I'm interested in learning this game. I originally came here hoping to find a guide of some kind but now I'm curious about the way the categories are set up.

Any%, Alucard US, Grant US, Sypha US, Trevor US, Alucard JP, Grant JP, Sypha JP, and Trevor JP.

The rules for these categories aren't filled out at the moment so there's nothing there to provide me with clarity. Would anyone here be so kind as to tell me the differences between the categories?

With a category like Grant - US, I assume you use the US cart/rom, grab Grant ASAP and play as him throughout the entire game. Sypha - JP is probably get Sypha ASAP and play as her through the whole game but on the JP cart/rom. What is Any%? Is that just do whatever you want on any cart/rom with any character?

Also, have you guys thought about using sub-categories at all?

Hi there,

You got it mostly right. US and JP are the US and Japan versions of the game. Not sure if you're familiar with it, but there are a substantial number of gameplay differences between the two, to the point where speedrunning them is very different.

Here's how I understand the categories:

Any% involves using a glitch that lets you warp straight to Dracula from the Marsh stage (Block 4-1). You use a trick with the stairs and character switching between Trevor & Grant to walk off the top of the screen and basically overwrite some of the game's memory. This is the fastest way to beat the game by far, and naturally it isn't allowed in the other routes. I'm not sure if it works on the JP version or not -- I've only seen it done with US.

Grant/Sypha/Alucard simply means you must recruit that character. You can switch back and forth any time you want. The switching animation is S-L-O-W in this game so naturally you want to minimize it. It just so happens that all of the characters have big enough time saves to be worth switching to -- Grand and Alucard thanks to their faster movement, and Sypha thanks to ice skips.

Trevor means no sub-characters. The question has arisen "what if you accidentally recruit Sypha but don't switch to her?" You actually lose a couple seconds for accepting, so it certainly doesn't give you any advantage... I don't think anyone's ever actually submitted a run where that happened though. Chances are the mods would accept it (some have specifically said they would be ok with it).

You could certainly make up other categories (whip-only, Grant-Sypha, Grant-Alucard, require sunken city stage, that kind of thing) but chances are you'd be the only one running them. If that's what you want, it's probably a simple matter of asking the mods to set up a leaderboard for you.

The only "guide" I know of is here: https://www.giantbomb.com/castlevania-iii-dracula-s-curse/3030-19328/forums/cv3-speedrun-guide-trevor-only-1449633/

Levelengine mentioned he was working on a guide for the Grant route, but I have no idea if he's gotten anywhere with it.

Cheers! -Pianotorious

Ideally, you only only switch back to Trevor in a Grant run for two occasions:

• To fight the three bosses in stage 7 as soon as the fight starts (Trevor can get a much faster kill on the Leviathan/demon than Grant could).
• To perform a glitch in block 9-01 at the first set of stairs, so you can clip up a few pixels and not touch the ground, to be able to climb straight up to the door to 9-02.

I'm also going to be learning this game, but I have it on the WiiUVC. Could someone please add that to the platforms list so I can select it when I submit a run (naturally, without using restore points)?

I'm fairly sure that you would simply check the "emulator" box in your case. I'm not a mod though so take that with a grain of salt ;)

To explain further, the more specific platforms are for games like SOTN where the Saturn and PlayStation versions were genuinely different releases of the game. In the case it WiiUVC it's just running an emulator with the original NES ROM...