Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
From SDA Knowledge Base
This game has a run page on SDA!Contents
Techniques
Land Cancel
This works with knives, swords, rapiers, katana, punches, guns (not the RPG) and bullet souls. Jump. Right before you hit the ground, attack with one of the previously listed weapons or fire off your bullet soul. You'll notice that as soon as you hit the ground Soma's animation is cut short and there will be no lag from whatever attack you performed. By performing a series of very small jumps and land-cancelling an attack at the end of each one, you can attack much, MUCH faster than usual. Very handy.
Backdash Cancel
This works with all weapons and bullet souls. Attack or fire off your bullet soul. In the middle of the animation, hit L. Whatever Soma is doing will be canceled. Note: You cannot back dash cancel a weapon attack that was used in the middle of a back dash. Basically what this means is that you can't back dash cancel weapon attacks over and over. Please notice I specified "weapon" attacks. That is because you can back dash cancel soul attacks any number of times. Very handy, especially with your back against a wall. Also note that you can't back dash cancel an attack performed while ducking.
You can cancel a backdash by crouching, and by only tapping crouch, you can then do another weapon attack that is backdash cancelable. Video Demonstration
Special Cancel
Works with any weapon that has a special attack and bullet souls. Attack or fire off a bullet soul and then immediately use your special attack. Just like with the back dash, a weapon's special attack will cancel whatever Soma is doing. Especially useful with Death Scythe because it will reduce the lag after an attack and allow you to hit with a mighty special attack that much faster. Note: You can't special cancel an attack performed while ducking.
Werewolf Cancel
Works with bullet souls that either do not limit how rapidly you can use them, or bullet souls that have a very high limit on how rapidly you can fire them. Works best with Killer Clown, but also works with Slime, Slogra, Warg, Almaric Sniper and various others. For purposes of Boss Rush, you will only be using Werewolf with Killer Clown. Hold up. Hold R. While still holding both up AND R, press Y as fast as you can. Everything in front of you should die. In New Game+ runs, movement is done almost entirely with Ukoback + Werewolf.
Cutall/Cinquedia Sequence Break
There area a number of switches in the castle that open gates. Normally, these can only be activated from one side and only viewable from the other. However, because the special of the Cutall and Cinquedia moves Soma forward through objects, by doing them onto the switches, it activates the gate and lets you through. This allows one to skip Rahab, Gergoth, and Puppet Master.
Succubus Glitch
Equip the Succubus soul (Monster No. 086) and use it. You will notice a red aura around Soma while he performs the move. For a short moment after this red aura vanishes, Soma's momentum will be reset. The Succubus soul's animation can be interrupted by most weapon specials, including daggers and axes, whose specials move you forwards or upwards, respectively. The red aura, however, stays as long as it would have taken the animation to finish. This allows you to warp through walls, opening up many more sequence breaks and exploitable bugs.
Axe Warp
Another Succubus trick that has two uses in SG runs, warping from Hammer's shop straight to The Lost Village warp room and skipping three rooms on the way to the Abaddon fight. When standing next to the screen's transition trigger (spacing is easier when facing away), activate Succubus and then do the Axe's special immediately. When Soma is finished with the special, he'll warp through the screen if you spaced correctly.
Zipping without Succubus
As demonstrated in the TAS video, it's possible to reset Soma's momentum by timing it to a cutscene's activation, with the same potential effects as the Succubus glitch.
Run Types
Still up for debate, but all possible categories would be as follows
- New Game - All Bosses (All bosses, Magic Seals, and get Hippogryph and Doppleganger)
- New Game - any% without major skips (Uses the Cutall SB, but no zipping or SG)
- New Game - any% with major skips (Uses warping techniques to skip nearly all bosses)
- New Game+ - All Bosses (All bosses, Magic Seals, and get Hippogryph and Doppleganger)
- New Game+ - any% without major skips (Uses the Cutall SB, but no zipping or SG)
- New Game+ - any% with major skips (Uses warps and glitched souls to skip almost the whole game)
- New Game - Julius Mode
- Boss Rush - Soma
- Boss Rush - Julius
Run Routes
New Game 100%
New Game any% without warping
Map
Segmentation walkthrough
Segment 1: Tutorial, Yoko Cutscene. Get 2 Axe Armor souls and save to the right of Flying Armor.
