can also be triggered by zipping out from any of the other water rooms.
Ceiling Sink Super jump with moon physics active and then whip on the first possible frame afterward so that you have the whip out while touching the ceiling. Then make the whip go limp so that you slowly go into the ceiling. If the ceiling is thin so that you don't need to go all the way inside it, you have a few more frames to whip and then you can finish going above the ceiling by jumping.
Super Jump Launch
Different Accelerations Launching works by carrying over deceleration to the other direction making it acceleration. This means that the acceleration of the launch will be different depending on the deceleration that's carried over. Those decelerations are: Juste on ground: 1/4 pixels per frame per frame Juste in air: 1/8 pixels per frame per frame Juste in air with floating boots: 1/32 pixels per frame per frame Maxim on ground: 1/2 pixels per frame per frame Maxim in air: 1/2 pixels per frame per frame (same as on ground)
More Launch Details You can extend the time before you start decelerating a little by throwing a subweapon right before you land on the ground. That way, the deceleration starts only after the throwing animation ends. During the throwing animation on the ground, you don't accelerate or decelerate, so the speed stays the same. However, deceleration on the ground is twice as fast as deceleration in the air. So the best strategy to keep the highest speed possible in a launch is typically to throw a subweapon right before landing and then jumping as soon as possible afterwards.
It doesn't make a difference on which of the frames that you dash or whip as long as you get the launch out of it, unless it changes when the launch ends. The only things that decide whether or not you get into a wall is are the position you launched from, when the accelerating period ends, what kind of deceleration is applied after it ends, and the subpixels you had when you started.
Box Fist Glitch (move this somewhere else?) There are two rooms in the game which have boxes that can be pushed against stairs in them, both in Skeleton Cave A. When you push a box against stairs, it bounces back. To do this glitch, push a box as far as possible on the stairs so that the next touch will make it bounce back, then jump and use the fist toward the box while you're in air. This should make the box bounce back and push you down below the floor. In one of the rooms there is no ground to land on below so it helps to use the Aurora Ring to cancel the fist animation OoB.
Drawbridge Glitch (move this somewhere else?) When Talos is chasing you in the autoscroller at the beginning, you can get hit so that you're damage stunned as the drawbridge raises, making you warp to Clock Tower A above the ball race room. An alternative is to jump and whip toward the drawbridge as it closes so that it zips you up, warping you to the same room but on top of the platform.
##Out of Bounds: When OoB, you can exit the room in different places to warp to different rooms. What determines where you warp is first the cell you exit, and then what happens in the next rooms you enter, which may depend on what you do as you exit. Rooms are normally connected by one cell to another, with one cell being the smallest 1x1 room on the map. If you exit where the map shows an exit, then you will go to its connected entrance. But if you exit where there is no connected entrance, you will either warp to some other entrance, or the game will hardlock. Exiting a room from the wrong place will often warp you inside a wall. Depending on what you do when you exit, this means different things can happen when you are inside the wall in the next room. By using these different possibilities, getting OoB gives you many different potential warps you can do.
Immediate Room Warps When you exit a room the wrong way, sometimes that makes the game place you already off-screen in the next room, so you warp again immediately. Also with a little vertical difference as you exit a room OoB, it may take you above the next room or below the next room, so that it will warp you to different rooms. This usually means being higher takes you below the next room, and being lower takes you above the next room.
Diagonal Warps When OoB, you can exit the room horizontally and vertically on different cells to warp to different rooms, but you can also exit diagonally. This is much harder and less consistent than the other warps, and divekicking down into a corner is usually easier than jumping up into a corner. This happens in the OoB warp Maxim uses to get from the Top Floor A OoB to Sky Walkway B OoB in the less optimal Any% routes.
OoB Wall Riding When OoB next to a wall with a screen below that sends you back up to the same room, if you are close to the wall and face away from it as you exit the room downwards, you will reenter the room inside the wall and be zipped upwards.
Actions while Zipping (Sliding) By positioning yourself at the edge of a room as you zip up a wall, you can slide out of the room into another one.
(Dashing) Inside a wall, you can whip and cancel the whip by dashing. It doesn't give you the same speed as sliding, but it can be repeated more often. Usually it doesn't let you move horizontally by repeating it, but in rare cases it does. I think you have to be inside a wall just enough so that you can't quite slide out, but you're still close to coming out of the wall, so that dashing out of it twice works when sliding out would not.
Horizontal Wall Pushes (No horizontal movement) Divekicking, falling down with a whip out, and sliding into the next room (and other actions like that) will put you firmly into the wall, so you zip upwards.
(Get pushed backward) Jumping in normally will make the wall push you back in the opposite direction of the one you're moving in. This can be used by making a horizontal screen transition into a room where you start inside the wall, so the wall pushes you back to do another warp to a different room. It seems to work better and prevent hardlocks if you exit the room at slower speeds, and if you're moving downwards instead of upwards in the jump.
(Get pushed forward) Similarly, if you change direction the frame before you exit the room OoB, the wall in the next room will push you a little further in. This can let you slide out when you otherwise wouldn't be able to. It's used to get the summoning tome from the box-zip.
