Commodore 64 versions
3 years ago
United States

So there's a lot of "hacked" versions of Castlevania on the C64. The vast majority of them are not functionally different than the main game, and in many respects are much better versions.

For anyone unfamiliar, the C64's floppy drive was essentially a computer in itself, and the default program to boot programs and disks was... Well... Not good. It was possible to override the standard bootloading program and by the time that Castlevania was put out on C64, this was luckily common practice.

This ability to modify the loading process was ALSO unfortunately used to write very complicated and unnecessary copy protection.

While Castlevania for C64's copyprotection wasn't as horrible and damaging to it's load times as other contemporaries, it did make it so the game could not fit on a single side of the floppy, and had to be "flipped" to load the opening screens and credits, restart levels, and save.

That said the loader they used leaves much to be desired, and is rather painfully slow in places. You can start the game without putting in disk side 1, and while the perfect deathless run would never need to switch disks due to this, the problem remains that newer hacked versions with different loaders will always be faster.

It's also of note that it's possible to edit the game files themselves to store them on one larger disk or a flash cartridge like solution. I was a little too young for much of this, but editing games and bootloading hacks were a huge part of the Commodore scene.

If things became competitive loads would probably be removed, but what are folks feelings on using hacked/edited disks?

Certainly makes the game less painful to play and might draw more folks in if the single disk / no copy protection hacks and edits are allowed, but I personally don't care much either way.

California, USA

this is an interesting topic. I know Lozcardsfan23 knows a bit about the C64 version. maybe he can put some information here as well about it. I'll shoot him a whisper and get his thoughts on this as well.

Krayzar likes this
United States

No rush. I love the C64, but there doesn't seem to be much of a speedrunning scene for it, so not a lot to go on in terms of precedence.

Wisconsin, USA

Hey Krayzar! My apologies for not getting back to you sooner on this. I've been really busy with work and commentary duties the past couple of weeks.

In regards to your question regarding C64 timing. As you had pointed out, there really isn't a speedrunning interest for the C64 version of Castlevania at the moment. Based on your description of hacked and cracked disks, this sounds similar to how FDS game timings would work depending on whether you use actual hardware, an Everdrive, a PowerPak, Virtual Console, or an emulator.

For example, if you're trying to speedrun the FDS version of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, you will see on Speedrun that there will be the actual real times and then times without loads, plus the method of FDS usage used for that particular run.

I believe just like the DOS version, the C64 version of Castlevania also had the copy protection requirement in order to play the game. The version I use for DOStlevania is cracked so no code is needed to play the game, but I also own the original 3.5" diskette which requires the four digit code from the manual. In either case, as long as you play from a hard drive, the load times would be identical. I can't imagine anyone speedrunning directly from their 3.5" floppy drive.

If we ever had runs of Castlevania for C64 get submitted, I think we'd have to take it on a case by case situation and base it off times with and without loads and also the C64 method used. Make sense?

Any other thoughts, suggestions, or input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

Krayzar likes this
Wisconsin, USA

I have verified your DOStlevania run, Krayzar, and it was actually an 18:31.9 on my review. Your time starts when the opening level sprites are fully loaded AKA first control of Simon Belmont and ends when Simon grabs the final orb after defeating Dracula. I will review your C64 run tomorrow. As you are the only runner so far, no further categories are needed, but if others submit down the road, we will revisit at that point for loading times. Thank you for your patience!

United States

Hey no prob LoZ! I understand. It's been pretty crazy in general these last few months.

Makes perfect sense!

The C64 had a few hard drive solutions, but they're exceedingly rare to find in working condition, and few games supported them. So unlike DOS, playing from floppy and floppy emulating flash carts are the only feasible options for most using real hardware/accurate emulation. There are some games that actually have problems with the drive timing due to the specific bootloader they use, so accurate read and write timings are actually necessary to running them at all. Castlevania C64 doesn't appear to be one of them luckily, so I think load-less emulation and flash carts aren't much of a concern with the edited files from that perspective. I use True Drive emulation and Drive Sounds in my runs for no reason other than I miss the sound of C64 reads. =P

One thing to watch out for is that most of the hacked versions, like the really good one disk "Nostalgia" or "NOS" release have trainers built in. In the opening screens for that one you can verify that everything has been turned off though, and since folks should be hard reseting it shouldn't be much of an issue to use that version. I'm not sure if any of the hacks force you to play with trainer cheats though, as there's at least a dozen different hacked versions.

Please, no rush on the C64 runs. Take your time!

Edited by the author 3 years ago
LoZCardsfan23 likes this
Wisconsin, USA

I verified your C64 run this evening. Awesome to see that you can do the Stage 1 bat boost in that version too, but that one looks MUCH more like the NES version's bat boost compared to the DOS version. Cool to see that you can do the zero health invincibility glitch in this version as well. With Death and his scythes being much more aggressive like his NES counterpart and Cookie Monster shooting fireballs like crazy, that glitch really comes in handy!

And finally, I didn't think the underground stage could be worse than it was in the DOS version before I discovered the Fishmen despawn glitch, but I was wrong! That stage looks nasty! Bats come at you fast and the fishmen spawn in front of you. No thanks, give me DOStlevania's Stage 10 over that!

Obviously, I know you can improve on both your DOStlevania and C64 Castlevania runs, but it looks like you're off to a great start! Again, no need to categorize load times for C64 Castlevania until we see some competition. I followed your Twitch channel, so hopefully I'll get to catch some of your runs in the near future!

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Game stats
Followers
20
Runs
50
Players
5
Latest threads
Posted 3 years ago
6 replies