Segment 2: Defeat Flying Armor. Save in Wizard's Lab. The TAS fight against Flying Armor is amazing, although a little unreasonable. Also, doing the jump in the room after him without the flying armor soul should mandatory.
Segment 3: Get Manticore Soul, buy Axe and recovery items, Synthesize Bhuj, save before Balore. Again, removing a segment from Satoryu's run. Seeing as how Bat company was the only reason to get the Bomber Armor soul, and it's better to use Ukoback on it (who knew this was such a good soul?), there's no reason to get it or save in The Lost Village.
Segment 4: Defeat Balore, save in entrance of Garden of Madness. No changes. The only thing of note is to not use Mind Ups.
Segment 5: Activate Garden of Madness warp, get Yorick, save in Dark Chapel entrance. Pretty terrible segment. I tried saving in the second save point as groobo did, but it's definitely further out of the way. It's also more prone to error obviously, and when getting Yoricks it's easier to just let it slide.
Segment 6: Defeat Dmitrii (7 Yorick, 2 axe hits), defeat Malphas. Warp to Garden of Madness, save before Dario. A long segment, but the bosses are super easy. If you count the Yoricks on Dario, then you don't have to Mind Up between battles, and you'll have enough for the 3 Yoricks you can do at the start of the Malphas fight. If he lands during the fight, Soma will have enough MP for another 2-3 Yoricks. I usually take the time penalty to collect the orb thing after the fight, just to conserve on items and make sure I don't die because it's better to skip the Dark Chapel save point (saves about 11-13 seconds). The other note is that I skip the Ninja Suit since I pick up Olrox's Suit at Paranoia.
Segment 7: Dario, get Cutall from puzzle. Save in Demonic Dollhouse on the way back. Strategy is Bhuj -> backdash -> Yorick. Get at least 2 kick hits for 6 total damage, then you need 6 sets of Bhuj/Yorick, and then a last Axe hit to finish him off. I got a really good fight doing this, took 17 seconds.
Segment 8: Get Lilith, climb the tower, and save to the right of zephyr. Long segment with a lot of running through rooms with spikes, Medusa Heads, and Imps, but I'll see if I can keep it as one segment.
Segment 9: Defeat Zephyr, warp to Wizard's Lab, go to Subterranean Hell, get Ukoback, save to the right of the waterfall. If I'm going to get Dead Pirate, I'll have to split this segment into two. If that soul doesn't prove necessary, then this segment will be a run all the way to Silent Ruins.
Segment 10: Get Dead Pirate and save before Bat Company.
Segment 11: Defeat Bat Company, warp to The Clocktower, run to The Pinnacle and save.
Segment 12: Get Killer Clown, defeat Paranoia (Ukoback spam first form, 1 round kill; Ukoback/Bhuj 2nd form, 2-3 rounds dependent on level, 1-2 Mind Ups dependent on level), run toward Aguni and save near there. It's a little dangerous to do this, but even if you take the time to get the replenishing orb, and take a little extra time in the riskier rooms, it'd still be faster than adding another save.
Segment 13: Break the secret entrance above Aguni's place and get the Fragarach and Satan's Ring, defeat Aguni? Save back at the first place in Pinnacle. I really don't know how to approach this fight very well. It looks like I might just be doing mostly Bhuj attacks and however many Axes I can throw. With the HP he has, it'll be about a 2 minute fight.
Segment 14: Get Erynis, watch the cutscene, warp to The Lost Village, buy as much stuff from hammer as possible (remember to only get 8 Mind Ups since there's one on the way to the Mine of Judgment), warp to The Dark Chapel and run to the bottom of The Mine of Judgment.