Down-zipping If you're moving vertically upwards at a low speed and touch a ceiling, the game pushes you downward. This is normally how you hug the ceiling while whipping in a jump as Juste instead of bouncing off the ceiling. But if you do this in an OoB screen transition into a wall, it will make you zip downwards for a little while, before zipping you up. It can be used both by a vertical screen transition and by jumping into a horizontal screen transition. Down-zipping is more effective when you have moon physics. Unlike Juste, Maxim can't down-zip with his air attack. He can only down-zip a little during his roll.
(Diagonal down-zipping) By holding forward while down-zipping with the whip, the wall will also push you backwards, so you will zip diagonally down and back.
Inside wall mechanics With Juste's floating boots and Maxim's ninja roll, you get a lot of extra things you can do inside walls beyond warping into them differently. Zipping into a wall by launching won't let you use these, so most of the time you have to do it by OoB. You can also whiplaunch and then switch to floating boots to preserve the speed of the whiplaunch.
(Floating Boots vertical movement) If you have downward speed with the floating boots in the wall, then you will land and start crouching. By holding Up, Juste will normally in the air move upward slowly, but in the wall it will push Juste downward slowly. Normally in the air if you're not holding anything, Juste will move up and down in the air. If you go into a wall at the time he's moving up, then the wall will push Juste downward faster, like a down-zip.
(Ninja Roll vertical movement) Normally Maxim zips upward as you roll in the wall. You'll stop rolling and crouch if you stop holding Up. By pressing A, you can do another roll. During the first part of the roll he'll keep vertically in place as he has high upward speed. When he has small upward speed he'll down-zip a little, and then he'll get back to having downward speed, so he'll continue to zip upwards. Rolling again can be used to get special warps and to stall. In the fastest Maxim Any% route in the Clock Tower, you start another roll, move to the next room, then by the "immediate room warp" you warp as if you exited upwards, and then the down-zip part of the roll sends you to Dracula's room.
(Horizontal movement in both) For both the floating boots and ninja roll, holding left or right towards a wall doesn't move you horizontally. But by letting go of them the wall pushes you in the opposite direction. Tapping a direction really fast means you'll move a lot in the opposite direction. For Maxim, it can help to stall while doing this by doing more rolls.
##Special Glitches: Cutscene Glitch
(The Useful One)
Camera Lock
File Select Glitch
Maxim Ring Glitch
Talos Leveling
Cavern Wall Despawn
##Other: -Version Differences (Double Pack) In the Double Pack version the door glitch follows you off-screen instantly, so you can't use it to warp or get the early Lizard Tail. The cutscene glitch also doesn't let you go off-screen, but it's still glitched in a different way. It doesn't seem as useful (Japanese) The Japanese version uses a different, harder to understand language.
-Floating Boots
-other special items
-money grinding locations, level grinding locations, good items, shops, medicine jar locations, big mana prism locations all go somewhere around here The Bloody Glove is surprisingly good for its low, affordable cost.
-maybe useful spellbooks?
-grabbing orb stuff
-hardgame and no magic? idk
-Endings: There are two different bad endings without fighting Dracula Wraith in castle A and in castle B. You get the good ending by defeating Dracula Wraith which requires having Maxim's Ring equipped after defeating Maxim in castle B. You get the best ending by collecting all furniture and then defeating Dracula Wraith. The only difference between it and the good ending is Lydie moves a little closer to Juste at the end.
-Unlocks: After completing the game with any ending, you unlock Maxim (i think) and Boss Rush, and it makes most dialogue and cutscenes skippable. After completing the game with the good or best ending, you also unlock Sound Test.
##Stats and Damage Calculation: -I have no idea how any of this works but it might be useful for route optimization. There's a weird effect where putting on low defense items often makes no difference in damage but it sometimes makes a more significant difference than you would expect. This suggests that there might be a calculation like (Defense/X)*Y somewhere for some reason.
-I don't know how luck and item drops work either. The drops for the pike master are different in the double pack version, so maybe it's easier to get floating boots in that version?
##Route Stuff: (see Maxim tutorials for Maxim routes)
(For Juste:) -idk how much detail to go into, just watch the videos
-How much leveling up to do if you use richterfan's route
-Optimized hearts and experience for Skull Knight
-Run through the third skeleton flail
-Early Platinum Tip
-Box Zip Pixels
-Early Summoning Tome
-Early Crushing Stone and different Juste any% paths
-Shadow zip and how you can't save warp afterwards until you defeat a boss
##Unused and Theory Route Stuff: -Possibilities after glitched start?
-Minotaur 1 to Walkway B in old Juste any% route
-Treasury B candle launch in old Juste any% route
-Activate cavern warp when zipping to chapel from skel cave A
-Ways of getting out of Aqueduct B after getting moon physics
-Pixels for glitching into dracula room with moon physics without opening the door
-Very early platinum tip
-clock tower backwards to aqueduct (launch through the door)
-The Legendary Fleaman Launch
-What to do with floating boots if you get them idk