Segment 14: DEATH. SAVE. For the Death fight, all you have to do is spam Ukoback. Somewhat liberal use of Mind Ups is fine.
Segment 16: Abyss up to Abaddon. By using jump kicks you can slide past the fire geysers before they actually go off, which saves 3 potions.
Segment 17: Abaddon and the rest of the Abyss. Abaddon is rather easy, use a Yorick upon entering, then jump behind him and spam Ukoback with Dead Pirate on. After you run out of MP, two Bhuj hits will finish the fight. Get Black Panther and save before Menace.
Segment 18: Menace. Erinys forever.
New Game any% with major skips
Map
Segmentation Walkthrough
New Game+ 100%
New Games+ any% without warping
Map
Segmentation Walkthrough
New Game+ any% with major skips
Map
Segmentation Walkthrough
Start: Equip Ukoback, Valkyrie, Stolas, Kaladbolg, Death's Robe, and Chaos Ring. Kill the Tutorial enemies with Ukoback. Valkyrie into the first Save Room and save. From here you'll Succubus Glitch through the wall and follow these instructions.
The first two parts are the most important of all, so once you SG through the wall, slide twice immediately/near perfectly. The goal on this is to trigger the top-rightmost box on the first pass. Then you keep sliding a bit more until you're situated just to the right of what the map shows (the bunch of 2x2 rooms). Stay here for about half a screen and then slide again very precisely where I did. Of the rooms you triggered on the first loop, there's a stack of 3 2x2 rooms, you'll want to slide when you get to the center of the middle 2x2 room. There's a large-ish blot on the top screen that you can gauge yourself by. These two steps determine whether or not you can get back in after suspending, so learning this right away is best.
From that slide, keep sliding for 3 loops. Stop where I stopped on the map, it's where you pick up Black Panther. Timing's pretty lenient, you get Black Panther near the top, so you can be a little late to get there, just don't overshoot. Start sliding again once you hit the top of the screen and keep going until you're slightly left of the map and stay here for one extra loop. The sliding to here got you Hippogryph and other ability souls, the timing's not strict on them. Staying here destroys your clock and also affects you getting in the room, but it's okay to under or overshoot a bit.
After the extra loop, slide twice after you go off the top of the screen. No idea what this does, but do it anyway. When you go off the screen again, wait for a short amount of time (after you're off the top but before you appear on bottom again) and the start sliding again until you line up with the right side of the 2x2 rooms. Same line as before. The start of the slide to get here determined whether or not you skip Menace, so slide sooner/later if you don't get that.
Now you wait for 6 loops. If you don't want to count, the bottom screen shakes on the 2nd and 6th loop, so you can just watch for that. On the 7th loop, start kicking about 3/4 of the way up and stop when you're just left of the Garden of Madness save room (and right of the warp). Slide just before the bottom of the big 4x2 room and you should see a blue square pop up in the bottom right of the map, meaning you activated the Abyss warp. The timing is apparently tricky, but just copy where I did it in the video and it should be pretty easy. Now you just pause, equip Black Panther and activate Hippogryph, and suspend/reload.
After suspending: Reload the game, Black Panther to into the Flying Armor fight, Succubus Glitch your way out and make your way to the warp. Warp to the Abyss, enter the boss chamber and you're done. If all went well you'll have skipped Menace entirely
Boss Rush Strategies
Soma
1) Flying Armor HP: 250 MP: 200
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Chaos Ring
Soul | Bullet: Erinys | Guardian: Black Panther | Enchant: Stolas
Comment: Use Erinys while doing a small hop while making your way to the next room. The Guillotiner and Great Axe Armor soul also works but I'm uncertain which is actually faster.
2) Balore HP: 900 MP: 500
Arms | Hand: Death Scythe | Body: Dracula's Tunic | Accessory: Megingiord
Soul | Bullet: - | Guardian: Devil | Enchant: Golem
Comment: Activate Devil then use Death Scythe special. As simple as that.
3) Dmitrii HP: 1000 MP: 1500
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Chaos Ring
Soul | Bullet: Killer Clown | Guardian: Werewolf | Enchant: Stolas
Comment: Spam Killer Clown while holding down the guardian (werewolf) button. 5 hits should do it.
4) Puppet Master HP: 1800 MP:3000
Set A
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Chaos Ring
Soul | Bullet: Abaddon | Guardian: Black Panther | Enchant: Stolas
Set B
Arms | Hand: Death Scythe | Body: Dracula's Tunic | Accessory: Megingiord
Soul | Bullet: Abaddon | Guardian: Devil | Enchant: Golem
Comment: Start off by land canceling an Abaddon while Black Panthering towards Puppet Master. As soon as you have fired off Abaddon, switch setups either by pausing and switching or by pressing X. The reason for this switch is that when you fire a bullet soul its power is calculated using your INT at the time you fired it; therefore, by using an INT raising setup like setup A to fire off Abaddon, the locusts do significantly more damage than they would if you fired them off using a STR oriented setup like setup B. After you switch to setup B, activate Devil as soon as possible and attack, back dash cancel into another attack, then special cancel. If done properly, the first hit from the Death Scythe will NOT be affected by Devil, but the second hit and the special attack will be. If enough locusts hit him, Puppet Master will die.
5) Dario HP: 1500 MP:1000
Arms | Hand: Death Scythe | Body: Dracula's Tunic | Accessory: Chaos Ring
Soul | Bullet: Killer Clown | Guardian: Devil | Enchant: Dead Pirate
Comment: Once you enter shoot a Killer Clown card once and activate Devil. If it hits correctly, Dario will fly towards you leaving his back faced towards you. Use special.
6) Rahab HP: 1200 MP: 2200
Set A
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Rosary
Soul | Bullet: Bomber Armor | Guardian: Devil | Enchant: Stolas
Set B
Arms | Hand: Death Scythe | Body: Dracula's Tunic | Accessory: Megingiord
Soul | Bullet: Bomber Armor | Guardian: Devil | Enchant: Golem
Comment: Start on setup A. As you fall, inch forward a little bit, fire off Bomber Armor and activate Devil as fast as you can. Because Devil is equipped on both setups, you can switch to setup B while Devil is activating without interrupting the activation, so do so. The instant you land, use a special attack. If you started activating Devil fast enough, then it should be in effect by the time your special connects. If it isn't, either try and get Devil going faster, or just wait an ever-so-brief moment after hitting the ground to use your special attack.
7) Gergoth HP: 3800 MP: 9999
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Chaos Ring |
Soul | Bullet: Killer Clown | Guardian: Death | Enchant: Stolas
Comment: Activate Death, spam back dash and Killer Clown. Make sure to turn off the up+L ability.
8) Zephyr HP: 1234 MP: 1234
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Rosary
Soul | Bullet: Killer Clown | Guardian: Werewolf | Enchant: Stolas
Comment: Spam Killer Clown while holding down the guardian (Werewolf) button. If done fast enough you'll kill him before you reach him.
9) Bat Company HP:1500 MP:1500
Arms | Hand: Death Scythe | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Rosary
Soul | Bullet: Bomber Armor | Guardian: - | Enchant: Stolas
Comment: Once you enter the room, throw a bomb followed by a back dash and throw another bomb then followed with a special attack. Instant kill.
10) Paranoia HP: 1700 MP: 1700
Set A
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Chaos Ring
Soul | Bullet: Ukoback | Guardian: Black Panther | Enchant: Stolas
Set B
Arms | Hand: Death Scythe | Body: Dracula's Tunic | Accessory: Megingiord
Soul | Bullet: Ukoback | Guardian: Devil | Enchant: Golem
Comment: Set two Ukobacks to the right of the mirror, one in the air and one on the ground. Switch setups, activate Devil and run to the left half of the mirror and wait for Paranoia to come out. Hit with a normal attack and then cancel it into a Special. He'll die as soon as he touches both flames.
11) Aguni HP: 4000 MP: 9999
Set A
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Rosary
Soul | Bullet: Abaddon | Guardian: Black Panther | Enchant: Stolas
Set B
Arms | Hand: Death Scythe | Body: Dracula's Tunic | Accessory: Megingiord
Soul | Bullet: Abaddon | Guardian: Devil | Enchant: Golem
Comment: This guy is tough. Start on setup A. As he comes down, Black Panther to the side, then jump up and use Abaddon on him and immediately switch to setup B and activate Devil. Now for the tricky part. You need to run underneath him and attack, back dash cancel into another attack, then special cancel. Then you need to do it again. The problem is that Aguni is not content to sit around and take your hits. Also, it is quite possible that you will run low on HP, MP or both at some point in this battle. They start you with 2 HP restoring items, so feel free to use one now. MP is a different story, however. You can either use the Mana Prism they provide you with, or equip your Chaos Ring to get some MP back. I would suggest using the Chaos Ring and saving the Mana Prism for Death, but it's really just a matter of preference. In any case, make sure the Megingiord is on whenever you are hitting Aguni, otherwise it may take some extra hits to finish him. If all goes well and enough locusts hit him then it will take 4 attacks and 2 special attacks to kill him.
12) Abaddon HP:4000 MP: 9999
Set A
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Chaos Ring
Soul | Bullet: Bomber Armor | Guardian: Black Panther | Enchant: Stolas OR Draghignazzo
Set B
Arms | Hand: Death Scythe | Body: Dracula's Tunic | Accessory: Megingiord
Soul | Bullet: Bomber Armor | Guardian: Devil | Enchant: Dead Pirate
Comment: There are a couple of ways to approach this battle. Start off with Setup A. You have a decision to make: you can either jump over Abaddon (do this if you don't have Draghignazzo) OR you can equip Draghignazzo and charge right through him. If you want to jump over him then fire off two Bomber Armors as you ascend. If you want to charge right through him, then do a VERY small jump and land-cancel two Bomber Armors while you still have Stolas equipped. Immediately after you release the Bombs, pause and equip Draghignazzo, then unpause and charge through him. I personally just charge right through him. Whichever method you use, once you're behind him, switch to setup B and activate Devil. Once Devil is in effect, attack, then special-cancel and he should die. It is possible to kill him before he gets to summon any locusts of his own, but it is very difficult and also requires a lot of luck. Whatever you do, don't get caught in a locust swarm with Devil activated! If you're going to get hit by the locusts then jump right before they hit you; the locusts won't trap you if you're in midair.
13) Death HP:2222/2222 MP:4444
Set A
Arms | Hand: Death Scythe | Body: Dracula's Tunic | Accessory: Megingiord
Soul | Bullet: Abaddon | Guardian: Devil | Enchant: Golem
Set B
Arms | Hand: Kaladbolg | Body: Death's Robe | Accessory: Chaos Ring
Soul | Bullet: Killer Clown | Guardian: Death | Enchant: Stolas
Comment: If Death starts to float up, reset. Activate Death and start back dash cancelling Killer Clown. You'll probably get hit, but ignore it and keep spamming Killer Clown. Once he starts transforming, switch your Bullet souls to Bomber Armor, Guardian Souls to Devil, and use your MP potion. Activate Devil on Setup B, throw two Bomber Armors, then switch setups. The bombs should land right as he finishes the change. Hit him with 2 Death Scythe attacks and a Special (must hit with skull) to finish him off. If he warps right after changing, he'll appear on your right, so get him with an attack into special cancel to kill him.
Once he's dead, make sure to reequip Black Panther and run for the door. The timer doesn't stop until you pick up the potion.
Julius/Yoko/Alucard
1) Flying Armor Character: Yoko
Jump and fire Holy Lightning while moving to the right. Jump again and hit his feet with your club while still moving right. He should die on your way to the door. To be safe, though, I usually try and club him twice.
2) Balore Character: Alucard
Just keep doing shorthop slashes. Aim for 14 or 15 seconds.
3) Dmitrii Character: Alucard
Doublejump kick towards him at the start, then shoot a hellfire and backdash cancel it. If Dario has shot a Malachi, jump over it, if not, run at him. Once the hellfire hits, start shorthopping slashes at him until he dies.
4) Puppet Master Character: Alucard
Shorthop slashes until he's dead. Face to the left so you can backdash to the door.
5) Dario Character: Yoko
Ice. After it hits him you can do a shorthop and club him once, then immediately use Ice again. Just keep doing that. BY cycling through the spells with R, you can cut the time between ice attacks slightly.
6) Rahab Character: Yoko
Hold right as you fall and shoot a Holy Lightning just before you hit the ground, then run to the right. Once the lightning disappears, shoot another in the direction Rahab is going and follow his movement. If he gets too far away the lightning stops hitting him. Try and club him as often as you can.
7) Gergoth Character: Yoko/Alucard
Two Yoko lightnings (with club hits between), then switch to Alucard. Use shorthop slashes until he dies.
8) Zephyr Character: Alucard
Shorthop attacks. If he does the counter move, you can shoot hellfire at him just before he goes into it, then use another shorthopped slash to activate the counter, which results in him running into the hellfire (which does more damage than your sword). You'll only have MP to do this once. At this point, if you have more than 180 HP and enough MP for 4 Hellfires, go to Bat Company, otherwise, grab Zephyr's orb. Bat Company's orb appears faster, however, so it is best to try and beat Zephyr with enough HP and MP so as to not have to grab his orb.
9) Bat Company Character: Alucard
As soon as you land, shorthop one slash as low as you can get while still hitting. When you land, immediately start mashing hellfire. Done correctly, you'll be able to get the slash and the first hellfire before getting hit. It takes 4 Hellfires to kill him. If you grabbed Zephyr's orb you shouldn't need to wait for Bat Company's. If you got this far without grabbing an orb you will almost certainly be in desperate need of one, so grab Bat Company's.
10) Paranoia Character: Alucard
Shorthop slashes. When he starts hovering directly over you quickly jump up and slash him once. You will get hit when you try and do this. As soon as you touch the ground, jump up and you should be able to slash him twice without taking a hit thanks to the brief invincibility granted upon taking damage. When you land from that, just wait. As he rears back to kick you, backdash-cancel Hellfire to dodge the kick. As soon as the fireballs shoot out start shorthop slashing again. If you're fast enough he won't even start hovering directly over you again before he dies. You shouldn't need to wait for his orb.
11) Aguni Character: Yoko
No real strategy here, just spam Ice making sure it double-hits each time. Just hope you get lucky and he doesn't spam that attack where he flies out the top of the screen since it wastes a LOT of time. Also, remember that you can move around while casting Ice if you're in the air or back-dash-cancel it. Hopefully you won't need to wait for this guy's orb because Aguni takes forever to die.
12) Abaddon Character: Alucard
Just keep shorthop slashing, as usual. Use the special to avoid the straight-line and waterfall patterns. Grab Abaddon's orb. It doesn't take too long to appear.
13) Death Character: Yoko/Alucard
Spam ice for the first form, going for double hits and clubs as much as possible. At the start of his second form, you should have MP for 3-4 lightnings, so use those. After you're out of MP, switch to Alucard and spam aerial double slashes. If he teleports, cast a hellfire for where he'll be, then crouch slash him when he appears, followed by a shorthopped slash immediately after. He always appears on the opposite side of the room that he's on, so towards the left door and he'll be on your right and vice versa. You'll have MP for about 2 of these. Keep dodging and attacking until he dies.
